Fayetteville native Randy Boyd, 57 (right) started teaching yoga at Kula Community Yoga and Wellness Studio once he learned the health benefits it brought him after he suffered a herniated disc. Kula Yoga owner Yves Corbiere (left) and Boyd are bringing a yoga retreat to Fayetteville next month.

Twisting this way and stretching that way during a yoga class is like attending therapy, church and the gym all at once.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Twisting this way and stretching that way during a yoga class is like attending therapy, church and the gym all at once.

At least that's what Folded Leaf owner April Woody tells her yoga classes.

"Yoga is different than plain exercise and just stretching," Woody said last week. "There's a deeper spiritual component to it. The mere epidemic of people struggling with anxiety and stress ... people understand that taking a pill to try to fix whatever is wrong with them is just like putting a Band-Aid on it and it doesn't address the issue."

Woody said her Bridge Road studio that she opened in January 2008 has seen an increase in attendance each year since.

About 1,000 people a month take off their shoes, lay out a mat and focus on forms at Folded Leaf, Woody said.

"I've never really had a month since I opened where I worried about the upcoming month," she said.

More than 20 million Americans practice yoga, an increase of nearly 30 percent since 2008, according to Yoga Journal.

Employment of fitness trainers, including yoga instructors, is expected to grow by 24 percent from 2010 to 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That job growth is faster than the average of all occupations, according to the BLS.

Read the rest here:
Yoga on the rise in West Virginia