VHHS provides sophomore, junior, and senior students with a variety of gym class options to choose from. These options include ALF, Weights, Dance I, II, and III, Outdoor ed I and II, Integrated PE, and Crossfit. But why not yoga? Implementing yoga as a gym class would be extremely beneficial for multiple reasons.

Yoga is extremely beneficial for students mental and physical well-being.

“Yoga is another way of helping to promote a healthy, active lifestyle for our students, and is accessible to everyone – from the most advanced dancer, elite athlete, to students that are just now learning to adopt exercise into their lives,”said Dance teacher Mrs. Erin Jaffe.  She explained to me that it increases strength, flexibility, and performance focus. These characteristics obviously benefit all students no matter what they participate in. Jaffe said that even after one 40 minute session she can see an obvious decrease in stress levels in her students.

Yoga would be beneficial as a gym class if students were taking it with the right intentions.

“I think that there are a lot of misconceptions regarding yoga such that it is just “sleeping” or “laying on a mat, said Jaffe.” Most people don’t realize how physically challenging yoga is and majority of people do not believe this until they actually try yoga, it takes an immense amount of focus and strength. Jaffe believes that if this course became an addition to the current Physical Welfare curriculum, students would be able to maintain the high physical standards expected in any other P.E. course.

“There are so many benefits to yoga I think the ‘biggest’ benefit is subjective,” said Jaffe. Some people think that the physical benefits such as strength and weight loss are the most important while others believe that the reduced stress and anxiety is what makes yoga so great.

Students would also benefit from yoga outside of their P.E. period. They would be able to perform much better in the classroom because of how great they feel mentally. Most people can agree that it is extremely hard to focus and perform your best on any task when you are feeling stressed out or anxious. This is especially detrimental to school work if stress from other classes is taking over your mind.

“There is an overwhelming amount of research regarding the undeniable health benefits of yoga including its ability to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression.  Yoga provides a direct (and healthy) outlet for the daily stresses that students may experience,” said Jaffe.

In all, I believe yoga would become an extremely popular P.E. class at our school because those who know of all the benefits are extremely attracted to the practice of yoga. Students who participated in this class would be looking forward to going to gym everyday because of how great they would feel once they left.