 "Photo: Brad Tollefson")
Liuli Miller, a Pilates and yoga instructor at Texas Tech, hit herself repeatedly with a large wooden dowel.
“It’s alright, and it doesn’t hurt because I know how to breath,” she said.
Anyone walking around the Robert H. Ewalt Student Recreation Center runs the risk of seeing Miller and her Pilates or yoga classes working out, although probably not with dowels. She said Pilates is all about breathing and building your strength.
“Pilates, when you’re done, you want to say, ‘I have so much energy, now I can finish my homework.’ Yoga is moving meditation,” said Miller, who has taught both Pilates and yoga for more than 30 years. “When you’re done you feel good and relaxed. It deals with calming the mind, body and soul from stress. You have to have good nutrition for the body to be well. Pilates is about toning the body and core. They are good on their own, but they’re best together.”
Miller said Pilates and yoga aren’t just for the girls.
“More and more guys are coming. I think they should. They need yoga to calm their minds,” Miller said, with a chuckle.
Virtually all individuals can benefit from regular physical activity, whether they participate in vigorous exercise or some type of moderate health-enhancing physical activity, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Through its effects on mental health, physical activity may help increase students’ capacity for learning. Participation in physical activity and sports can promote social well-being, as well as good physical and mental health.
Tech provides students many options to stay healthy. Personal fitness and wellness classes — more commonly known as PFWs — are available in traditional sports, such as volleyball or baseball. However, with more than 100 fitness classes open for Spring 2010, according to the course listing, some less traditional classes may have students thinking twice about which activity to take.
“Swimming is a more rounded workout than most other sports,” said Sam Haas, a sophomore political science major from Lubbock. “I chose it because I wanted a workout that would be intense. It also provides me with nutrition information. I had to learn how to eat right. I know what I should do now for my health.”
Tom Downs, a Tech alumnus from Lubbock, owns and operates the Texas Karate Institute — which hosts the Aikido class among other martial arts. He said he and the other teachers at the Institute, as well as PFW instructors, want to inspire students to live healthy all their life.
“They have a survey of martial arts here, and we hope they say ‘Wow, I really like this,’ or ‘Well, I like the exercise.’ We have a three-fold mission: We want to serve as a survey course to keep students fit and introduce them to a healthy lifestyle, we want them to work to stay fit, and then to also inspire healthy living for the rest of their life,” said Downs, an eighth-degree black belt in karate. “We spend all our time in education and developing a love for learning. Martial arts, for me, developed a love for fitness and we want to give a similar love to the students now.”
Lexi Easter, the instructor for several racquetball classes, wants her students to realize great ways to get physical. She said all fitness classes at Tech use the same textbook, and there are chapters in it describing aspects people don’t know about, like flexibility and nutrition.
“The whole point of fitness and wellness is to stress physical activity,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be something that makes you miserable. It can be fun. The whole point of it is to serve as a physical activity. Racquetball is probably one of the best cardio workouts you can find. It’s something you can play as a life long sport. That’s the point we want to make.”
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