Brownsville yoga studio has helped many to battle ailments, effects of aging

About two years ago, Curtis Young began losing his balance, falling over at work. The avid surfer had always kept himself in shape by running and lifting weights, so this sudden vertigo in his early 50s really scared him.

"It got to the point to where I couldn't even walk, hardly," said Young, who found his cure in yoga for that and so many other ailments.

Alma Miller, co-owner of Blue Moon Yoga where Young practices the life-healing technique three times a week, said yoga is a very ancient practice, the science of self-transformation.

"I think it's something that is a discipline that gets you on your own, little by little, until you become the best person you can be in the best body you can have, very healthy body, very strong, very supple," said Miller, whose husband Andy also owns the Blue Moon Yoga in Sunrise Corner, 3001 Pablo Kisel, Suite H-3. Classes are held there and at Galeria 409 at 409 E. 13th St.

One recent Saturday morning, 77-year-old Blanca Treviño stretched her arm far over her head, leaning forward and supporting herself on her knee as Miller called out instructions.

"Arms up to the chest, arms to the center, rolling shoulders to the back," Miller called out softly but firmly in the dim-lit room while an air purifier and ionizer softly hummed. Subtle lighting cast tranquil shadows; the movements of Treviño and the other students on mats of aqua blue and purple and violet sent sounds of shuffling into the stillness.

"I am a survivor," said Treviño, who lost 18 lymph nodes while battling breast cancer. Practicing yoga, she said, has aided her recovery.

"My oncologist suggested it, that I should do the yoga exercises, to maintain the flexibility and to keep from building up any fluids," she said. "He said that would help me also with my arthritis. It's made me quite flexible and agile, more than I was before I started. I do a lot more than I would have done before, bending over, it's easier to go up and down the stairways. It also keeps the circulation quite well. That gives you much better circulation, especially at my age when sitting down too long kind of goes down to your feet and stays there."

Treviño was attending the "gentle" yoga class for people with physical maladies, a session that entails modifications of poses and stretches. Young's wife, Phyllis, had been taking the Power Yoga class before she suffered a knee injury in late December. Power Yoga is a system developed by Bryan Kest, who gave a seminar at Blue Moon Yoga on Jan. 20.

Phyllis Young is currently taking the gentle yoga class.

"My mom used to teach yoga," said Phyllis Young, who began taking yoga about 1½ years ago. "When I came back, it had been 20 years since I had done it. My husband had gotten vertigo, not able to work, drive, or anything. I heard about Alma, it helped him a lot. We started going together. He doesn't have a problem anymore. It's helped me. I'm a lot calmer. I'm more flexible."

Her husband, Curtis, went to numerous doctors before trying yoga.

"I spent quite a bit of money getting MRIs done, and going to the doctor, and tried medications and everything else," he said. "I went to a physical therapist who finally cleared it up enough to where I could walk, but I wasn't anywhere near cured, and someone had mentioned yoga, and I started going to yoga, and within just three or four weeks it just left me. To be honest with you, I've been afraid to stop ever since."

He and a large number of other students were preparing for the Power Yoga class immediately after the gentle yoga session.

"You can watch it and say ‘Well, they're not really doing anything,' but if you really put your total effort into it, and you do it like you should do it, then it is a total physical workout. A lot of times I will get finished with a practice and I mean I am just soaking wet. That's power yoga. I'm surfing better than I have in years."

Miller also suffered from vertigo before beginning yoga 11 years ago.

"My husband, Andy Miller, he's been doing yoga for over 25 years," she said. "He has a long time of doing yoga. There was no way I would listen to doing yoga at that time. I went to all different doctors, I tried all these different treatments, and it didn't work."

Her husband now took a different tack. His wife, Alma, has always been a very active woman, so he began making subtle suggestions to that effect.

"If you wanna exercise, maybe you can stretch a little bit," he told her.

Since these were just exercises, Alma Miller began following his advice, and she realized one day that her husband had tricked her into doing yoga exercises and movements.

"So that's how I came to do yoga," she said. "And then I felt so good, and I realized I was losing weight, I realized I was sleeping better, I was more productive at work, because my concentration power had somehow extended. So many benefits of it. I became very strong, I became very flexible. People started seeing a difference. Even my skin they saw there was a difference, my hair there was a difference, and people said, ‘What are you doing?' And the only thing I was doing was practicing yoga."

Miller couldn't find a yoga center in Brownsville so she continued to learn and study on her own and went outside the area for her certification in the various techniques of the practice. About 4 1/2 years ago, she and her husband decided to open a studio where they and several others now teach.

"There's only one way that yoga works for you is if you come and start doing yoga, when you start doing yoga," she said. "I have people that the range of motion has been limited because of trauma or illness. I have been working with them and I have incredible successful stories. Wonderful stories, people that turned 180 degrees."

Blue Moon Yoga
3001 Pablo Kisel Blvd.
Suite H-3
Brownsville, Texas

Also,
Galeria 409
409 E. 13th Street
Brownsville, Texas

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL: Alma Miller: 561-1690