Former Marine serves as yogi at Namaste Yoga Center for Health
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Reminder Publications photo by G. Michael Dobbs
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Rishi first started practicing yoga as a way to enhance his workouts and to help him deal with the pain of certain medical conditions. He now teaches the art to others.
By G. Michael Dobbs - Managing Editor
WILBRAHAM The practice of yoga has been a "transformative process" for Rishi, the owner and director of Namaste Yoga Center for Health at 2341 Boston Rd. and it's a process he's been sharing with others at his center for almost a year.
The Connecticut native is a former Marine who came to yoga himself as an adjunct training regime for his interest in mountain biking and running. Yoga also helped with his recovery from the effects and complications from a bout with Lyme's disease and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Yoga helped him to lessen the pain of his medial condition as well make him "internally calm" during his recuperation. Over a 10-year period, Rishi studied yoga, which complemented a master's degree he earned in Buddhist studies and psychology. He is very interested in the intersection between Buddhism, Hinduism and Western psychology.
While he does not attend a Buddhist temple, he called himself a "yogi" or a sincere practitioner.
A generation ago, yoga was considered by many in this country to be exotic, but Rishi said that thanks to the way the mass media has covered yoga, people now understand it's something one can do to be healthy.
Rishi's average student is a middle-aged man or woman who is looking to yoga as either their athletic activity or as an addition to another sport. Others come looking for the inner peace the practice of yoga can provide, while others he said come for the fun of the activities.
Some people misunderstand yoga, believing they already need to be in good physical condition for the stretching that is part of the practice, he said. People start yoga because they seek greater physical strength or because they want to become more reflective of themselves, he explained.
"That's deep work," he said.
If a student is extensively stiff, Rishi has them in more passive classes. "Each class has its own levels," he said. "You work to your own degree."
Rishi's students start as young as the age of three, he said, pointing to a pile of small beach balls in one corner of the studio. Couples take classes together and make it a "date night," he added.
A typical class is 90 minutes in length and Rishi and his teachers offer 12 classes a week at various times. There is at least one class for drop-in students that can make availability of the instruction easier.
Rishi also offers a variety of non-yoga classes as well, including Pilates, Russian Kettlebell training and personal training. Different massage therapy is also available at the center.
Rishi has been presenting special programming at the center and will be hosting "Demystying Arm Balancing" with Rouben Madikians on Feb. 21 and "The Live Music and Yoga Experience" on March 1 with Aaron Vega and Tony Silva.
For more information, call the center at 279-1130 or log onto to its Web page at www.namasteyogacenter.org.
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