Yoga a new twist for high school.

Byline: JEFF WRIGHT The Register-Guard

Walk into the gym at Sheldon High School at the right hour and you won't find a soul shooting hoops or running laps. But you will find 40 teen-agers sitting quietly, each breathing in through one nostril and exhaling through the other.

They're enrolled in one of two yoga classes taught by Nanci McChesney-Henry, a P.E. teacher whose background includes ballet and gymnastics.

Believed to be the first yoga classes offered by a regular faculty member in the Eugene School District, they quickly filled up and now have a waiting list. Come spring, McChesney-Henry plans to offer a third section of yoga for Sheldon students.

The classes, introduced this term, draw a wide range of students - athletes and couch potatoes, freshmen and seniors, girls and boys - with a wide range of abilities. But part of yoga's appeal, she says, is its accessibility for people at any level of flexibility and fitness.

"You can get benefits no matter where your edge is," she says. "You don't have to change yourself into a pretzel."

In a recent class, wearing a microphone headset and beginning in the lotus position, McChesney-Henry guides her students in a series of breathing exercises and gradually more challenging stretching poses. The gym lights are dimmed, and only the ventilation system's soft hum competes with McChesney-Henry's voice.

After several seated exercises, the students move to the Tree position, where they stand on one leg, then advance to the Chair and Warrior I, II and III positions. Through it all, McChesney-Henry urges them to stretch themselves - but only up to a point.

"If you hear some pops, that's OK as long as it doesn't hurt," she says. "It doesn't matter where you're at. This isn't a competition."

After about 45 minutes, she tells the class it's time for "savasana," and the students eagerly reach for blankets and eye pillows and ... simply lie there in the dark. It's akin to watching a room full of kindergartners at nap time.

"You have no place to be but here," McChesney-Henry tells them.

Afterward, several students offer up happy, even blunt testimonials.

"It's the only class I have that doesn't suck," declares senior Andreea Torjescu. "I get to work out and relax at the same time."

Torjescu says she was stressed out a lot before enrolling in yoga. "Now I'm able to concentrate better in my (other) classes, and I sleep better. I've also lost weight."

Brittany Dungan, a freshman whose P.E. options are limited by her asthma, says she's noticed that her joints don't crack like they used to. "And instead of waking up tired, like in a bed commercial, it's given me more energy to get up," she says.

Dungan says she also likes how McChesney-Henry emphasizes the mental aspects of yoga, introducing such concepts as "ahimsa," or harmony and nonviolence.

Kyle Gerry, a sophomore who competes in track and cross-country, says he's endured some kidding from friends who see yoga as some "granola-type, spiritual thing."

But he says he took the class to improve his stamina and flexibility, and insists that "some of the strengthening exercises are harder than what we do in the weight room."

With a nose ring and an easy smile, McChesney-Henry exudes a vitality that belies her years - she's 40-something, but won't say exactly - and wins over most all her students. "They think I'm kind of weird, and I am," she says cheerfully.

In her seventh year teaching physical education at Sheldon, McChesney-Henry also teaches dance, aerobics and soccer classes.

She first explored yoga in college when she competed as a gymnast. But she didn't seriously embrace it until about eight years ago - as a way to help cope after losing her first husband, University of Oregon distance runner Bill McChesney, who died in a car accident in 1992.

Last year, McChesney-Henry won a $4,600 grant from the Balance nutrition bar company that allowed her and her current husband, Sheldon campus supervisor Darin Henry, to attend a monthlong teacher training program at Mount Madonna, a yoga retreat near Santa Cruz, Calif.

McChesney-Henry came away from the summer course with her credentials as a registered yoga teacher, and had enough money left over to buy dozens of the mats, pillows, blocks and other yoga-related gear used by her students.

Originating in India in the 11th century, yoga comes from the Sanskrit word "yuj," which means "union" - as in the union of mind, body and breath.

There are many kinds of yoga, and McChesney-Henry teaches from the "ashtanga" (eight-limbed) school. She emphasizes breathing techniques known as "pranayama" and 28 stretching postures or poses known as "asana," which means "to sit" or "to stay."

About the only controversy the class has attracted was a call from a parent concerned about religious overtones, she says. Because it originated in India, many people think of yoga as a Buddhist or Hindu practice. "But people of any faith can practice yoga and not have it interfere with their beliefs," says McChesney-Henry, who proves her point by noting that she's Christian.

She says she's pleased but not surprised that students have responded so positively.

"There are so many pressures being a student and a kid these days, and this gives them a way to just be in the present moment and not get caught up in all that other stuff," she says. "Kids are so hungry for a mindful kind of exercise.

"In other P.E. classes, they just want to run and get wild," she says. "But these guys are able to hold onto that energy and manage it into something more calming."

That's important, she says, for kids facing such high expectations from parents, teachers and themselves. "We expect kids to sit down and concentrate, but no one ever teaches them how to concentrate."

Students also are receptive, she says, because yoga is now a part of mainstream culture.

"When the first teachers came over from India in the '70s, it had that woo-woo thing attached to it," she says. "But now it's integrated into health clubs and fitness centers and churches. It's taught everywhere."

Unfortunately, mainstream culture also has taught many teen-agers to feel bad about their bodies - a tendency McChesney-Henry tries to counter.

"I tell them, `It's good to just be, be in your body, love your body, feel good about putting your body through the poses.' '

In an era when many young people struggle with weight or other health issues, McChesney-Henry says yoga may be nothing less than life-saving.

"Kids need to learn how to take care of their bodies, and what better place than a P.E. class?" she says.

"If I can reach them and turn them on to something that can last a lifetime, I'll feel I've done a good job."

CAPTION(S):

BRIAN DAVIES / The Register-Guard In a darkened gym, freshman Kim Clements practices yoga breathing techniques and stretching exercises in a physical education class offered at Sheldon High School. BRIAN DAVIES / The Register-Guard Nanci McChesney-Henry won a grant to help pay for yoga teacher training last summer.