Studio and Directions

Happy Meals Transform Unhealthful Eating Habits with Yoga
Reprinted from Yoga Journal, October 2007

When L. was five, she went to spend the night at a friend’s. Soon, her mother got a call from the sleepover mom: L. had eaten 10 hot dogs. L.’s mom was horrified. But to L., the story makes sense. Eating the hot dogs had helped her deal with overwhelming emotions. “What I remember is how nervous I had been about going to my friend’s house,” says L. who’s now 36 and lives in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. “That story is my clue that I have had issues with food my whole life.”

By 14, L. was bulimic, a condition that waxed and waned through her 20s until, at age 30, shortly after she married, she entered an eating disorder treatment program. There L. met Jill Gutowski, a psychotherapist and yoga instructor, who offered yoga classes to patients in the program. “From the moment Jill talked us through the initial meditation, I thought, “This is a practice I need to know more about,” says L. “I recognized that for the entire class I didn’t think about how many calories I’d eaten. To go into an environment where I could shut off those thoughts was just incredible.”

In the years since, L. as begun to bring the calm awareness she experiences in yoga with her to the dinner table. She has not been bulimic for the past several years, and her relationship with food has become more joyful; she now enjoys spending time cooking with her husband. Like thousands of others with eating disorders as well as many people who overeat simply out of stress or loneliness, L. found that yoga can radically change one’s relationship to food. In fact, at eating disorder programs across the country, therapists are incorporating yoga and mindfulness mediation into their work-at a time when millions of Americans are struggling to develop healthful eating habits. According to the National Eating Disorders Association, 11 million Americans have eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia.

As too many of us know, you don’t have to have a clinically diagnosed eating disorder to have disordered eating. A Harvard survey released in February found that binge eating-defined as eating copious amounts within two hours at least twice a week for six months, and feeling distressed and unable to stop-affects nearly 3 percent of the adult population. On any given day, 45 percent of American women and 25 percent of men are on a diet, yet nearly one-third of American adults are obese. We eat to quell boredom, sadness, or fear, and we often eat without thinking, finding the potato chip bag empty before we even realize we opened it.

It’s no wonder that many people troubled by such issues are looking to yoga for help, says clinical psychologist and registered yoga teacher Lisa Kaley-Isley. She began offering yoga classes to eating disorder patients two years ago at the Children’s Hospital in Denver, where she is chief psychologist. “Yoga addresses the mind, where the anxiety and compulsion,” says Kaley-Isley. “It does so with an emphasis on creating strength and flexibility in both.”

SLOW WAY DOWN

So far, little research has been done to verify the therapeutic effects of yoga on eating disorders and more garden-variety eating problems such as emotional eating or yo-yo dieting. But a few studies do show that yoga can help. One well-known 2005 study of 139 women by researcher at the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, found that women who practiced yoga felt better about their bodies, had a better sense of what their bodies were feeling, and had healthier attitudes toward food than women who did aerobics or ran. A 2006 State University of New York study of 45 fifth-grade girls also found that after a 10-week program that included discussion, yoga, and relaxation, the girls were more satisfied with their bodies and less driven to be unhealthily thin.

Initially, yoga affects those with eating problems simply by slowing down anxious and chaotic thoughts. “When you are anxious, your mind is like a fan on high speed,” says psychotherapist and yoga therapist Michelle J. Fury, who joined the staff of Kaley-Isley’s program two years ago. “But when I asked patients in yoga class to pay attention to their breath, to their feet on the mat, I am bringing them back to the present moment and slowing down their negative thought patterns down.”

Over time, that slowdown allows people to begin reconnect with feelings that might be uncomfortable, including hunger and fullness. At Four Winds Yoga in Pennington, New Jersey, Gutowski and psychologist and yoga instructor Robin Boudette offer Inbodyment workshops. They combine Forrest Yoga (a practice created by Ana Forrest and centers on heat, deep breathing, and long-held poses) and mindfulness meditation. In the three day workshops, each day begins breathing exercises followed by a series of warming poses, then asanas, including hip openers and backbends.

“When you are in a difficult pose, you want to come out of it,” Boudette says. “But you learn to stay in it and realize that discomfort comes and goes.”

That process has had a profound impact on G., 49, of Princeton, New Jersey. Before she began private therapy with Boudette a year ago, she had stopped paying attention to her hunger. Because she traveled constantly fro her high-powered business career, she simply ate whatever was in front of her. As a result, she gained weight, quit exercising, and felt heavy and lethargic. “It didn’t even occur to me to ask the question, ‘Am I hungry?’”G. says. “My body and eating had become completely disassociated.”

EAT LIKE YOU MEAN IT

To help G. connect with both her body and eating habits, Boudette led her in an exercise popularized by mindfulness meditation teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn. Boudette gave her a raisin and asked her to take a full minute to look at it, to smell and feel it, to put it in her mouth and roll it around. Then she asked her to bite into it, to feel the texture and to experience the sweetness. “I was thinking this exercise was ridiculous,” says G. “But then tow days later, I would be eating something, and I would think, ‘This is really interesting texture,’ or ‘This smells good.’ It made me think about what I eat and how I eat. Now I catch myself and say, ‘I can just enjoy this.’ I’m being kinder to myself.”

As yoga replaces impulse with reflection, troubled eaters can also think differently about what it means to nourish them. Certainly that’s true for Kathy McMillan, 43, of Knoxville, Tennessee. For six years, McMillan experienced joint pain and severe fatigue. She says that she tried to sooth herself with food. “I’d make a big bowl of pasta and immerse myself in a carbohydrate fog.” Finally, the sixth doctor she saw diagnosed her with Lyme disease and, among other things, sent her to an Astanga Yoga class. “I was the worst student in the room,” she says. “I couldn’t lift into Downward Dog. But I was willing to try anything.” In the two years since, not only has she regained her strength and energy, but she has also revamped her eating habits.

“Before, I didn’t think about what I was doing with my body,” McMillan says. But within a month or tow of beginning yoga, she noticed a shift. “I can feel my legs internally rotate in Downward Dog,” she says. “The body awareness is unreal.” As that awareness grew, McMillan’s attitude toward herself changed and, with it, her relationship to food: “I started to respect my body more. I could see that my doctor was helping me and that through yoga I was going to be well. So, every time I put something in my mouth, I asked, ‘Do I really want this?’”

What McMillan and others experience on the mat is a rising consciousness that follows them home. Mary Taylor, a yoga teacher, chef, and coauthor of What Are You Hungry For? Says, “Instead of coming home and feeling the need for an emotional eating experience and then being mad at yourself for grabbing the chips and salsa, you begin to ask, ‘What does my body really need at this point?’”

In her slow evolution, L., too, has begun to ask such questions. “My teacher stresses that there’s no perfect pose-the pose you do today is perfect. If there is no perfect pose, is it possible that there is no perfect body, and I’m not lacking anything? If so, then I’m eating to change myself but to sustain myself. That’s a very different way of looking at it.”

Dorothy Foltz-Gray is a writer based in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Yoga for Golfers Reprinted from U.S. 1, March 2006

After two rotator cuff operations in 2002, Chris Thatcher, a carpenter for Schulte Restorations in Hopewell, was not positive about his abilities to ever do anything athletic again, such as the ice hockey he had been playing in men's leagues. He had not played golf since his teenage years but on a trip to Louisville, Kentucky, a couple of years ago, his passion for the sport was rekindled.

On the golf course that day Thatcher, a Hopewell resident, was awful. "Every single shot I hit was awful, except for the last two, and that's how I got hooked again. So, the following two years were spent working as little as possible so I could play as much golf as possible," he adds, laughing.

Thatcher, 41, started attending classes at Four Winds Yoga in Pennington two years ago, at the behest of his wife, Micole, a graphic designer in the office of communications at Princeton University, who insisted he attend an intro to yoga class. Now he's a total convert and attends classes four times a week. "It just makes everything better. Our breath is the most powerful medicinal tool we have to use for ourselves, and it is absolutely astounding the transformation that can occur by just learning how to breathe properly. It's made my job easier; I'm much stronger and more flexible. Everything I do physically I enjoy more. I feel better now than I did 10 years ago."

When Michael Brantl, co-owner of Four Winds with his wife, Jill Gutowski, started talking about a yoga for golf program, it caught Thatcher's attention. "I could immediately see the benefit it could have on my game. I was really having a lot of trouble with my down swing," says Thatcher. "I have a nice take-away and a lot of power, it was just that I was losing it on my down swing. My problem was that my core strength was just not what it should be. After Mike's classes, I have found it is easier to hold my swing together. Now I'm just rifling down on that same swing plane, and the shoulder strength makes a difference. Yoga has provided me with a framework for breathing and moving that has improved my mental discipline, and it's also increased my club head speed almost 15 miles per hour from the mid 90s to 110 mph. I feel like I am locked in over the ball and centered, which creates much more power and consistency in my swing."

Most experienced golfers will tell you golf is a Zen-like pursuit. One rarely plays the perfect round. Even exceptional rounds are marred by bad shots here and there, a short putt that lips out of the cup or one too many shots getting out of a sand trap.

"Golf just goes along with a yoga philosophy - a steadiness of practice and a foucs and letting go all the same time," - says Mike Brantl.

Can yoga can improve your game? "Golf just goes along with a yoga philosophy - a steadiness of practice and a focus and letting go all at the same time," says Brantl. "In golf you have to let go of the result of a shot and get ready for the next one. Otherwise you might be two holes back in your mind. The one thing you don't want to end up doing in golf is thinking about some bad shot you hit three holes ago. Keeping your head together on the golf course is important, but the physical benefits golfers receive from yoga are tremendous. If you become more flexible you can move faster, be more in control, and you can be more consistent in your shot making."

Brantl, who recently became recertified as a personal trainer by the American Council of Exercise, and is a certified golf conditioning specialist and certified yoga instructor, is offering a fitness yoga for golfers workshop at Four Winds Yoga on Saturday, March 25, and a six-week series of fitness yoga for golfers classes, Tuesday evenings, March 28 to May 2.

Brantl's forthcoming self-produced DVD, "Fitness Yoga for Golfers," and his yoga for golfers classes stress core strength abdominal exercises, shoulder openers, and lower back strengtheners. The Tuesday night series will focus on different areas of emphasis each week, including hips, shoulders, back and abdomen strengtheners, and lunging poses. It is purposely structured to be beneficial for both drop-ins who can only make one or two Tuesday evenings, and for those who can commit to all six weeks of the class. "The course is designed so that people can drop in for a class or two and learn something they can utilize on and off the golf course," says Brantl.

The classes use classical yoga postures, or asanas, specifically designed to work the traditional problem areas in golfers that are tight or weak, says Brantl. "Golfers tend to have tight hips, hip flexers, bad lower backs, and they tend to have wrist or shoulder tightness or injuries. We get the legs totally involved with standing poses and floor poses," says Brantl, adding that the classes help increase your energy, strength, flexibility, focus, and concentration, as well as help lower your handicap and prevent injuries.
Brute strength that is not backed up by flexibility doesn't amount to much on a golf course, Brantl says. "Someone like Tiger Woods has the ability to generate power and stay in balance to create an accurate shot. The everyday player, just by being more flexible and turning his shoulders a bit more, can maintain balance through impact. That will result in straighter, more accurate shots with a distance gain."

Like many other longtime, dedicated golfers, Brantl's interest in golf was sparked through his father. "I developed an interest in golf at a really young age," says the Yardley native. "Golf just wasn't that widely accepted as a sport when I was growing up, but my father was an avid golfer and we had a putting green in the backyard. I learned to chip and putt and later worked as a caddy when I was a kid." He and his father, who worked for the federal government as a compliance officer for the state of New Jersey, would frequently play 54 holes in a day. Brantl says that he played other competitive sports for some time - basketball, football, baseball, ultimate Frisbee, and swimming - and didn't really pick up golf again until his mid-20s, at Yardley Country Club. "I got hooked right away." His mother worked in a clerical capacity for New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance.

Brantl earned a BS in psychology at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania in 1983, then went back to school at age 30, in 1990, to the College of New Jersey, where he earned a second bachelors in corporate fitness. His major focus there was on the kinesiology of the golf swing. As part of his curriculum at TCNJ, Brantl took a yoga class. He was training for a marathon at the time and says, "my class was usually a time of the day after my marathon training. I was very intrigued by the relaxation benefits I received from the yoga. I knew there was something there." After graduation, he became a personal trainer, and he began studying yoga in 1996. He has worked as a personal trainer and fitness coach for 15 years.

In the summer of 1996 Brantl participated in his first formal study of yoga at a weekend teachers program. He began a daily yoga practice, which led him to the White Lotus Foundation in Santa Barbara, California, where he became a certified hatha yoga instructor in 1998. He has completed several advanced trainings there as well with David Swenson in 1999 and Erich Schiffmann in 2000. In 2003 he completed a 400-hour certification training in Anusara yoga with Todd Norian. He says his greatest inspiration comes from his 14 years plus in recovery from addiction and a loving relationship with his wife, Jill.

What does Brantl say to men who are intimidated by or hesitant to take a yoga class? "Whatever brings people to yoga, eventually they stay for themselves. They come because they want to reduce stress or improve their golf game, and eventually they realized the benefits outweigh any misconception that yoga's not for men. A lot of misconceptions are just that - misconceptions. Some people think that you have to be really flexible to do yoga. In fact the people who are less flexible get the greatest benefit. A yoga for golfers class is a good way to introduce men to yoga."

"Some people think that you have to be really flexible to do yoga. In fact the people who are less flexible get the greatest benefit," - says Brantl.

Brantl is quite open about the fact that he has been in recovery from addiction for more than 14 years - it's stated on the Four Winds web site. "As of last week, I have been 15 years in continuous AA." Brantl says he was sober five to six years before he started practicing yoga. "If I hadn't been sober, yoga would not have worked. It has had a tremendous impact on my whole life; I'm able to do the [AA] 11th step, prayer and meditation, as part of my yoga practice. Sobriety, yoga, and Jill are my greatest inspiration." He met Jill when he was a teacher at Princeton Center for Yoga and Health and Jill was an assistant. They married in 2001.
Brantl says there are other advantages for golfers who practice yoga on a regular basis. After all, greater flexibility results in fewer injuries. "You reduce the risk of many of the more common injuries golfers suffer," Brantl says. "Injuries of the hands and wrists, shoulders, lower back, and the hips are the most common. A steady yoga practice helps overcome those injuries, and if you're active with your yoga practice, you're less likely to become injured."

Brantl swears by yoga to improve his golf and prevent injuries. "I know through my own fitness regimens, I've been able to go through a lot of injuries and surgeries. Yoga has been a major part of my fitness regimen, but I also lift weights a couple of times a week. Because I'm a golfer and a personal trainer and yoga instructor, I know which muscles are involved. Yoga offers every golfer the chance to be more fit and play a better game."
Fred Harris, Mike Reis, and Lisa Westerfield are three other students who took Brantl's yoga for golfers class in the fall, along with carpenter Chris Thatcher. All attended for different reasons, but all had one goal in common: they recognized that greater flexibility and core muscle strength is the key to lowering one's handicap.

`I had a lot of trouble with my balance due to some injuries I suffered 25 years ago," says Fred Harris of Pennington, who works for the State Department of Human Services. "Yoga has really helped me with my balance. Mike and I began playing golf together at Mountain View [a Mercer County course] some time ago." Harris says he attends Brantl's yoga for golf classes to improve his balance, which in turn improves his ball striking abilities.

Reis, a Minnesota native - the state that has more golfers per capita than any other state - is a salesman for 3M Company, who works out of his Pennington home. His work also involves some traveling. He often takes potential customers out on the golf course. "One of the things I've struggled with over the years in golf was becoming stiff," he says. Reis plays to a very respectable 7-handicap, but, like so many other golfers, has never been able to take it beyond that in the last 20 years, owing to work and family commitments.

"My problems were just being stiff in general, and not only on the golf course. I'm a pretty good golfer, and I've noticed yoga for golf has helped me with flexibility," Reis says. "Since I've started doing yoga for golf, I've noticed I was just more relaxed out there and in better condition." In addition to Brantl's classes, Reis has taken it a step further, with a home routine of asanas (yoga poses) that he does several times a week as a break from work in the home office.

"I found I lacked the distance and the power to really make it fun," Lisa Westerfield says. Yoga improved her power and accuracy.

Westerfield, a Robbinsville resident, works in new business development for Schoor, DePalma, an engineering firm in Manalapan Township. She has been playing golf for a long time but did not play regularly and says she never played golf well until just a few years ago. "Last year at Schoor, DePalma, I got to play a lot of customer golf," she says, adding that she began coming to Four Winds Yoga last September.
"Once I got going with the game, I found I lacked the distance and the power to really make it fun," she says. "Shooting it straight but not all that far made it not so exciting for me. I like to wail it out there, and finally, toward the end of last year, my swing got better."

Brantl says his career best round was a 71 he shot at Honey Bee, a course in Virginia Beach, Virginia. More recently, he shot 73 several times at Mountain View. How memorable was that round of 71 at Honey Bee? "It just felt real simple, real easy, and I felt really connected that day. I was hitting shots right where I was looking. It was just one of those days, and very magical."

Yoga for Golfers, Four Winds Yoga, 114 West Franklin Avenue, Suite K-2, Pennington. Learn more about Yoga for Golfers and the classes offered.

Yoga lifts golf to a new level Reprinted from The Times, July 2006

Mike Brantl is passionate about golf. He also is a devotee of yoga.

To him, golf and yoga are perfect together, which is why his Pennington business, Four Winds Yoga, has developed a yoga/golf specialty.

“Yoga can help you to hit the ball farther and straighter, so you can have more fun,” said Brantl, a 10-handcapper whose home course is Mountain View.

Since athletes in all sports – led by top golfers Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstam – are working out and including yoga in their regimen, it is not a reach when Brantl said “The top two players on the tour also are the most physically fit. They know they need to be strong and flexible. Players that aren’t fit aren’t on the map anymore.”

Brantl grew up in Yardley, PA., and attended Holy Ghost Prep, where he played basketball for Metropolitan Golf Associations Senior (60-64) champion Tom Kaczorof the Yardley Country Club. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from Shippensburg University, but went on to obtain a bachelor’s degree in corporate fitness from The College of New Jersey.

"Yoga can help you hit the ball farther, straighter,
so you can have more fun." - Mike Brantl

Twice having qualified for the Boston Marathon, Brantl has endured athletic injuries, rehabilitated, and learned about the value of yoga in terms of reduction in injury incidence and bringing the body back quicker.

“All fitness parameters come into play in yoga,” he said.

Brantl is not alone in his belief of yoga’s merits. His wife, Jill Gutowski, is his business partner and co-instructor at the studio.

“She has the psychotherapist approach and I have the physiological approach,” he said of the subtle difference between them. Gutowski is a Nottingham High graduate who earned a psychology degree at Rider before a master’s degree in counseling form TCNJ.

His wife supports Brantl’s passion for golf, and though she is not a player herself, he is attempting to convert her.

To encourage average golfers that yoga can help, Brantl is offering two incentives.

“I will provide golfers within 10-15-minute yoga sessions at golf outings,” he said. “And if a golfer wants to a free consultation and session, I can be contacted at the studio.”

The Brantl’s studio is located at 114 West Franklin Ave., Pennington, and can be reached by telephoning (609)818-9888 or at www.fourwindsyoga.com

Celebrating life, and good health Reprinted from U.S. 1, March 2004

Bringing mental, emotional, spiritual and physical clarity to students through the practice of yoga postures and breathing enables The Yoga Studio at Pennington to help its practitioners.

The studio is one of the few in New Jersey teaching Forrest yoga, a form of hatha yoga developed by Ana Forrest. Explains studio co-dirctor Jill Gutowski, M.A. “Forrest focuses on techniques that enable you to benefit physically and emotionally from your practice. You become mindful of your breath, and connect to your center.”

“When we are connected to our center,” Gutowski continues, “we feel more balanced and able to deal with what life brings us.” Classes incorporate breathing, postures and deep relaxation. “Students are encouraged to not only learn the poses but to feel what is happening while they are practicing. We then learn what works and can let go of what’s keeping us from optimal health,” she says.

Gutowskis’ own path of recovery from an eating disorder and depression led her to yoga seven years ago. She teaches from the healing that yoga has given her, and seeks to inspire others to undertake their own journey. “My yoga practice gave me a new awareness,” she says. “I appreciate my strengths and dealt more compassionately with how I needed to change. Awareness enables you to make choices.” She has now been teaching yoga for four years.

The Yoga techniques taught at the Yoga Studio at Pennington
help you "feel more balanced and able to deal with what life brings"

For Gutowski, it also brought her to her soul mate. She met her husband and studio co-director Michael Brantl through yoga. But, life still had at least one more challenge – just shy of getting married to Michael, Gutowski suffered from a brain aneurism. Once recovered, she not only married Michael, but decided to teach yoga full-time. Their partnership led to opening the studio in May, 2002.

Brantl teaches Anusara-style, a yoga practice developed by John Friend. Both Anusara and Forrest offer not only meditative and emotional qualities, but great physical benefits. “In Forrest and Anusara-style, you get a work-out! In the year that I have been teaching Forrest, I’ve noticed a definite increase in the strength and flexibility of my students. Plus the ability to take a deeper breath,” Gutowski notes.

Both owners teach people how to use yoga as a tool. Through introductory classes, private yoga therapy and varied levels of classes, students at The Yoga Studio at Pennington learn to “make yoga their own.” The studio offers daily classes and pregnancy yoga.

Gutowski strongly encourages beginners or those new to Forrest to take Introduction to Yoga, a three-week course to teach the foundations for a balanced yoga practice. “In those three weeks, students see how yoga can change their lives and help them feel better,” she says. Gutowski and Brantls' teaching is a chance to help people move thruogh things they discover during practice. “The mind limits more than the body,” Gutowski explains. “The mind will tell you it can’t do something before the body does. Yoga is a way to move through the ways in which we limit ourselves.”

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