Located in the Northwest corner of campus, the Recreation Center is especially convenient for students living in UCLA dormitories. Sarah Palacios and Eve Wight signed up for their first yoga class this quarter with Martelli. Wight feared the class would be boring. Martelli's classes consist of about 50 percent graduate students and 50 percent faculty, staff and alumni. Martelli, who works in a medical setting, explains that a lot of people who do not like going to the doctor look to yoga as a preventative medicine.
Yoga is an excellent complement to sports like running, tennis and football.
Beverly Otroska, a UCLA alumnus with a master's degree in dance, teaches a dynamic style of yoga as well as a relaxation class in which gentle massage and aromatherapy is applied to students in a candlelight setting. For those looking for a more intense workout, Yoga Works in Santa Monica, owned by Chuck Miller and Maty Ezrati, is the most frequented yoga center in the country and offers a 20 percent discount for UCLA students. According to Miller, the goal of practicing yoga is self-realization, or samadhi. This state of bliss, or oneness with the Supreme Being, is not a static state, but one that is achieved for moments at a time, until the mind is again distracted. Many of us have had different samadhis and there are various levels of samadhi.