YOGA-A-GO-GO
GIRLS GO YOGA GA-GA

AFTER A LONG DAY IN THE CLASSROOM, students in the Armagh Project may be inclined to sore muscles and clouded thoughts. But as they climb the hill from the Amma Centre classrooms to their cosy bunks at the Armagh City Hostel, though, a number of female students have a regimen of stretching and bending to look forward to to clear their minds and tone their aching bodies.

"We have a really hardcore group," professor Arielle Emmett, who leads the yoga sessions explained. "We do it every night. It's called 'Power Yoga'."

What led Emmett to propose nightly yoga? "I train during the year," she told me. "I wanted to do something for myself, and for the students, to keep in shape."

And this is no light routine. "It's an aerobic workout," Emmett nodded. "After a solid hour of it, you leave sweat on the mat."

"It's good," Temple University student Chrissy Doughty said. "We're just starting out at this point, and learning some key moves. It's a pretty flowing routine."

Doughty explained that the nightly sessions were originally held in the hostel TV lounge, but were moved, perhaps due to too many gawkers. "They ruined the aura," she confessed. She explained that the exercises are now done in a top secret location somewhere within the depths of the Armagh City Hostel, but that she was not at liberty to disclose the location to those not yet initiated in the yogic arts.

Although just starting out, some of the moves are quite challenging. Doughty singled out a move known as "the dancer", rumored to be especially complex. She took advantage of the moody lighting in the hostel kitchen to demonstrate the move, succeeding in the difficult pose for mere seconds before falling over the trashcan and spilling half-eaten prawns onto the floor.

Are the moves just too tough for Doughty, a yoga veteran? "No," she confided. "I think my pants are just too tight. And now my stomach hurts-- but I think that's the tomato soup I ate."