Yoga

What's next for these 76ers? Chamomile tea breaks at noon? Well, if the results are similar to what they're getting from yoga sessions, why not? One day after beating the Washington Wizards for the third time this season (the fifth if you count the two preseason victories), Sixers coach Doug Collins felt comfortable enough to chat briefly with the team, and then leave them to stretch and work out the kinks in their bodies under the watchful eye of a yoga instructor rather than run a practice.

BALANCE - USE it or lose it. I found this out personally when I added yoga back into my overall fitness regimen. In fact, I was quite frankly shocked when I went to do the tree pose on the left side and could not maintain it. I was, literally, out of balance. That was a wake-up call for me. Just a few years before, I could do this effortlessly. But, letting yoga go by the wayside, I was now paying for my neglect of balance. Luckily, with practice I was able to improve my balance and can hold the tree posture again.

THE INJURIES are starting to pile up for the 76ers. Yesterday at the team's practice at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, coach Doug Collins brought in a yoga expert so his club could work out some of the kinks it has collected during the blitz of an early season that has had them play nine games in 13 days. Gimping around the practice facility were Evan Turner (thigh contusion) and Spencer Hawes (Achilles' strain). Hawes has also been struggling with a strained back recently.

The fitness troika today is mind, body and spirit. You can't truly be fit in one area, if you are a sloth in the others. Or so advocates - many of them members of the scientific community - claim, backed by hefty research. Fitness trends reflect this growing respect for the M-B-S connection, so if you want to get with it in the New Year, look eastward toward the ancient, snf in some circles recently modernized, practice of yoga. Let's start with the '90s interpretation taught at the Baron Baptiste Power Yoga Institute in Bryn Mawr.

Jonathan Labman has managed a New York art gallery and studied to become a Presbyterian minister. He has been an actor and a masseur. All the while, Labman, 45, has tried healing: first himself, then others. Labman grew up in Yardley, attending public school until he felt forced to leave Pennsbury High School after the 10th grade, in 1971. He finished at a private school in Wales on a scholarship for which he applied. He recalls walking the halls of Pennsbury and hearing students call him "fairy" and "mama's boy. " "I didn't know what homosexuality was at the time," Labman said.

A few weeks ago, my teenage daughter surprised me on the back porch as I performed my "downward-facing dog" yoga position. This involves sticking my derriere straight up in the air as I push off the floor on all fours. Astonished, she shouted, "Mom, make him stop. That's just wrong," then fled back into the house. Now, I'm no Age of Aquarius, Hare Krishna-singing devotee of mystical renewal, just an aging father seeking more elasticity in a spine that has shrunk under the weight of too many moons.

The primary purpose of health and fitness, Patrick Mulhern believes, is to optimize your physical equipment so you can enjoy life more fully. "One of the things we focus on is keeping people stimulated and engaged," Mulhern says. "We're all about having fun. " His specialty is in-home personal training, and his business, Personal Training Transformations, is headquartered in Bristol Borough, where clients have access to a training center with the usual array of anabolic gadgetry.

Athletic clothing has historically been confined to the gym, where women would huff and puff in unglamorous getups - think oversize men's T-shirts and baggy sweatpants. But now that more women are pursuing active lifestyles - juggling Pilates, spinning classes, and hikes with busy professional and personal lives - what was once a limited market for fitness apparel has taken off. High-end brand Lululemon Athletica Inc. has been adding to its yoga and running lines, experimenting with cycling products, and opening stores in new markets (the Philadelphia area is home to four: on Walnut Street and in Haddonfield, Wayne, and King of Prussia)

Even those most committed to their practice deserve a reward. Each order (pick chocolate, sugar or gingerbread) features nimble cookie men showing off 10 different poses, from Downward Dog to Triangle. The New York-based bakery also sells the yoga cookie cutters, so you can perfect your moves in the kitchen, too. - Ashley Primis Yoga cookies from Baked Ideas, $35 for 10, bakedideas.com .

When Juan Cave first went out for the St. Joseph's Prep track and field team during the spring of 2002, he strongly felt that every Friday should be a day of relaxation. That meant no high jumping, no speed drills. And yoga? What did yoga have to do with track and field, Cave wondered. At first, Cave never saw a correlation between yoga and the high jump. And really, how could you blame him? But twisting his body in awkward positions while learning various breathing techniques is exactly what Cave, a junior and one of the Catholic League's most gifted high jumpers, has done every Friday afternoon since his freshman year.

WHAT I wouldn't give to be writing about the Daily News putting naked yoga on Page One this month. Instead, we're back to the continuous struggle for survival, which is much less fun than naked anything. Last week, even more of the few, the proud, the staffers of the Daily News and the Inquirer were either bought out or laid off as the current management tries to tidy up the books for yet another set of new owners. Among the missing will be the Inquirer 's wonderful editorial cartoonist, Tony Auth, the talented and creative young visual artist Sarah Glover, whose work has been an ornament of both papers, a remarkable reporter and writer Natalie Pompilio, who has also contributed excellent work to both papers, and my friend Don Groff, a solid editor who also does fine photography.

The Risks and the Rewards By William J. Broad Simon & Schuster. 336 pp. $26 Reviewed by Dorothy Brown If practicing yoga is a right-brain experience, involving meditation, movement, and a detachment from the everyday, then reading The Science of Yoga is a jolt to the other side of the brain: analytical, historical, scientific, and sobering. But to underscore the proven value of yoga, considered so wifty by so many, New York Times science writer William J. Broad has brought an arsenal of data.

SIGN UP for naked yoga and you won't need trendy labels such as Lululemon or Athleta. All you'll need is a yoga mat, maybe a towel and a willingness to get naked. Bridge pose? In this class, no tight clothing will be in your way. You may, though, feel self-conscious about having your bare crotch on full display. That's enough to make anyone go "ommmm. " Classes are usually segregated by sex, such as the monthly, all-male Naked Yoga Philly that takes place Tuesday night in Center City.

For anyone in need of an intense, quick shot of affordable quiet, these are some options near and far. Green Gulch Farm, Muir Beach, Calif. Part of the San Francisco Zen Center, Green Gulch Farm is a retreat center in Marin County, close to Muir Beach, offering Thursday-through-Sunday retreats at $60 per day, including meals and tax. The focus is Zen meditation and service (as in chores). 415-383-3134; sfzc.org/ggf . Holy Wisdom Monastery, Middleton, Wis. The focus is on women and ecological justice, all denominations welcome.

Even those most committed to their practice deserve a reward. Each order (pick chocolate, sugar or gingerbread) features nimble cookie men showing off 10 different poses, from Downward Dog to Triangle. The New York-based bakery also sells the yoga cookie cutters, so you can perfect your moves in the kitchen, too. - Ashley Primis Yoga cookies from Baked Ideas, $35 for 10, bakedideas.com .

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. - Mark Goldman was a relative newcomer to yoga when he found himself teetering in standing lotus pose with an instructor barking over him like a drill sergeant. "You can get into this pose," the yogi said. "Push harder. " Goldman, a "typical Silicon Valley" go-getter who works in high-tech sales, took the bait. The harder the better, he thought. He deepened his squat, forcing his knee down. Then - snap. He'd torn his meniscus, the tissue that aids motion in the knee.

THE CRAZINESS that is this NBA season has reared its ugly head in numerous ways. Consider that recently one of the Washington Wizards' two wins came against the Oklahoma City Thunder, a premier team in this league. Or that the Orlando Magic scored only 56 points in a 31-point loss to the Boston Celtics, who aren't exactly setting the world on fire with a 7-9 record. And of course there are the numerous injuries. The 76ers are feeling that, as centers Spencer Hawes (strained left Achilles')

What's next for these 76ers? Chamomile tea breaks at noon? Well, if the results are similar to what they're getting from yoga sessions, why not? One day after beating the Washington Wizards for the third time this season (the fifth if you count the two preseason victories), Sixers coach Doug Collins felt comfortable enough to chat briefly with the team, and then leave them to stretch and work out the kinks in their bodies under the watchful eye of a yoga instructor rather than run a practice.

Jim Thome was asked a question Friday that he knows he cannot truly answer until March and April. Can he play first base again? "To be honest, I don't know how my back is going to react because I haven't played there in seven years," Thome said during a visit to Citizens Bank Park. Thome has played a grand total of four games at first base since leaving the Phillies after the 2005 season, and, in a perfect world, he'd be nothing more than a pinch-hitter during his second tour of duty here at the age of 41. But with Ryan Howard expected to spend April on the disabled list recovering from his Achilles tendon tear, manager Charlie Manuel would love to be able to insert Thome's powerful bat into the lineup once or twice a week during the opening month of the season.

THE INJURIES are starting to pile up for the 76ers. Yesterday at the team's practice at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, coach Doug Collins brought in a yoga expert so his club could work out some of the kinks it has collected during the blitz of an early season that has had them play nine games in 13 days. Gimping around the practice facility were Evan Turner (thigh contusion) and Spencer Hawes (Achilles' strain). Hawes has also been struggling with a strained back recently.