Work and lifeYoga

Phyllis Lee performing the Natarajasana or Lord of the Dance pose

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A fter her first yoga class, Loretta Fong could hardly walk down the stairs back to

the locker room. Five years later, the PwC Assurance Partner and member of the Hong Kong Institute of CPAs attends two to three classes a week, fuelled by her passion and gradual improvement.

“I’ve never been an athletic person but as I got older, I started to believe that I should exercise for my health. I’m also naturally more flexible so I thought I’d be able to handle something like yoga,” says Fong. However, when she enrolled in her first class at a fitness studio, she quickly realized there was more to yoga than flexibility.

“I remember having to hold the chair pose for 20 breaths in that first class and I nearly died. My legs were shaking,” she laughs. Although it took her nearly a week to recover from a class at the beginning, the ex-perience taught Fong that yoga also required a great deal of strength.

Fong stresses the importance of having a good balance of strength and flexibility in order to perform yoga poses. Her advice for new yoga practitioners is to never force yourself. “The benefit of yoga is not how many difficult poses you can perform, but how calm and refreshed you become afterwards.”

Taking her yoga passion to the next level, Fong attended two retreats in Taiwan and Thailand. In Taiwan, Fong and other attendees lived in

a large homestay and practised Yin yoga, a more challenging and meditative style of holding poses for longer periods of time. However, on the island of Koh Samui, Fong took the time to redefine her goals in life through yoga, meditation and mas-sage. “The seven-day trip was a good experience to just relax,” she says.

Yoga has also led Fong to be more mindful of her eating habits. “I have no real desire to eat meat, although I’m not a vegetarian yet,” says Fong. “I’ve learned to balance my diet to include more vegetables, nuts and beans, and I started to realize that one does not need a lot of meat in the diet – just a few ounces of meat every few days would be sufficient.”

When Fong doesn’t have time to attend a studio session, she uses apps like lolo at home. “There are different programmes that you can follow, whether you want to focus on

flexibility, strength or relaxation.”Fong originally started doing

yoga to make sure she stayed healthy, but the exercise transformed into a source of both pleasure and fun. “It’s something that can really take me away from my work,” she says. “When I’m on the mat, I can forget everything, just concentrate on my practise and then go back to my work afterwards.”

Focus on yourself“Yoga is not only a sport for women, but is also great for men as well.” says Yin Toa Lee, who has been against the stereotype of the female yoga practitioner for years. The EY Capital Markets Centre Partner and Institute member particularly enjoys the immediate benefits of hot yoga and goes to the studio three times a week for both group and private sessions.

Hot yoga involves being in a closed room with a temperature of around 38 to 40 degrees Celsius. The lack of airflow and the heat forces you to breathe slowly and pace yourself. “It’s almost like a tough initial public offering project,” says Lee, “because you need to know what situation you’re in and conserve energy until the very end without front-loading everything into the beginning of the project.”

“It’s not just about stretching,” Lee explains. “A lot of yoga poses require a strong upper body and they can actually be more difficult

The benefits of yoga range from better posture to a boost in immunity, but there's more to it than sitting on a mat and

breathing deeply. Tigger Chaturabul talks to CPA yogis about how the practice has changed their lives and minds

Photography by Leslie Montgomery

Wind down

“ When you feel more calm, you can overcome more pressure and stress, which in turn makes me feel much more relaxed within myself and at work.”

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Work and lifeYoga

Jessica Lam performing the Vriksasana or Tree pose

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for new practitioners without a weightlifting background to per-form.” Exercising helps Lee unwind and detach himself from his work, allowing him to prioritize and have an open mind about how things can be done. “It’s easy to be distracted or focus on urgent but unimportant things in the office,” he says. “Yoga allows me to sit back and put things into perspective.”

Lee first started practising yoga in addition to his regular running and swimming workouts because of the activity’s element of spiritual-ity. “It’s about being able to get into a state of peacefulness and leave your work outside of the studio,” Lee adds.

He exercises nearly every day, with yoga reserved for after work and weekends and cardio on week-day mornings. “These activities are easy to do anywhere, even when you travel. I used to bring a small yoga mat with me to hotels as well. You have to be in good health to sustain a long career,” he says.

After his first trial yoga session, Lee was exhausted. “I exercised muscles that I wasn’t used to using,” he says. “In running and swimming, you tend to just go forward, but with yoga you’re twisting in all directions, doing a variety of movements.”

Lee has engaged in different roles throughout his career, from advising business clients to technical work. Throughout his 18 years in

the profession, Lee has realized he particularly enjoys technical work and the importance of becoming an expert by focusing on a certain field. “Yoga has honed a razor sharp focus in me that drives me to prioritize my strengths, both on the mat and in the office,” he says.

Find the right balancePhyllis Lee, Associate Director, Compliance at a listed financial group and a member of the Institute, balances her time between being a CPA and a yoga instructor for char-ity events. Balance is also one of her favourite elements about yoga.

“To stay steadily in a yoga posture in general requires your balance, power, flexibility, slow breathing and focus of mind,” she says. She began yoga six years ago to loosen up her stiff muscles that resulted from her love of dancing. From Bollywood to ballroom, Lee joined a studio and the Institute’s Dance Interest Group to dance until yoga captivated her more regularly three years ago.

At the time, Lee wasn’t too fa-miliar with yoga other than it helped her stretch. “After some time, I felt that it wasn’t only my legs that were relaxing, it was also my mind.”

Lee particularly enjoys flow yoga because it is more interest-ing to transition from pose to pose continuously. “We can’t stop and have to flow with the music and our

breathing, which makes it challeng-ing,” she says.

Last year, Lee completed 200 hours of yoga teacher training certification and is now a registered yoga teacher. In addition to helping out in charity events such as free yoga classes on Sundays at Central’s Pier 9, she has also taught students at City University residence halls twice a week for three months.

“As a yoga student, you can just focus on your own practice and not have to care about others,” says Lee. “However as a teacher, you need to get to know each student’s needs and help them without hurting them.” When the students enjoy the class and want to learn more, it motivates Lee to be even more eager to teach. For her, it’s about combining her passion with a way to help others.

Since the United Nations de-clared 21 June International Yoga Day in 2015, Lee has participated in the annual events as an assistant teacher, guiding thousands of par-ticipants at Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park to do yoga together. “I’ve also been to India to do some demonstra-tions with my teacher at a yoga com-petition, although I didn’t compete myself,” Lee adds.

Yoga has allowed Lee to become more relaxed, even when it comes to her work duties. “When you feel more calm, you can overcome more pressure and stress, which in turn makes me feel much more

“ I’m much happier now than before, working shorter hours with more efficiency. I feel like I’m at 110 percent.”

Five styles of yoga

1. Anusara Founded in 1997 by John Friend, this yoga uses the physical practice of yoga to help students let their inner goodness shine through. It involves many “heart-opening” poses like backbends.

2. Ashtanga Commonly called “Power yoga,” Ashtanga is a rigorous style of yoga that follows a specific sequence of postures. It is a physically demanding practice.

3. BikramFounded by Bikram Choudhury, this is a form of hot yoga performed in a series of 26 poses done in a hot environment of 40 degrees Celsius.

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Work and lifeYoga

relaxed within myself and at work,” she explains. By listening to her body, she has naturally transitioned to a veg-etarian diet because she became more sensitive to her body’s needs.

“Although everyone will experience a different transformation, the changes you experience with yoga will be posi-tive,” she says. “Yoga is for everyone.”

Start with supportDuring the lunch hour, Jessica Lam can sometimes be found at the yoga studio, sweating it out in a session of hot Vinyasa. The Finance Manager at

Button Capital and Institute member relishes 60 minutes of distraction-free relaxation and gets back to work with even more energy.

“I go at least twice a week and since you’re not allowed to bring your phone in or even talk in the studio, you can get really focused during that quiet time,” says Lam. She has been practising yoga for the past two years, and has added dragon boat and hiking to her exercise activities this year.

In addition to sweating out toxins, the effects of one hot yoga class can last a day or two for Lam. “I used to do

more relaxing yoga but hot yoga is a real workout that helps me condition my body for hiking,” says Lam. She will participate in the annual Moonwalker hiking event and journey from Wanchai to Repulse Bay from nine o’clock at night to seven the next morning.

Teamwork is a key element in exer-cise for Lam. She does both the Moon-walker and lunchtime yoga sessions with her colleagues. “The company re-ally encourages me to go to the gym and join these sporting events so that I can achieve work-life balance,” says Lam. In her previous firm, she remembers

“ When I’m on the mat, I can forget everything, be refreshed and then go back to my work again.”

Loretta Fong performing the Hanumanasana or Monkey pose

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Yin Toa Lee performing the Kakasana or Crow pose

feeling tired and sleepy, which reduced her efficiency by half. “I’m much happier now than before, working shorter hours with more efficiency. I feel like I’m at 110 percent.”

Lam has also started aerial yoga, which involves being supported by a soft aerial fabric hammock a metre or two off the ground. With her best friend hanging beside her, Lam savours the bonding time they have through yoga. “We support each other when doing difficult postures and to get

over the fear of hanging off the ground,” she says.

Every yoga session ends with Namaste, a symbol of gratitude and respect to both the teacher and yourself. Lam recommends yogis to keep a practice journal to track improvements and changes over time. She keeps a mindfulness journal herself to change her lifestyle, includ-ing eating, sleeping and work habits. “I’m also giving up toxic thoughts like anger and resent-ment and learning to forgive,” she adds.

For Lam, yoga is great for her confidence and mental health. Even when Lam felt like running away after 30 minutes of her first hot yoga class, she felt accomplished when she stuck through it. “That’s why it’s important to focus,” she says. “If you break your concentration, you might start feeling like you want to leave or give up.

“You start off thinking you can’t do the difficult poses but with time, you find out you can actually do them. It feels great.”

4. HathaA gentle introduction

to the most basic yoga postures. It's a great type of yoga to

wind down with at night.

5. RestorativeThis focuses on

relaxation. Classes use bolsters,

blankets, and blocks to prop students in poses so the body can experience its benefits without

having to exert any effort.

“ I used to bring a small yoga mat with me to hotels as well. You have to be in good health to sustain a long career.”

Source: www.gaiam.com, www.mindbodygreen.com

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