Highland Park Profiles

Gayl Walder Turns Doctor's Office Into Yoga Room

A Highland Park yoga instructor released a DVD to help those facing stressful medical situations.

For most people, there's nothing relaxing about waiting in a doctor's office. If you're worried you might get bad news, even reading a magazine can be a futile endeavor. For Gayl Walder, who knows all too well how stressful the setting can be, the doctor's office is the perfect place for yoga. The 45-year-old yoga instructor, who teaches at Equinox and Healing Power Yoga in Highland Park, recently produced a DVD titled Healing in Motion. The unconventional project features Walder going through a series of yoga poses in a doctor's office wearing everyday street clothes. Throughout the video, Walder coaches viewers on how to find inner calm during stressful medical situations such as waiting for test results and meeting with physicians. "It'…

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Leading by Example

Dana Pieper doesn't just teach group fitness classes in Highland Park, she does each and every one right alongside you.

Before Dana Pieper taught group exercise classes at the Highland Park Recreation Center and Equinox, the professional dancer was hesitant about devoting her life to exercise. An injury ended Pieper's career as a professional dancer and wanting to stay active, she began work as a bookkeeper at a gym and taking exercise classes there. As the Tae Bo craze hit in the late '90s, the classes took off and there were not enough instructors to teach them. The staff asked Pieper to start teaching. Having no professional experience teaching classes, Pieper asked her husband what he thought of the idea. "They're going to pay you to work out?" he asked her. "Go for it!"  Pieper began teaching kickboxing. Then she started taking fitness education …

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