It took a while to get to downward-facing dog.
First, the eight men and women at a recent class at Tarana Yoga Studio in Minneapolis engaged in "joint warm-ups," circling their wrists three times in each direction.
Next, they carefully moved into standing poses, keeping a chair at the edge of their yoga mats to steady themselves as needed.
Finally, their bodies limber, they tilted their hips back with hands and feet planted on the mat — expertly performing the challenging downward-facing dog pose.
The minutes ticked. No one flinched.
"Respect where your body's at today," instructor Amy Samson-Burke told the class for people with Parkinson's disease. "Be where you are."
Held twice a week, the experimental class is part of a study being conducted by the University of Minnesota to find out if yoga is an effective tool for managing Parkinson's disease.
Corjena Cheung, a professor at the university's School of Nursing, said she hopes to build on her previous research examining yoga's effects on osteoarthritis. The results of that study were so promising — increased mobility and less fear of falling — that she wanted to explore whether yoga could help with Parkinson's, too.