Despite at least three new yoga studios opening in Lafayette in the past six months, yoga is not some new exercise craze.

Yoga has been around for about 5,000 years. In its original and purest form, yoga is about a lot more than exercise.

"Yoga is about using your breath and your mind to calm your body and heal your body. Yoga is really a healing art," says Lydia Morton, yoga instructor at the new Lafayette Center for Yoga. "We have many studies out now showing that you only have to do yoga. You don't have to do cardio. You don't have to pound the joints of your body. You don't have to lift weights."

Morton says the exercise is in the yoga postures.

"Everything you go through in yoga uses your own body's resistance," she says. "When people come to a yoga studio, they want to bring themselves back in balance in mind, body and spirit. They want to have healthier body and lives. That's what we're hoping to grow here in Lafayette."

Morton is a big believer in working with people to find how yoga best suits each individual.

"There is no perfect pose. Everybody's body is different. If your bone is made in such a way that your body bends in a different way, you may not ever be able to perfect a pose because your bones are made differently," she says. "The way I teach is to honor the body you bring to the mat. There's nothing wrong with it. You allow the pose to get into you in terms of light and energy, in terms of breath. Anybody can do the yoga we do -- even people with physical drawbacks."

She takes into account the ways bodies and lifestyles have evolved in the 5,000 years since some of the yoga postures originated.

"We have to work with what we have now. I think yoga is moving to a more practical method of practice. We have to work with the modern day yogi," she says. "We have to work with the compression in your spine, the slumping of your shoulders from the stress in your life."

Thaddeus Murphy has been teaching yoga at Heaven on Earth Gifts and Yoga at 108 Rena for about 18 years. He says he's happy to see more people in Lafayette teaching different methods of yoga. He says he's seen the peaks and valleys of local interest in yoga.

"There was a cycle like this before five or six years ago," he says. "My philosophy is if people do the work, it helps them as individuals and by helping individuals, it helps the community at large."

He says most of his yoga students begin to notice improvements in the way they're feeling after the third or fourth classes.

"They have a shift in problem areas and better balance and confidence," he says. "Our approach is about stress relief and peace of mind."

Camille Bulliard is another new face in Lafayette's yoga community. Bulliard opened her yoga and life coach studio in April. She shares the space with Strength and Endurance Institute at The Boulevard.

Bulliard, also a Lafayette native, spent the last 12 years living in Los Angeles. She teaches power yoga, based on ashtanga -- with training in a combination of ashtanga and iyengar yoga.

"Yoga has become a huge part of some people's fitness program. I think it's still new to some of the Lafayette clientele, but Lafayette has changed so much in the time I've been gone," Bulliard says.

She says her classes focus on strength and endurance.

"My classes have a lot of heat -- a lot of sweat. It's the opportunity to go really deep and feel absolutely amazing," Bulliard says.

But as many local yoga fans know, yoga studios aren't the only places in town to take classes.

Jerry Smith Guidry has been teaching yoga in the Lafayette area for about 17 years. Guidry is the yoga instructor at Red's, but also offers week-long yoga retreats in far-away locales like Costa Rica and Mexico.

She says she's watched the community adjust its perception of yoga over the years.

"The real more macho type men who wouldn't have considered it in the past are now realizing you can actually get a good workout doing yoga," Guidry says. "In the past people thought yoga was for long-legged flexible young ladies. Now they're realizing there's more to it than that."

Guidry calls what she teaches "vinyasa."

"That's not a certain school. It means a series of a flow. It comes from ashtanga yoga. They use certain movements almost as transition. It's what power yoga uses. It's a very physical practice. It's also a very spiritual practice," Guidry says.

She's hopes the community can support the current wave of interest in yoga.

"Studios around here have had a hard time. We had four studios close in one year a few years back," Guidry says. "But yoga is alive and well and probably will be around another 5,000 years."