Learn About Yoga

When I was 21 I suffered a slipped disc in my lower back. I couldn’t sit down during the acute phase, only lie or stand, though standing itself was uncomfortable at the time. Once the acute phase had passed (with rest, although acupuncture and shiatsu are great), I had the fortune to meet some yoga teachers and I started going to their classes. I started out with Oki yoga, which is a Japanese form of yoga, and very good for healing the body.

I was given a series of correcting and strengthening exercises designed to improve my back and specific to the meridians that were in need of attention in my particular case. Oki yoga has postures classified on how they affect the meridians, which are like energetic pathways within our body. And that was the one thing that helped restore my back completely, to a state that was actually better than it was before I injured myself. When you are suffering an acute injury though, yoga really shouldn’t be attempted until that stage has passed.

That introduction to yoga ignited a deep love of it through which I began to see the more subtle health benefits it brought to my life. Yoga can help with a wide spectrum of physical issues and injuries, but it is also an excellent alternative to the gym for those that find the repetition and distraction of it not to their taste. It is great for toning up your body, whilst gaining flexibility.

Yoga has a reputation for flexibility, and deservedly so. But it can also develop strength. Developing strength is particularly important for women. Women tend to be more flexible than men, but not as strong, unless they have been involved in fitness regularly. But unlike many traditional forms of exercise, yoga also strengthens the inner muscles and organs in our bodies. It makes a great preparation for childbirth!

Yoga also develops discipline. This comes in making the time on a regular basis to either go to classes, or practice yoga in your living room, or in the morning sun in the garden. But there is a more subtle level of discipline. It starts with bringing your mind to focus on your breathing, and then feeling the effects of a posture on your body. This conscious exploration is quite a different experience of fitness than usually seen at the gym – where loud music, televisions and other external stimuli fight for your attention. You won’t see people with headphones on, or reading a magazine, whilst doing yoga.

This conscious exploration establishes a relationship with your body, and its importance cannot be overstated. So often, parts of us are frozen, or numb in some ways. This can express physically as pain, coldness, or stiffness. Energetically, it is as though despite trying to concentrate on an area, we just cannot feel connected to it.

In a more subtle way, when we feel the points of resistance within our body as we do a pose – when we breathe into that stiffness, and sometimes pain, we develop a resilience and mental fortitude. Yoga does, of course, help with concentration. But that process of releasing and going beyond the point of physical limitation is not limited to the body. It develops a quiet confidence and knowledge about one’s own capacity that is not held back by the boundaries we may have falsely believed about ourselves before. With a yoga practice, we can get back in touch with what yogi’s call our dharma, our purpose in life. And we find in ourselves, by virtue of our growing strength, the courage to follow that path.

And finally, a quote from a yoga teacher from Sydney, Australia, Eileen Hall, printed in the Australian Yoga Life magazine:

“Yoga is not about relaxation, it’s not about losing weight, it’s not about learning meditation. It’s about discovering the divine being within ourselves.”

References: Yoga Journal, November 2005
Australian Yoga Life, Nov 2005 – Mar 2006

About the Author

If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of yoga, click here: http://www.yogatohealth.com/benefits_of_yoga.html The article talks about the psychological, physiological, and biochemical benefits a regular yoga practice can bring. Rebecca Prescott runs the website http://www.yogatohealth.com

Written By: Rebecca Prescott

Did you know that over fifteen million people practiced yoga in 2003, according to a landmark study by Yoga Journal Magazine. And the numbers are expected to increase dramatically in subsequent years. Your own experiences probably confirm this study maybe you practice yoga, know someone who does, or just take a walk along any busy main street – your bound to see someone carrying a yoga mat. In fact you cant even open a magazine or newspaper without finding an article about yoga. So, how does a 5000-year-old spiritual practice become todays hottest mind/body trend?

Perhaps the best way to understand yogas popularity is to go right to the people who practice it. If you ask them why, some of the more common replies you might hear are flexibility, increased energy, improved focus, reduction of the symptoms associated with stress, and an overall good feeling. The fact is that yoga can have a rejuvenating effect on all systems of the body including the circulatory, glandular system, digestive, nervous, skeletal/muscular, reproductive system and respiratory system.

On a physical level according to the U.S. Dept. on Aging there four components to good physical health: Strength, flexibility, balance, aerobic capacity. It is interesting to note that yoga can accomplish all these things and no fancy piece of equipment is needed other than your own body and a yoga mat.

Over the last 100 years our lives have become very fast paced: cell phones, computers, internet, television. This along with a strong work ethic often results in people out of balance people experiencing a lot of stress. Consequently, there is a strong need to de-stress – to quiet our minds and rejuvenate our bodies. And yoga helps achieve this helping us return to a state of balance and health.

Yoga brings us into the moment it is very difficult to practice and be thinking about what happened at work today or the party tomorrow night. Becoming present
in itself is a great release from stress. At its best, yoga meets the student where they are so it is adjusted to the students level and capacity. That doesnt mean it is particularly easy or particularly challenging it can be either or both on any given day.

Then there is the therapeutic component. Yoga can be used successfully with conditions such as insomnia, back problems, digestion problems, asthma, improving circulation, anxiety, weight loss, just to name a few.

Basically yoga is non competitive; it is not about winning or losing you can go at your own rate. Of course people still compete with themselves though and compare their posture to others in class.

In addition many of us are yearning for something more. Many of us have shied away from organized religion yet seek a spiritual practice that connects us to ourselves as well as something larger a spiritual practice that is non-dogmatic, without many rules. While most of the yoga practiced in health clubs is primarily the physical aspects of yoga the philosophical side seeps in. And for those that want to learn more about the philosophy of yoga information and classes are readily available to them. At its simplest level yoga quiets the mind and opens the body setting the stage for withdrawing deeper inside oneself to a place of peace, a place of balance, a place of health. It is here where the divine within us can be more easily discovered.

There are many different styles of yoga and it never needs to be boring – it can be slow and gentle, it can challenge your strength, it can be aerobic or vigorous or it can be very introspective. There is as style to match most personalities. There is yoga for seniors, pre-natal yoga, postnatal yoga, power yoga, gentle yoga, etc. There are classes that focus on back care, yoga done in groups and one-on-one, privately with an instructor. The yogic scriptures say there are some 84,000 postures and variations. The field of yoga is huge and there is always, always something new to learn.

The media has also helped spread the message of yoga and the fact the celebrities like Madonna and Sting practice yoga doesnt hurt either!

About the Author

Howard VanEs, M.A. has been studying and practicing yoga for over thirteen years and is a certified yoga teacher teaching in the East Bay area of San Francisco. He is author of “Beginning Yoga: A Practice Manual”, co-creator of the audio CD “Shavasana / Deep Relaxation”. He is also a former psychotherapist. http://www.letsdoyoga.com email: info@letsdoyoga.com 510-587-3399

Written By: Howard VanEs