Yoga through Exercise
September 10, 2011 § Leave a comment
– Sri Swami Sivanandahttp://www.sivananda.org/History of Yoga – What is Yoga?
Today, many people are taking up yoga techniques for physical exercise, and most don’t know the history of yoga. They believe there is nothing wrong with implementing this form of exercise into their daily regiment to promote a more healthy body.However, the practice of yoga is much more than a system of physical exercise for health. Yoga is an ancient path to spiritual growth, and originates out of India where Induism is practiced. The practice and goal of yoga dates back to the Upanishads, written between 1000-5000 BC.http://www.allaboutspirituality.org/history-of-yoga.htm
|1. Hindu discipline: a Hindu discipline that promotes spiritual unity with a supreme being through a system of postures and rituals|
|2. system of exercise: a system or set of breathing exercises and postures derived from or based on Hindu yog|
|[Late 18th century. < Sanskrityogaḥ “union”][15th century. Directly or via French< Latin union-“oneness” <unus “one”]|
Yoga Poses for Beginners: How-to, Tips, Benefits, Images, Videos
Comprehensive Intro Guide & Pose Library
I recommend seeing your medical practitioner and chiropractor if needed before starting this program. [Kathy]
Our Yoga Poses for Beginners library serves as a comprehensive intro guide to the most popular yoga poses and sequences, featuring images and videos with how-to instructions and tips from Michael Taylor Strala Yoga in New York City.
Becoming familiar with and learning these beginner poses should get you through a class in any of the types of yoga styles. The beginners pose library also serves as a great learning tool and reference guide as you continue to develop your yoga practice. Stay tuned as we’ll be continually adding new poses, sequences, and videos on a regular basis.
Seated Yoga Poses – Grounding and calming, these poses provide some of our deepest muscle opening and twisting.
Standing Yoga Poses – Good for strength, balance and focus. These energetic poses provide a straight line to shaping our best body.
Arm Balances – These yoga poses are good for strength, body awareness and focus, providing some fun challenges for every body.
Backbends – Opening up in the spine and chest feels great and strengthens our connection to intuition.
Inversions – Good for balance and concentration, as well as circulation.
Core Poses – These poses will strengthen your core and get your abs beach ready!
Yoga Poses for Weight Loss – These poses will help you shed unwanted pounds!
Restorative Poses – These yoga poses are great for winding down and connecting to our breath.
Yoga Poses for Back Pain – Whether the origins are some acute injury or long-term stress, there are a few simple poses that can help with back pain.
Through the practices of yoga, we discover that concern for the happiness and well being of others, including animals, must be an essential part of our own quest for happiness and well being. The fork can be a powerful weapon of mass destruction or a tool to create peace on Earth. ” Sharon Gannon
“ You cannot do yoga. Yoga is your natural state. What you can do are yoga exercises, which may reveal to you where you are resisting your natural state. ”Sharon Gannon
“ A photographer gets people to pose for him. A yoga instructor gets people to pose for themselves. ” T. Guillemets
“ In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice they are not. ” Yogi Berra
“ Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built. ” Rumi
“ When the breath wanders the mind also is unsteady. But when the breath is calmed the mind too will be still, and the yogi achieves long life. Therefore, one should learn to control the breath. ” Hatha Yoga Pradipika
“ You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside. ” Mr. Yoga
“ Before you’ve practiced, the theory is useless. After you’ve practiced, the theory is obvious. ” David Williams
“ The most important pieces of equipment you need for doing yoga are your body and your mind. ” Rodney Yee
“ REAL Peace is always unshakable… ‘Bliss is unchanged by gain or loss’ ” Yogi Bhajan
“ Yoga has a sly, clever way of short circuiting the mental patterns that cause anxiety. ” Baxter Bell
“ Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured. ” B.K.S. Iyengar
“ Change is not something that we should fear. Rather, it is something that we should welcome. For without change, nothing in this world would ever grow or blossom, and no one in this world would ever move forward to become the person they’re meant to be. ” anon
“ Yoga, an ancient but perfect science, deals with the evolution of humanity. This evolution includes all aspects of one’s being, from bodily health to self realization. Yoga means union – the union of body with consciousness and consciousness with the soul. Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a balanced attitude in day to day life and endows skill in the performance of one’s actions. ”B.K.S. Iyengar
Yoga Quotations ~ Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured. ~B.K.S. Iyengar
~ Yoga is bodily gospel. ~Reaven Fields
~ Yoga is the perfect opportunity to be curious about who you are. ~Jason Crandell
~ Yoga is invigoration in relaxation. Freedom in routine. Confidence through self control. Energy within and energy without. ~Ymber Delecto
~ The most important pieces of equipment you need for doing yoga are your body and your mind. ~Rodney Yee
~ Yoga is the cessation of mind. ~Patanjali
~ You cannot do yoga. Yoga is your natural state. What you can do are yoga exercises, which may reveal to you where you are resisting your natural state. ~Sharon Gannon
~ Yoga is possible for anybody who really wants it. Yoga is universal…. But don’t approach yoga with a business mind looking for worldly gain. ~Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois
~ Yoga is the practice of quieting the mind. ~Patanjali
~ This yoga should be practiced with firm determination and perseverance, without any mental reservation or doubts. ~Bhagavad Gita
|What is Yoga? http://hinduism.about.com/bl-yoga-define.htm|
|Yoga for Beginners|
Yoga is one of the most ancient cultural heritage of India. The wordyoga in Sanskrit means “to unite”, and so yoga can be said to connote a unitive discipline. In this sense it is an exercise in moral and mental cultivation that generates good health (arogya), contributes to longevity (chirayu), and the total intrinsic discipline culminates into positive and perennial happiness and peace. Therefore, yoga is the said to be indispensable of the ultimate accomplishment in life. It is a science that affects not only the conscious self but the subconscious as well. It is a practical physiological training (kriya yoga), which if practiced can exalt man to the ‘supra mundane level’.
What Yoga Is Not
There are too many misconceptions clouding the science of Yoga. People perceive it to be some kind of black or white magic, sorcery, physical or mental debauchery through which miraculous feats can be performed. For some it is an extremely dangerous practice which should be limited to only those who have renounced the world. Few others think it to be a kind of mental and physical acrobatism that is compatible only to a Hindu mind.
What Yoga Really Is
Yoga is an all-embracing way of life, a science of self-culture and mental discipline that ensures the purgation of the ignoble in man and brings forth what is most noble in him. It is pertinent to all people irrespective of his caste, creed, sex, and religion. It can be beneficial to all – the good and the bad, the sick and the healthy, the believer and the non-believer, the literate and the ignorant, the young and the old. A person may begin at any age and can go on reaping its benefits.
The Origin of Yoga
Yoga had its genesis in the wandering ascetics who sought the solitude of the forests to practice this ancient science and then imparted their knowledge to the ardent students (mumuksu) who lived in their ashrams. The ancient yogins were possessive about this art form and did not make any effort to popularize yoga. The yogic postures and the subsequent stages of yoga were handed down only to the deserving students. Hence, this science remained limited to the confines of the forests or remote caves.Very little was known about this Vedic practice until the Yoga Institute of Santa Cruz, Mumbai was founded in 1918, which became India’s oldest technical institute on Yoga.