POWER YOGA
What do Miley Cyrus, Julia Roberts, Michele Obama and the All Blacks rugby team have in common? Yes, they all practice yoga.
But what is Yoga and why is it so popular? Yoga is a series of very precise postures and movements that are designed to improve the body in numerous areas. There is an almost endless variety (over 908). But Yoga is not a religion. To really grasp this, we should understand where Yoga comes from. Yoga is a 5000-year-old discipline from India, developed by a bunch of Hindu men who sat in meditation for hours and hours. For weeks and months and years they sat and chanted and read and talked, rarely standing or walking. It probably didn`t take long for them to realize that as they tried to improve their minds and souls, they were absolutely neglecting their bodies. Clearly, their weak muscles, stiff joints and poor balance needed to be improved, so they invented a system that combined meditation, self-discovery and seriously hardcore exercise, all in one. They invented Yoga, which in Sankrit means Union (harnessing together).
It`s almost like Yoga was designed for modern day life – there are so many people with inactive desk jobs, daily locking their bodies into gargoyle-like lumps of stiff weakness. Yes, more than 90 percent of people come to Yoga for flexibility and stress relief. But while many people think Yoga is essentially a stretching regimen, it`s much, much more. It can decrease your cholesterol, it improves health problems including chronic pain, fatigue, obesity, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, poor blood circulation and osteoporosis. It improves your immune system, AND it can change your heart – and now we`re not just talking about blood pressure…
Yoga helps manage anxiety and depression, enhances focus, inspires a better sleeping pattern, increases happiness and gives a sense of accomplishment. It`s your health potion, your buff, your chance to relax, AND it`s fun! Where else can you stand on one leg and pretend you`re a tree? It teaches you about yourself – how you handle the frustration of falling for the sixth time when trying Crane Pose, how well you resist the temptation to stop when holding One-legged Pidgeon Pose for 120 agonizing seconds. Yoga reconnects your mind and body into a beautiful, self-aware, ever-improving whole.
My guess is you have three questions…
One: Why offer Pilates AND Yoga at the same studio? Easy answer: Pilates classes focus on strength, muscle toning, body control, and precision, with the main emphasis being core strength. Yoga, on the other hand, focuses on flexibility and broad muscle groups. It offers balance, endurance, strength with a huge emphasis on mindfulness – using your mind to properly move your body.
Two: Should you practice Yoga or Pilates? Why choose one when you can have flexibility AND a flat tummy???
Three: What if you want to try Yoga but don`t believe in talk about enlightenment, spirit and the rest of it? That`s okay too. Yoga doesn`t discriminate, it`s not a dogma, it`s accessible to everyone, no matter what you look like, how old you are, how much you weigh or what your religion is. The bottom line is learning to quiet your mind and fine-tune your attention. Yoga let`s you tune in, chill out, shape up – it`s more than a workout – actually, it`s a WORK-IN!!!
See you at Yoga Zone!