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What is Yoga?
For thousands of years people have been practicing yoga with
the result of feeling healthier and more at peace with
themselves. They feel better in the physical, as well as the
emotional, body. Originally yoga was practiced in order to
make the body more comfortable for seated meditation.
Yoga is a discipline that means "union". It is the union of
physical practices (asana) and breathing techniques (pranayama)
that brings the body and mind into harmony. Yoga also means
balance.
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Yoga provides an opportunity to let go of everyday life, and
listen to the body. We can prevent illness and injury and
change habits with the inner awareness yoga helps us find.
Sam Dworkis, author of Recovery Yoga, believes "an
appropriate yoga practice is all about...enhancing benefits
while reducing liability." The student simply "needs to
begin the process of moving toward union or balance of
flexibility, strength, and endurance."
Yoga brings our awareness into the present moment, so that
the past and future do not apply. Yoga allows us to pay
attention to "what is", which is "how you feel right now".
Kripalu style of Hatha yoga is concerned with the inner
experience of the posture work. Attention is paid to proper
alignment in poses through the "press point theory" in which
the yoga student presses against a surface to bring the body
into the best alignment of its skeletal structure. The
student first practices willfully being in the pose, and
then practices surrendering in the pose. Yoga becomes a
meditation in motion.
Helpful Yoga Links:
www.kripalu.org
www.integralyoga.net
www.yogafinder.com
www.yogaalliance.org
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