A WAY TO FIND INNER PEACE AND BALANCE
Practical information: Right now, I am not giving yoga lessons, but I am regularly practising it for my own wellbeing. It does wonders, and I couldn’t imagine my life without it. And I wouldn’t want to. 🙂
So here you can find some things I’ve learned about yoga on my own journey. I hope it will give some insights for you that can enrich your life and help you make a decision about what to do next, if that is the reason you want to know more about it.
NEW TO YOGA?
You’ve probably seen videos and photos, heard about asanas (yoga positions) by now, and might have heard the words like hatha, ashtanga, yin, vinyasa, easy flow in connection with yoga if you have looked it up.
What I haven’t seen mentioned on most of the pages though, and possible that it will be not your primary motivation to start, is that yoga is the method of preparing the body for embracing practices leading to higher levels of consciousness, like pranayama (breathwork) or meditation. So it makes absolute sense, that while getting our bodies stronger, the yoga positions and sequences are meant to balance not only our physical, hormonal, nervous systems, but also our emotional, mental and energetic bodies that are in the invisible sphere for our eyes. Yet, we can feel them all the same, some of us more than others, and they all contribute to our mental and physical wellbeing, whether we are conscious of it or not. You don’t have to, and might just skip this part of the introduction, it will work just the same for you.
It is true to every type of yoga, that we have to respect our own boundaries and that of our bodies. Some of us are lenient, others are strong, some of us have hypermobility, which makes us vulnerable to injuries and challenging to strengthen our muscles. One yoga pose can look very differently for each of us, and while there is a guideline as to what to pay attention to, if someone is lenient, it absolutely does not mean that she or he is better at yoga. When practising regularly, it will help you stretch, and depending on the type of yoga you practice, it will also strengthen your muscles. That is a guaranteed result. It will most probably help your mental and emotional balance, as well, and help you relax more deeply. Yet, no matter how many years you practice, if you have an extremely strong and muscular body, you probably never be a back-bending superstar on the trampoline, nor is it the goal of this practice. I may never have that strong muscles as my own teacher had, and he never may be as lenient as I was born to be, but yoga gave us both something beautiful that nothing else could have given: it enriched our lives on physical, mental-emotional and spiritual level. It gave understanding about connections between the visible and invisible world, and still helps us every day to balance, to enrich, to uplift and to nurture our lives.
TYPES OF LESSONS
Hatha
Literally, the word hat-ha means yin and yang, which implies the balance of the feminine and masculine, the passive and the active, the relaxing and strengthening. This is a way of yoga that balances out the amount of relaxation and stretching and challenging ourselves by strengthening our muscles and keeping ourselves growing, both physically and mentally. Very often, it is much more our mind limiting us than our bodies, however, it is crucial to learn to respect our boundaries and nurture our needs in a world that has the tendency of constantly requiring from us to perform, achieve and do better. While doing yoga we are practising self-love and learning to take better care of ourselves, as a whole.
Vinyasa
Many people do not have the patience to start practising yoga, to be honest, it took me decades starting from my first interest and intention until I could really start my regular practice. But when I did, oh boy, did it change me a lot! I felt that after a yoga lesson, my head was all but glowing, and for a day I was snatched from my chaotic mind, was grounded and could work towards my goals with great balance and discipline. Back then, my mind was so busy, I truly needed a physically more intense and challenging practice to be able to snap out of the rust of everyday life. If you recognize yourself in this pattern, Vinyasa might be a good way for you to start, as it is quite intense and physically challenging for most of us. It can be a supplement for a good workout, as many of us appreciate a good sweat during a workout, we can achieve the same thing with yoga, while also surrendering to the well deserved rest at the end. Any type of yoga will activate the parasympathetic nervous system at last, and promote deep and restful sleep. If you have problems sleeping, experience anxiety or stress, yoga can help a lot by relaxing your nervous system and help you achieve a better quality of rest in general. After all, our bodies are here to help us, so by using the possibilities it has to offer, we can exploit its immense self-regenerating capabilities.
Easy Flow
If you are not very strong physically, but still enjoy a lesson where movements flow into each other in a subtle and smooth way, where you can take the time to pay attention to every detail of your movement and can learn easily and lightly, while enjoying the wonders, feelings and sensations of your body, easy flow might be just the thing for you. You won’t work out a sweat, however, you are still engaging in active movement, while enjoying the harmony of the light flow of yoga positions. Calmness soothes you more than spicy and challenging poses, and you enjoy peace and harmony around you. You might be in the more sensitive spectrum among people, and you sure appreciate calmness around you as much as within. This calmness helps you relax and ensures you will end your practice with a big smile that stays with you for long.
Yin
For those of us who love to challenge ourselves with the longest periods of immobility and stretch, yin yoga is a perfect way to be gentle with ourselves, yet enjoy that long awaited stretch for our firm muscles. This is the slowest form of yoga with the least amount of movement, where we often stay in one position for more than 5 minutes. Yet, this is the only way of yoga, that engages and relaxes our connective tissue, which does not get affected by other, more active yoga types. Our connective tissues between our muscles simply need more time and gentle engagement from us to be able to relax, so if you encounter regular back pain, and you don’t be a regular patient at the chiropractor (however it can also be a good combination), a regular yin yoga practice can be a beautiful way for you to relax and help your chronic back pain at the same time.
Ashtanga
When talking about yoga, I do have to mention Ashtanga yoga. However, I am not an Ashtanga teacher myself, I do practice it regularly, and it has a special something in the after effect and repetitiveness of it, why I’ve been keeping practising for years. You might find back its elements in my vinyasa yoga lessons, which also include the dynamic structure of it, but don’t include all the poses. It is a very intense form of yoga, which strengthens the body as much as the mind and the energy bodies. If you are a perpetually moving, constantly on type of person, who is quite strong physically and has a busy mind, this might be a good place to start. In case you are not the lenient type, make sure you are gentle with yourself and don’t overstretch your joints. If you have overachiever and perfectionist tendencies, as I had in the beginning, please be careful and respect the limits of your body. It is the only way not to cause yourself long term joint pain. If we mention the history a bit, this is the only form of yoga I know about that is connected to 3 outspoken persons, and considered their method. This makes Ashtanga yoga very different from other yoga forms. While principally, all yoga forms originate in the Vedas (ancient Sanskrit scriptures of Indian origin), it was T. Krishnamacharya (the teacher of K.P. Jois) who invented the system of Ashtanga, and K. Pattabhi Jois, an Indian yoga guru who developed and popularized Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga further. The latest and presently maybe best known Ashtanga teacher was B.K.S. Iyengar, who developed it even further, and basically invented a more specific type of practice, focusing mainly on the correct alignment of the body, called Iyengar yoga.