Insight > For The Love Of Yoga

I love yoga for its versatility and flexibility, vastness and simplicity, intensity and ease. Yoga can be curative and restorative. Yoga enables you to use the power of your body optimally, in turn leading the body towards optimal health. 

There literally is something in yoga that everyone can do. And I learnt this only by experience. I went through a phase when i had given yoga a rather long break in my life. So while my body was still quite flexible, my muscles had lost considerable strength. Every time I got back to an intense yoga practice, I landed with a mild muscle injury. Although the injury was mild enough to be cured only with adequate rest, it was painful enough to keep me away from practicing yoga for a few days. This went on for almost a year.

This is when I truly realised the flexibility of Yoga. Instead of refraining from yoga altogether due to a muscle strain,  I started designing practises for myself that included asanas that didn't require any movement or pressure on the strained muscles. For example, with a strained intercostal muscle in the chest, I focussed on asanas for the lower body and the core, without any pressure on the chest muscles. When I strained a muscle in the hip/thigh, I focussed on asanas on the upper body, and so on. The vast choice of asanas, along with umpteen variations, made it possible for me to practice a full hour of yoga without overstraining the already strained muscles. This choice of practice not only made it possible for me to practice yoga regularly, it also slowly started building strength in my muscles. The variety of sequences that I followed also made the entire experience more interesting for me, without falling into a boring repetition.

I like my Yoga practice to leave me feeling energised and refreshed and not groaning with pain unlike some other physical workouts. It has been over a year now that I have not succumbed to any injury due to yoga. Having done my teacher's training helped me in designing balanced sequences for myself. But even if you can't do that, always discuss openly with your yoga teacher and help them to offer sequences that are most suited for you.

Yoga > Steady Hatha or Fluid Vinyasas

For years I oscillated between doing traditional hatha yoga or graceful vinyasas. The former involves holding steady poses to get maximum benefit from them. Vinyasas, on the other hand, involve moving from one asana to another, making it a cardio activity on the physical level, thereby improving stamina as well as balance. 

The grace of getting in and out of a posture comes with fluidity of movement. However, one doesn't have to do vinyasas to experience grace, and even hatha yoga can display beautiful fluidity. Confusing?

In order for a posture to unfold all of its benefits, I need to hold it steadily. For instance, if I am supposed to join my palms in the vrikshasana or keep my knees together in utktasana, I need to keep them together steadily! Being shaky in the knees, or not joining the palms together makes the entire posture a bit shaky. While there is no need to tense the body, scanning the body with awareness often ensures that the posture is steady, and hence, effective.

A yoga session needs to be balanced, whether one is part of a class or practicing on one's own. If, at the end of the session, your entire body is relaxed and refreshed, it shows that the session was balanced.

As exhilarating as I find the surya namaskar, even a seemingly simple yoga sequence can mobilise energy through my body. The deep and beautiful effects of yoga are experienced with this movement of energy (and removal of energy blocks) in my body. This is also why a consistent yoga practice is highly beneficial, because it keeps the energy moving and keeps removing blockages within the energy body.

While I have learnt over time to keep my neck and shoulders relaxed during asana practice, I need to remember subtle things like keeping my tongue, throat and jaw relaxed and soft. Ignoring seemingly unimportant instructions like these can also lead to big physiological problems. And conversely, following these expands and deepens one's awareness, and improves one's asana practice.

Just goes to prove the yoga may look deceptively simple, but with the complex interplay of various muscles, energy movement and mental awareness, yoga really works on body, mind and soul.