Perfecting your yoga practice while keeping the spirit of the beginner yogi
Yoga creates the conditions for letting go by offering countless effective exercises such as postures (asanas), breath control (pranayamas) sitting on a zafu yoga cushion, energy work (mudras, bandhas) and meditation. It is a profound and timeless philosophy of life described by the sage Patanjali in the Yoga-Sutra that gives guidelines for beneficial thought and action to deliver life wisdom. It is an inner freedom rather than a performance that one will seek by practicing yoga.
Whether one is young, middle-aged or old, sick or weak, realization is achieved through the tireless practice of the exercises and all aspects of yoga.
Progressing in flexibility and strength is first and foremost a better awareness of oneself through simple exercises performed on your non-slip yoga mat. To want to carry out complex sequences of yoga too early like the acrobatic yoga harms the mobilized attention. It implies to focus on the alignment to correct itself without taking into account the interior attention that yoga must provide and thus to remain preoccupied by the external form of a posture... : the famous posture you are so eager to post on your Instagram or Facebook profile!
The beginner yogi approaches yoga without preconceived notions. Curious, with an alert mind, open to any new impressions, they think they know the asanas the more you repeat them. When routine sets in, the mind wanders. According to Yoga-Sutra, yoga is the ability to direct the mind exclusively to an object, issue or other element without distraction. To continually re-use the yoga exercises, with or without yoga props, and its philosophy to humbly remain in a lifelong learning situation is the way of hatha yoga.
Hatha-Yoga and Occidental Practices
Hatha yoga is a yoga of energy or prana-yoga that appeared in India around the 8th century AD. The Indian culture, crossed by Tantrism, a revolutionary movement that opposes the priests, develops various techniques to allow the human being to experience through his body, his breath, his senses and his feelings the presence of a God, without intermediary, in his daily life. All the methods of hatha yoga are rooted in the tantric myth of creation and its approach to consciousness.
Most of the yoga classes we have in the West are hatha yoga or its derivatives. Thus, Ashtanga Yoga or Power Yoga, Vinyasa Yoga are physically demanding derivatives of Hatha Yoga. Iyengar Yoga is also one that requires numerous yoga accessoriess such as the block or the yoga strap for postures with impeccable alignments. New forms of yoga have appeared in recent years with Bikram yoga practiced at high temperature, very developed in the United States.
More recently, aerial yoga with specific equipment has also aroused great interest.
According to the currents of hatha-yoga, a dress code can be required that you will find among my yoga clothes for woman in organic cotton and yoga clothes for man
Pilates also borrows many postural and breathing techniques from yoga. For this, Pilates equipment may be required.