If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

When you begin practicing yoga, one thing that you must consider (and many people forget this step until it’s too late) is what you’ll wear. Yoga is unlike most exercises in that you will find yourself in many different positions in a single routine. Therefore, the clothing you’ll need must be comfortable and won’t create problems as you move in unconventional ways. Wearing the correct kind of clothing is especially important when you begin going to a yoga class. Fortunately, since yoga is becoming more and more popular, many clothing companies offer a wide variety of products made just for yoga.

Consider Your Body Type

Choose yoga clothing that is comfortable for your body when you are moving. Clothing that is too tight may “ride up” and shift uncomfortably as your limbs rub against one another. You also want clothing that makes you feel good about your body-no matter what your shape or size, you don’t want to spend the entire class feeling self-conscious because you think your pants make you look fat. In all honesty, everyone is probably too engrossed in class to notice what you are wearing, but poor clothing can be a mental block and prevent you from learning.

Organic Cotton Yoga Top

Organic Cotton Yoga Pant

Embarrassing Choices

Poor clothing choices can also be embarrassing. Remember that yoga involves inverting your body in many cases. Clothing that is too loose can sag or fall, revealing excess amounts of your body. This is embarrassing for you and makes others in the class uncomfortable. Clothing that is too tight can be stretched too far and rip during class. Tight clothing can also be too revealing if there are members of the opposite sex enrolled in your yoga class. Be respectful of those around you and stay covered as much as possible while still feeling comfortable.

Yoga Sweat

Yoga is an exercise, and like all exercises, you will sweat. Take this into consideration when choosing the fabric that you want to wear. Some fabric absorbs sweat more readily than others do, allowing you to remain dry during your workout, at least to some extent. If your clothing is wet, it could be dangerous to attempt some positions, and the same is true if your clothing is too loose.

If you aren’t sure what clothing to wear, practice some of the basic and inverted positions at home in various outfits and choose the one that is most comfortable. Your teacher or an advanced student may also be able to offer advice. Yoga clothing is an important thing to consider when beginning a yoga class.

Popularity: 78% [?]

Share This

Like the term “Hatha,” Vinyasa Yoga can be used to refer to a number of class types. As a specific type of yoga, it refers to yoga with poses that flow into each other consistent with the breathing. This breathing-oriented flow of poses makes it swift and vigorous in most cases. This is included in Ashtanga yoga (better known as “Power yoga”).

In reference to poses, Vinyasa can describe the poses performed between repeats of “Downward Facing Dog” in a Sun Salutation: Plank, “Four Limbed Staff”, and “Upward Facing Dog”.

To enter the Plank pose from Downward Facing Dog, bring your torso forward until your body is straight and your shoulders are directly over your wrists (comparable to a push-up position). Press down firmly through your forearms and hands, widen your shoulder blades, and press back through the heels, regardless of whether your heels touch the floor or not. Make sure your neck stays in line with your spine. Once you’ve mastered it, you can try performing the pose with one leg lifted at a time.

From Plank, enter the Four Limbed Staff by bending your arms straight back, hugging your upper arms to your sides. Lower yourself to the floor until your forearms and upper arms are at a right angle, keeping your body level throughout. Push back on your heels while pressing into your palms. (Beginners can leave their knees on the floor until they build the strength to hold up their bodies.) Once you’ve mastered this pose, you can try shifting into this pose while leaving one leg up from the advanced Plank pose.

To progress into Upward Facing Dog, tuck in your toes to roll over your feet as you come forward. Don’t let your thighs touch the floor. Keep the legs tensed and off the floor, pressing into the floor with the tops of your feet and with your palms. Make sure your shoulders remain over the wrists, and drop your hips. Beginners might find it easier to transition by dropping their thighs to the floor, flipping their feet over one at a time, then raising their legs again to move into Upward Facing Dog.

These beginner yoga poses require concentration to master. Many beginners find it difficult to master these poses, much less to do them swiftly in time to breathing, which is where the difficulty in Vinyasa Yoga arises.

Popularity: 69% [?]

Share This

Yoga is a science; and indeed, in many places in the world (such as India), it is referred to as a science. This is not mere playing with words; it truly is approached as a science, which means that it is understood in terms of the scientific method.

Yogic science seeks to verify cause and effect, and build principles based upon objective observations. Indeed, in many places in the world, to be a yogic master of any credibility, one must be highly educated in the sciences, including physics and the biological sciences.

This discussion on yoga as science is important for us to have here, because it allows us to sensible ask the question: what are the benefits of yoga? After all, if yoga is a faith or a belief, then asking this question isn’t fair; because it’s one that yoga cannot answer in terms that we can objectively understand.

Yoga is a science; as empirical and pragmatic as kinesiology, or exercise science, which seeks to understand how the body acts and reacts to changes in the internal physical environment. And even more simply than any of this: each of us has a right to ask the basic question why should I bother doing this yoga thing? before we should be asked to consider experiencing it for ourselves.

Indeed, while the experience of yoga cannot be reduced to words – just as reading a book on preparing for a marathon isn’t going to actually physically prepare you to run a marathon – the goals and principles of yoga can easily be discussed.

Here’s the Mayo Clinic’s take on the benefits of meditation:

“Meditation is used by people who are perfectly healthy as a means of stress reduction. But if you have a medical condition that’s worsened by stress, you might find the practice valuable in reducing the stress-related effects of allergies, asthma, chronic pain and arthritis, among others.”

Yoga involves a series of postures, during which you pay special attention to your breathing — exhaling during certain movements and inhaling with others. You can approach yoga as a way to promote physical flexibility, strength and endurance or as a way to enhance your spirituality.

The Mind-Body Connection

Yoga is centered on the mind-body connection. This mind-body harmony is achieved through three things:

postures (asanas)
proper breathing (pranayama)
meditation

Mind and body draw inspiration and guidance from the combined practices of asanas, breathing, and meditation. As people age (to yogis, ageing is an artificial condition), our bodies become susceptible to toxins and poisons (caused by environmental and poor dietary factors).

Yoga helps us through a cleaning process, turning our bodies into a well synchronized and well-oiled piece of machinery.

Physical Benefits

By harmonizing these three principles, the benefits of yoga are attained. And just what are these benefits?

equilibrium in the body’s central nervous system
decrease in pulse
respiratory and blood pressure rates
cardiovascular efficiency
gastrointestinal system stabilization
increased breath-holding time
improved dexterity skills.
Improved balance
Improved depth perception
Improved memory

Psychological Benefits

As noted above, Yoga also delivers an array of psychological benefits; and in fact, this is a very common reason why people begin practicing it in the first place. Perhaps the most frequently mentioned psychological benefit of yoga is an improved ability to manage stress. Yoga diminishes an individual’s levels of anxiety, depression, and lethargy; thus enabling him/her to focus on what’s spiritual and important: achieving balance and happiness.

Supporting a Healthy Lifestyle

There is some very interesting psychology behind this that students of western thinkers (e.g. Freud, Jung, Fromm, etc.) will find familiar and, indeed, quite rational. When an individual decides to be happy, something within that person activates; a kind of will or awareness emerges. This awareness begins to observe the jungle of negative thoughts that are swimming constantly through the mind.

Rather than attacking each of these thoughts - because that would be an unending struggle! - yoga simply advises the individual to watch that struggle; and through that watching, the stress will diminish (because it becomes exposed and thus unfed by the unconscious, unobserving mind!).

At the same time, as an individual begins to reduce their level of internal negativity, subsequent external negative behaviors begin to fall of their own accord; habits such as excessive drinking, emotional overeating, and engaging in behaviors that, ultimately, lead to unhappiness and suffering.

With this being said, it would be an overstatement to imply that practicing yoga is the easy way to, say, quit smoking, or to start exercising regularly. If that were the case, yoga would be ideal! Yoga simply says that, based on rational and scientific cause and effect relationships that have been observed for centuries, that when a person begins to feel good inside, they naturally tend to behave in ways that enhance and promote this feeling of inner wellness.

As such, while smoking (for example) is an addiction and the body will react to the lessening of addictive ingredients such as tar and tobacco (just to name two of many!), yoga will help the process. It will help provide the individual with the strength and logic that they need in order to discover that smoking actually doesn’t make them feel good.

In fact, once they start observing how they feel, they’ll notice without doubt that instead of feeling good, smoking actually makes one feel quite bad inside; it’s harder to breathe, for one.

Scientists have proven that there is a true physical addiction that is in place, alongside an emotional addiction that can be just as strong; perhaps even stronger. The point here is simply to help you understand that yoga can help a person make conscious living choices that promote healthy and happy living. This can include:

quitting smoking
reducing excess drinking

eating healthier

getting more sleep

reducing stress at work (and everywhere else for that matter)

promoting more harmonious relationships all around

Please remember: yoga doesn’t promise anyone that these things will simply happen overnight. At most, yoga is the light that shows you how messy things in the basement really are; and once that light is on, it becomes much more straightforward - not to mention efficient and time effective - to clean things up!

Emotional Benefits

Yoga has also been hailed for its special ability to help people eliminate feelings of hostility and inner resentment. As a result of eliminating these toxic emotions, the doorway to self acceptance and self actualization opens.

Pain Management Benefits

Pain management is another benefit of yoga. Since pain and chronic pain are conditions that affect all of us at some point, understanding the positive link between yoga and pain management could be invaluable.

It can also be financially valuable, since the pain medication industry is a multi-billion dollar marketplace and many people, especially as they age, find that their insurance or government coverage won’t cover some pharmaceutical and over-the-counter pain relief medications. The website www.lifepositive.com provides some illuminating information on yoga and pain management:

Yoga is believed to reduce pain by helping the brain’s pain center regulate the gate-controlling mechanism located in the spinal cord and the secretion of natural painkillers in the body.

Breathing exercises used in yoga can also reduce pain. Because muscles tend to relax when you exhale, lengthening the time of exhalation can help produce relaxation and reduce tension.

Awareness of breathing helps to achieve calmer, slower respiration and aid in relaxation and pain management. Yoga’s inclusion of relaxation techniques and meditation can also help reduce pain. Part of the effectiveness of yoga in reducing pain is due to its focus on self-awareness.

This self-awareness can have a protective effect and allow for early preventive action.

Real People, Real Benefits

The website www.bikramyogabrooklyn.com provides one very impressive testimonial from an average guy looking to save his own life:

“Bikram Yoga has helped manage my diabetes unbelievably. I have curtailed my insulin injections by 50%. I have lost 30 pounds, completely lost the desires to smoke, drink alcohol and eat junk food. I even wrote a book on how it saved my life called, No More Diabetes, How Yoga Saved my Life.” - John Spanek

Popularity: 71% [?]

Share This