Advice On Yoga
posted on 04/16/2009
The best thing about yoga is that it improves the body, mind, and soul. The workout will go through a 3 stages: warm up, work out, and relaxation. Each stage has a purpose and allows the body to leave the session feeling active and refreshed.
The warm up stage will generally involve stretches that engage muscles in your neck and core. An example of this is the neck stretch in which you lean your neck from side to side releasing tension in the base of the skull, along the spine, and in the upper shoulders. Next will generally come the core engaging positions such as folded chair, swan dive into monkey, and sunrise salutation.
The middle section of the session is the work out. For the basic yoga class this will generally involve combinations of sunrise salutation, swan dive, lunge, downward dog, cobra, downward dog, lunge, monkey, back to folded chair, and then up again. Repeating this several times is a good basic beginning to any yoga work out. Later on in the work out it is good to incorporate positions that deal solely with building a strong core. Examples of these are: bridge, camel, Purvottanasana,, etc.
There are several different components of yoga that serve for relaxation and meditation. After the workout section most instructor's will take you through a series of combinations meant to give focus and relieve the stress of the outside world. During this time the lights are generally dimmed or turned off entirely (if they have not been already) and you will be asked to focus on each individual muscle group. At this time it is best to breathe through each stretch as to provide optimum relief. This is a great time to concentrate on channeling negative energy out of your body as to allow the mind to find the door way to well-being.
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