Today in modern Yoga classes very little is made of the deeply spiritual history of yoga and it is used as a fitness system more than anything else. However there is also a great deal of evidence from medical studies that it is a very effective stress reduction method too. The combination of raising fitness and reducing stress has made it an extremely popular activity over the last few years. For example in 2005 a US survey by Yoga Journal noted that 16.5 million people were now practising yoga and more recent figures have gone so far as to double that number.

What has been left behind in the rush to fitness and health today is the wonderful union of mind and body, male and female, strength and surrender which the ancient yogis included within their concept of Yoga. This is where the more recent development of interest in Yin (female) Yoga to be practiced alongside the more common active and more masculine Hatha Yoga postures starts to bring back the best of what used to be taken for granted in the ancient yoga practice.

Yin Yoga uses postures which focus on the joints and connective tissues in the body rather than the muscles and skeleton. If one combines the active practice of Ashtanga or Power Yoga with the more meditative form of Yin Yoga you begin to get a flavour of what the old yogis would have been doing so many centuries ago. Yin Yoga helps our joints to stay flexible and the tissues within the body to be irrigated and mobile enough for the layers in the body to glide over one another. Postures are selected carefully and are held for some minutes – up to ten or more in some cases. If this is used alongside the muscle strengthening postures of Power Yoga the practice becomes a wonderful mixture of sun and moon, male and female and takes the student beyond ‘health and fitness’ into a more spiritual practice which can have a profound impact on their Soul and emotional life. It can bring people to questioning their purpose in life and why they think they are here – what they want out of life – and what truly are their priorities. Hatha Yoga practised in the ancient and classical way (with Yin Yoga included within the asana sequence) is a marvellous pathway to the expansion of what it is to be human.

Tags: Health Insurance, Pharmacy, Yoga

This entry was posted on January 21, 2010 at 7:17 am and is filed under Yoga. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.