This article gives a general overview of yoga as a fitness program, discipline, and even a way of life. I’ll briefly describe what to expect in beginning yoga and your work on the mat. I’ll also highlight the more specific types of yoga which I will cover in other articles within this series.
I strongly encourage new-comers of all fitness levels to try out yoga and overcome any trepidation because it is really about self-acceptance and unity. The flexibility, strength, and stamina one receives in the repeated practice of yoga poses benefits the athlete tremendously in whatever sport they engage in. I happen to believe that it neutralizes and can seemingly even reverse the aging process to some degree.
The years and the earth’s gravitational pull take quite a toll on a person’s bones and muscles. Our habits of sitting at a desk and having incorrect posture are all negative forces which yoga poses work to counteract. I have several problem areas such as a scoped knee, a wrist with mild carpal tunnel syndrome, a precarious lower back, and very tight hamstrings from a lot of running and hiking. I’ve had no shortage of cognitive maladies either.
Through the patient tutelage of a magnificent teacher where I practice at Northern Lights Yoga here in Helena, Montana; most of those aches and pains that I was previously resigned to just accept as a result of an active life, have greatly diminished and even disappeared. Yoga also helps to alleviate my restless leg syndrome.
Your body will decay but your mind never has too. The scientists who study the brain have known for some time that it is elastic, always capable of learning, improving, and perhaps most importantly - that it can pull out of old ruts and create new grooves known in Sanskrit as samskara. So the neuroscientists have finally caught up with information that Yogis gleaned centuries ago. And yoga is all about creating new grooves in the mind which promote a higher level of awareness, attention, and gratitude. A friend of mine who has been teaching it for years calls it “investing in the subtleties.”