Dr. Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500, YACEP The best place where you can practice yoga is in a clean area where you can indulge in fresh air and silence. This combination will enhance your concentration and make you become more aware of what you are doing. When practicing yoga in an outdoor place, you must ensure that you are free from insects and cold winds. Never practice yoga under direct sunlight or when you have just finished sun bathing.
To some people Ashtanga is the physical origin of vinyasa flow, but to others it is the physical limb of Raja Yoga. There is truth to both sides of the story, but I will briefly try to answer the question: “What is Ashtanga?”
Yoga is a way of living and not a religion; it aims to have a healthy mind and a healthy body. We are all in a mental, physical and spiritual being. It helps us to promote balanced development of the three aspects. Another form of physical awareness is to exercise, which can only assure only physical well-being, yoga comes in a different way.
Good yoga teaching encompasses a wide range of skills and knowledge. The best yoga teachers are often “naturals,” having an innate ability to reach students in a positive, uplifting manner. However, many important teaching skills and methods can be learned. The most successful teachers are constantly self-evaluating, observing peers, and continually striving to make themselves more effective. Observation in itself is somewhat of an art, with different methods appropriate for various situations. When evaluating other yoga instructors, it is important to focus the observation on a particular skill or method.
Many Yoga instructors are paid according to the number of students that attend their classes. Instructors who are hired by a corporation typically make a flat rate of pay. Corporations usually pay regularly and on a predictable date. When teaching a course at a company, Yoga teachers receive a consistent amount of pay they can count on.
Yoga is well known for its health and spiritual benefits, and many people wish to take advantage of it. This leads to a huge diversity of age and ability within beginning and intermediate levels of Yoga practice. It is essential that Yoga teachers, interns, and students be aware of and educated about safe guidelines and techniques for all practitioners of this popular discipline.
The great thing about yoga practice is that it does not have to require a large amount of time. It is true that some yoga pose routines may be done for hours and can involve deep meditation and concentration, but once teens learn the basic techniques, yoga can be easily incorporated into their busy schedule.
There are just so many things to distract our mind and thoughts and make us lose focus off things that really and truly matter in our lives. Also, apart from that, our mind has this tendency to wander, daydream, get lost in fantasy, fret about future, relive past moments of happiness, etc. Although these may not seem to be harmful enough at first, they actually are, because a wandering mind serves to disconnect us from our body, and therefore from the present moment. Yoga recognizes this problem and many of the yogic relaxation practices and techniques are therefore geared towards helping us retain focus, develop a trained mind and achieve a real communion with our body and our true inner self.
By Gopi Rao Is it possible to add mindfulness meditation to a yoga class? Many argue that mixing two healing modalities is not “pure yoga.” On the other hand, yoga has been evolving and absorbing modalities over many thousands of years. We have always practiced breath awareness meditation in many styles of yoga…and guess what? …
Yoga Nidra is a wonderful way to relax the mind; it is a more relaxing than sleep; it is the place of true reality; it is here that we as humans become all-knowing and have no feelings of judgment. Practicing Yoga nidra once or twice daily will create longevity.