This is just not so, outside of Asia. Most people spend most of the day sitting in chairs, cars, airplanes, or on sofas. This eventually leads to tightening of the hip joints. Keep in mind that most of your students walk in the door with tight hips. It is important to stress to everyone during the warm-up to open his or her hips slowly and gently.
When you compare yoga to other types of physical activity, for example, surfing or rock climbing, it would seem yoga would be without incident. However, humans come in all shapes, sizes, and fitness levels. Many students who walk in your door may be recovering from illness or injury. Others may walk through in great physical shape, but harboring deep-seated emotional issues.
Safety, in practicing and teaching Yoga asanas, is very important. The human machine is designed to move, flex, and bend in very specific ways. If you move against that specific design, injury is likely to occur. As the practice of Yoga moves into the mainstream, Yoga classes are taught in a variety of settings to different groups of practitioners.
While yoga is often pursued for its physical benefits, especially in the West, it is much more than a discipline to enhance wellness. From a historical perspective, yoga’s roots are anchored in a quest for spiritual growth.
By: Virginia Iversen, M.Ed, Sangeetha Saran, and Gopi Rao The first step to addressing fear in a Yoga class is to become aware of and tuned into any of your students who may need additional support to be comfortable in class. Through the process of meeting and talking with each one of your students, you will …
Just as Yoga poses (asanas) increase the body’s strength, spiritual exercises increase mental fortitude. Your students live hectic lives filled with emotional stressors. Spiritual Yoga exercises can build up mental reserves, making it easy for your students to navigate the challenges of life. When your students spend several hours a week, communicating with themselves and their Greater Power, they are building up their emotional strength. Your Yoga classes will empower your students to live a more peaceful, enjoyable life.
One Yoga teacher training intern remarked that prana could not be in his mat, since it was an inanimate object. After all, his mat was not a living…
Detoxifying Yoga postures also help to encourage the physical removal of waste products through the lymphatic system, which is one of the primary ways that the body has of cleansing itself. Of course, a balanced, regular practice of Yoga postures and cleansing pranayama exercises helps to detoxify both the body and the mind. By including specific twisting asanas into the sequence of postures that you are teaching in your Yoga class, you will further increase the beneficial detoxifying benefits of the practice.
Many Gurus have helped shape the course of Yoga throughout the course of history. With Yoga being such a vast topic, there are many…
There are no knee-opening poses in yoga, so it is important to take a few precautions, which can not only prevent injury but also strengthen your knee-joint.