Yoga For Your Basic Fitness

Yoga is rooted in India, and it’s gone international but do any of us know what it really means as a form of fitness?  The various movements or “asanas” as we have all seen, seem to involve twisting and turning the body in various ways. To some it would seem impossible and they turn away. They would be wrong to do that without understanding what it is.

The root Sanskrit word “yuj” means “to join”. Join what, would be the obvious question. Holding those poses would require certain faculties to be engaged and here is where you will get your answer. It is only through a “joining” of your mind, your body and your spirit that one would be able to learn and finally master the asanas.

There are various forms of yoga, from simple to complex.

• Hatha yoga
  This form focuses on holding static poses with breath control and it is slow paced.
• Vinyasa yoga
  This form focuses on various lunging, bending and stretching movements, which require balance, strength and flexibility with breath control. It is done at a slightly faster pace.
• Ashtanga yoga
  This form involves a series of set poses done in a faster pace, requiring strength, balance and flexibility, mind control, breath control and tons of discipline to execute and is done only by those who have been practicing yoga for many years.

A few other forms have been created by modern gurus, but rest assured, the above mentioned forms are perfect and enough in themselves.

Keeping oneself fit for life is a demanding but rewarding process as anyone who does it everyday will agree.  Choosing a form for oneself is the hard part. So here’s why you won’t be wrong if you choose yoga!

Firstly, Yoga requires immense CONCENTRATION in order to move through and hold the asanas. What could be better than that to develop your mental faculties that can help you in your work and daily life?

The poses require you to have fairly good FLEXIBILITY in order to twist and turn as the asanas are complicated in the postures.

Some asanas require you to hold poses for a certain length of time, so MUSCLE  STRENGTH and MUSCLE ENDURANCE develop.

Many poses, in the slightly more advanced forms, require you to sometimes be on one leg or one arm, so a high degree of BALANCE and CORE STRENGTH is a must.

You require to breathe deeply and rhythmically to oxygenate all your muscles while you hold the poses. That needs BREATH CONTROL. So proper breathing becomes second nature to you. If we think about it, we are sometimes breathing less and sometimes more, as the various levels and types of stress of life affect us.

As you start, progress and get better, you will then be able  to move through all the sequences faster, so AGILITY develops and with it the cardiovascular effect gets better. You can repeat the sequences as many time as as possible so  CARDIOVASCULAR ENDURANCE gets better too. Weight loss, if you are looking for that, will definitely happen

In order to integrate all of the above requirements together so that you can, with practice, begin to hold and enjoy all the asanas easily in a smooth flow of movement, you need to have the DISCIPLINE to be able to bring your mind, body and spirit together.  Once you achieve that, yoga is a brilliant form of holistic fitness that is great for anyone, anywhere. Whatever other exercises you may choose to do is up to you. But as a BASIC  form of FITNESS FOR LIFE, you can’t go wrong if you choose yoga.  It is MEDITATION in action!

Your life itself becomes calmer, more in your control, so less stress and a happier, healthier you.

So go for it!  Start today and you’ll never regret it !!