En el estudio de yoga y más allá

Wondering how to celebrate International Day of Yoga this year? Here’s some inspiration to help you get the best of this festivity from the comfort of your own home.

Our body is a mini world made of five elements, Agni (Fire), Vayu (Air), Akasha (Aether), Bhumi (Earth) and Jala (Water); and when there is disturbance in these elements, it can lead to an imbalanced mind and cause our body to suffer from diseases. 

After many years of teaching yoga, I found out that these are the 4 most common injuries related to bad habits on the mat.

Yoga can do wonders for your body. The fact that you have made the decision to start learning this form of exercise is a wonderful step in the right direction. Yoga does not only provide many health benefits, flexibility, and control, it may even help with weight loss.​

“Half an hour’s meditation every day is essential, except when you are busy. Then a full hour is needed.” - Saint Francis de Salles (erstwhile Bishop of Geneva).

Yoga may not be a type of cardio workout, but it is similar to some exercise routines in a way that it involves lots of turning and twisting. Because of this, you may experience stomachache, gas, and cramping if you don’t properly choose the foods that you eat before a yoga session.

As a yoga teacher, I see a lot of my students face the same problems – stiff neck, hunched back, and chronic lower back pain. These problems are extremely common today as we spend much of our day staring at a computer screen, often sitting in a position that is harmful to our body. Even as we log off our computers, we pick up another gadget that requires us to slouch – our phones. 

Yoga is one of the most effective health boosters. Together with normalizing weight, regulating blood circulation and improving posture, it also brings positive psychological changes, such as better sleep and mood improvement. 

The meaning of the word “yoga” has become synonymous with the “physical discipline of being fit.” Despite this common conception, yoga’s primordial philosophical and spiritual concepts are still being practiced today through the different yoga poses.

I recall, many years ago, having attended a yoga class where the yoga teacher spoke in great detail about chakras. “What on earth is she going on about?” I thought to myself, getting more confused by the minute as the teacher mentioned Sanskrit terms, one after another. 

Over the weekend, I initiated a yoga session with my fellow yogi friends in a setting that was different to the one that we’ve been used to – the beach. It was a nice day to go out and seeing how close we all lived to the beach, it would have been silly not to take advantage of Mother Nature and get a dose of vitamin Sea.

Whether you believe it or not, the food you consume makes up an important part of your yoga practice. The very basis of yoga is the principle of ahimsa, which means non-violence. This is the reason why so many yogis are also vegetarians and vegans.

As a yoga teacher, there may come times where you would use Sanskrit terms during class, whether you like it or not. This is because it is often the case where most Sanskrit words don’t have an English equivalent that fully explains the meaning of the terms.