A short, muscle-bound guy, consternation in his voice: "Yoga?! Super-NOT interested!" I turned just in time to see him shudder. A wild sawing gesture shoulder-high with two hands, a quick-step back, his bullet-head thrust forward: "Itza girly thing! Mumbo-Jumbo!" This last brief fusillade uttered in pure disgust.
I turned away and thought: Well then: Merry Christmas to you, Dunderhead! Christmas vacation. School's out. Not the time for an erudite lesson in Yoga-lore. (Especially not to a muscle-bound-young guy.)
No such luck for you, dear reader. You get the fourteen-sentence-PLUS lesson. Some General Principles:
Yoga is ageless in origin.
Yoga combines art, science, and philosophy.
Yoga conjoins the physical, mental, intellectual.
Yoga includes the spiritual realm as well.
Yoga cannot be fully mastered.
Yoga invites self-discipline, self-mastery.
Yoga presents a unique journey toward personal perfection.
Yoga represents the ultimate walk toward the ever-receding horizon.
Yoga is the ultimate one-size-fits-all discipline.
Yoga invites participation regardless of fitness or level of disability.
Yoga increases strength, enhances flexibility, and promotes balance.
Yoga is endlessly challenging.
Yoga is at once adversarial and peace-inducing:
YOU are the adversary. Peace is hard-won.
Beware, ye faint of heart and muscle-headed.Some Specific Information:
Yoga requires no equipment other than loose-fitting, minimal clothing, an open space -- and an open mind. Sometimes a mat is useful. But a carpet beside your own bed will suffice.
There beside your bed the easy stuff ends and the difficult stuff begins.
As you may vaguely understand, the substance or curriculum of Yoga is built upon a wide variety of exacting physical POSES, or asanas:
standing poses,
sitting poses,
twisting poses,
supine and prone poses
inverted poses,
balancing poses,
back-bends, jumps,
relaxing poses.
My purpose here is not to describe the poses.
My purpose is rather to pique your interest. The practice of yoga goes back perhaps over 3000 years. It speaks and acts for itself. Still, in any bookstore you will find countless books introducing thoughts identifying yoga, picturing myriad poses, startling the eye and mind simultaneously.
Fine yoga instructors abound. Read the classifieds. Ask around. Many instructors permit walk-in, introductory lessons. Typically, classes cost perhaps between five and ten dollars a session. One session a week will prove challenging enough for beginners. Homework sessions will daunt you at first.
I practice every day. But then I've only been practicing forty years. I need more practice!
Yoga is a practice that swiftly becomes a challenge. Beware! Or be hopeful! Yoga penetrates the way one thinks and acts. For the serious practitioner, it becomes a Way of Life. Yet, yoga is strangely gentle and non-intrusive. It changes ones focus. The chief question of life alters subtly from how can I change the world, to how can I change myself?
Nevertheless, an improved self has it's gentle impact upon the world one inhabits. One ultimate lesson of yoga is first things first: he who would improve his world, begins by improving himself.
FIRST, go out to a bookstore and page patiently through the many books on yoga you will find there. The hardest work comes first.
A useful book on yoga? I suggest: Silva, Mira, & Shyam Mehta, Yoga the Iyengar Way: The New Definitive Illustrated Guide, Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.
But any book on yoga that appeals to you will serve. Taken seriously, it will bend you to its will, while at the same time surrendering you to your best possible self.
Yoga is not for sissies. It is for the clean and brave.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I offer you Yoga.
Yoga offers you the
Gift of Self.
sitting poses,
twisting poses,
supine and prone poses
inverted poses,
balancing poses,
back-bends, jumps,
relaxing poses.
Each pose is challenging and daunting. Each requires strength, flexibility, and balance. Each pose promotes and enhances the three physical and mental capacities. (Please note that strength, flexibility, and balance are also significant states of mind.)
My purpose here is not to describe the poses.
My purpose is rather to pique your interest. The practice of yoga goes back perhaps over 3000 years. It speaks and acts for itself. Still, in any bookstore you will find countless books introducing thoughts identifying yoga, picturing myriad poses, startling the eye and mind simultaneously.
Fine yoga instructors abound. Read the classifieds. Ask around. Many instructors permit walk-in, introductory lessons. Typically, classes cost perhaps between five and ten dollars a session. One session a week will prove challenging enough for beginners. Homework sessions will daunt you at first.
I practice every day. But then I've only been practicing forty years. I need more practice!
Yoga is a practice that swiftly becomes a challenge. Beware! Or be hopeful! Yoga penetrates the way one thinks and acts. For the serious practitioner, it becomes a Way of Life. Yet, yoga is strangely gentle and non-intrusive. It changes ones focus. The chief question of life alters subtly from how can I change the world, to how can I change myself?
Nevertheless, an improved self has it's gentle impact upon the world one inhabits. One ultimate lesson of yoga is first things first: he who would improve his world, begins by improving himself.
FIRST, go out to a bookstore and page patiently through the many books on yoga you will find there. The hardest work comes first.
A useful book on yoga? I suggest: Silva, Mira, & Shyam Mehta, Yoga the Iyengar Way: The New Definitive Illustrated Guide, Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.
But any book on yoga that appeals to you will serve. Taken seriously, it will bend you to its will, while at the same time surrendering you to your best possible self.
Yoga is not for sissies. It is for the clean and brave.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I offer you Yoga.
Yoga offers you the
Gift of Self.
Tony and I worked out together this morning. Our cool down involved some simple yoga movements. It was wonderful! I like that you said about flexibility, strength, and balance being both a physical and mental offering of yoga. I can't speak for Tony but I hope to do more yoga this year. Are you taking a class somewhere? I really like Lynn Rogers at Heart of Michigan but she teaches during the day.
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