Yoga All-in-One For Dummies®
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2014954660
ISBN 978-1-119-02272-5 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-02275-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-02276-3 (ebk)
Yoga is the ultimate mind-body practice. By its very nature, it leads practitioners around the globe toward greater balance and relaxation. Each yoga pose balances alertness and relaxation. By integrating physical movements, breath, and mindfulness, yoga produces both bodily and mental relaxation. The result? A welcome dose of enhanced well-being, which is one reason why yoga has never been more important. In today’s hectic schedules, seemingly loaded with constant stimulation and stress, yoga can bring balance and even serenity.
Consider Yoga All-in-One For Dummies your complete guide to finding the health and peace of mind that yoga can bring. Whether you’re looking for classic poses and routines, more-modern takes on this ancient practice, or ways to incorporate yoga into your life, this book can get you started and well on your way. After all, at its core, yoga is a timeless answer for anyone seeking deeper meaning in life and that elusive treasure called abiding peacefulness.
Yoga — and its many schools and philosophies — offers a number of mental and physical benefits to those who practice it. Whether you’re interested in becoming more flexible, more fit, less stressed, or more peaceful and joyful, this book contains the guidance you need and the routines that can help you achieve your goals. It takes you step by step into the treasure house of yoga, where you’ll find out how to strengthen your mind and enlist it to unlock your body’s extraordinary potential. A sound body requires a sound mind, and this book shows you how to improve or regain the health and wholeness of both.
To help you fit yoga into your busy schedule, this book is organized in a way that lets you easily find the information you’re looking for. You can read the book from cover to cover, or you can jump in at any section or chapter that interests you. Feel free to skip over the material marked with a Technical Stuff icon and the content in the sidebars; although these bits are interesting, they’re not essential to your being able to practice yoga — or to do so safely. But if you see a Warning icon, take note — these tidbits offer suggestions to keep your yoga practice a safe one.
Within this book, you may note that some web addresses break across two lines of text. If you’re reading this book in print and want to visit one of these web pages, simply key in the web address exactly as it’s noted in the text, pretending as though the line break doesn’t exist. If you’re reading this as an e-book, you’ve got it easy — just click the web address to be taken directly to the web page.
The first assumption that guided the creation of Yoga All-in-One For Dummies was that you’re looking for sound information about yoga in a no-nonsense presentation. Beyond that, here are a few other assumptions about you and the kind of information you want:
www.dummies.com/extras/yogaaio
and www.dummies.com/go/yogaaiofd
can help you with that, but you get more on that later in this introduction.Throughout this book, you’ll see icons in the margins. These icons are intended to draw your attention to particular kinds of information. Here’s a key to what those icons mean:
In addition to the material in the print or e-book you’re reading right now, this product also comes with some access-anywhere goodies on the web. You can access a Cheat Sheet that offers suggestions and information you can use to enhance your yoga workout: Discover how stretching can alleviate common aches and pains, find out why warming up before a yoga workout is vital, and be inspired by ways that yoga can improve your physical health. To access this material, go to www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/yogaaio
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You also have access to additional articles at www.dummies.com/extras/yogaaio
. There you can find ways to avoid common back injuries and loosen tight muscles and discover how to evaluate your fitness level in order to choose a style of yoga that’s best for you, how to incorporate a meditative mindset throughout your daily life, and more.
In addition to the additional articles about yoga that you can find online, you can also view ten short videos that introduce you to great ideas for improving your yoga practice, regardless of your age or physical abilities. Check out these tried-and-true poses and routines at www.dummies.com/go/yogaaiofd
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This All-in-One is designed so that you get to decide how best to access the information, whether you prefer to read chapters one after the other and follow the yoga routines in order or you’re more of a free spirit who jumps from one topic to another as the mood strikes you.
However, if you’re a newcomer to yoga, spend some time with Book I, which lays the foundation for yoga practice, and Book II, which explains basic postures and key techniques you need to know for nearly all styles of yoga.
Beyond that, feel free to go wherever you like. Are you interested in basic yoga postures and techniques? Head to Book II. Want to check out some new yoga styles? Book VI offers yoga routines with a modern twist. And if you’re not sure where you want to go, use the table of contents or the index to find the information you’re looking for.
Book I
Contents at a Glance
Chapter 1: Yoga 101: Building a Foundation
Understanding the True Character of Yoga
Considering Your Options: The Eight Main Branches of Yoga
Finding Your Niche: Four Basic Approaches to Yoga
Locating Your Starting Place in the World of Yoga
Chapter 2: Yoga and the Mind-Body Connection
Taming the Monkey Mind
Focusing on the Transitions
Exercising from the Inside Out
Letting Go of “I Can’t Do It”
Bringing Your Mind into the Present Moment
Chapter 3: Preparing for a Fruitful Yoga Practice
Cultivating the Right Attitude
Enjoying a Peaceful and Safe Yoga Practice
Ready, Set, Yoga: Dealing with the Practicalities
Chapter 1
In This Chapter
Debunking yoga myths
Deciphering the word yoga
Exploring the primary branches, styles, and approaches to yoga
Understanding the yogic principles of being
Taking control of your mind, body, health, and life with yoga
Although yoga is now a household word, many people don’t know exactly what it is. Far more than just physical exercise, yoga can transform you, even if transformation isn’t your intention when you first step onto the mat. This chapter explains what yoga really is, describes how it relates to your health and happiness, and introduces you to the many different branches and approaches to yoga. Yoga really does offer something for everyone.
Whenever you hear that yoga is just this or just that, your nonsense alert should kick into action. Yoga is too comprehensive to reduce to any one aspect; it’s like a skyscraper with many floors and numerous rooms at each level. Yoga isn’t just gymnastics or stretching, fitness training, a way to control your weight, stress reduction, meditation, or a spiritual path. It’s all these tools and a great deal more.
The yoga we enjoy today comes from a 5,000-year-old Indian tradition. Some of the exercises look like gymnastics and so, not surprisingly, have made their way into Western gymnastics. These exercises, or postures, help you become (and stay) fit and trim, control your weight, and reduce your stress level. Yoga also offers a whole range of meditation practices, including breathing techniques that exercise your lungs and calm your nervous system, or that charge your brain and the rest of your body with delicious energy.
You can also use yoga as an efficient system of healthcare that has proven its usefulness in both restoring and maintaining health. Yoga continues to gain acceptance within the medical establishment; more physicians are recommending yoga to their patients not only for stress reduction but also as a safe and sane method of exercise and physical therapy (notably, for the back, neck, knees, and hips).
Still, yoga is far more than a system of preventative or restorative healthcare. Yoga looks at health from a broad, holistic perspective that integrative medicine is only now rediscovering. This perspective appreciates the enormous influence of the mind — your psychological attitudes and beliefs — on physical health.
Yoga means “union” or “integration” and also “discipline.” The system of yoga, then, is a unitive, or integrating, discipline. Yoga seeks unity at various levels. First, it seeks to unite body and mind, which people all too often separate. Some people are chronically “out of the body.” They can’t feel their feet or the ground beneath them, as if they hover like ghosts just above their bodies. They’re unable to cope with the ordinary pressures of daily life, so they collapse under stress. They don’t understand their own emotions. Unable to cope with the ordinary pressures of life, they’re easily hurt emotionally.
Yoga also seeks to unite the rational mind and the emotions. People frequently bottle up their emotions and don’t express their real feelings. Instead, they choose to rationalize away these feelings. Chronic avoidance can become a serious health hazard; if people aren’t aware that they’re suppressing feelings such as anger, the anger consumes them from the inside out.
Yoga is a powerful means of psychological integration. It makes you aware that you’re part of a larger whole, not merely an island unto yourself. People can’t thrive in isolation. Even the most independent individual is greatly indebted to others. When your mind and body are happily reunited, this union with others comes about naturally. The moral principles of yoga are all-embracing, encouraging you to seek kinship with everyone and everything.
The Hindu tradition explains yoga as the discipline of balance, another way of expressing the ideal of unity through yoga. Everything in you must harmonize to function optimally. A disharmonious mind is disturbing in itself, but sooner or later, it also causes physical problems. An imbalanced body can easily warp your emotions and thought processes. If you have strained relationships with others, you cause distress not only for them but also for yourself. And when your relationship with your physical environment is disharmonious, well, you trigger serious repercussions for everyone.
A beautiful and simple yoga exercise called the tree (see Book II, Chapter 3) improves your sense of balance and promotes your inner stillness. Even when conditions force a tree to grow askew, it always balances itself out by growing a branch in the opposite direction. In this posture, you stand still like a tree, perfectly balanced.
Picture yoga as a giant tree with eight branches; each branch has its own unique character, but each is also part of the same tree. With so many different paths, you’re sure to find one that’s right for your personality, lifestyle, and goals. This section outlines the eight main branches of yoga and then delves a little deeper into Hatha Yoga, which is the kind of yoga focused on in this book.
Here are the eight principal branches of yoga:
Traditionally, practitioners receive a mantra from their teacher in the context of a formal initiation. They’re asked to repeat it as often as possible and to keep it secret. Many Western teachers feel that initiation isn’t necessary and that any sound works. You can even pick a word from the dictionary, such as love, peace, or happiness. From a traditional perspective, such words aren’t really mantras, but they can be helpful nonetheless.
Another name for this yogic tradition is Ashtanga Yoga (pronounced ahsh-tahng-gah), the “eight-limbed yoga” — from ashta (eight) and anga (limb). But don’t confuse this tradition with the yoga style known as Ashtanga Yoga, which is by far the most athletic of the three versions of Hatha Yoga, combining postures with breathing.
In its voyage to modernity, yoga has undergone many transformations. One of them was Hatha Yoga, which emerged around 1100 A.D. (This book focuses on this branch of yoga.) The most significant adaptations, however, occurred during the past several decades, particularly to serve the needs or wants of Western students. Of the many styles of Hatha Yoga available today, the following are the best known:
Power Yoga is a generic term for any style that closely follows Ashtanga Yoga but doesn’t have a set series of postures. It emphasizes flexibility and strength and was mainly responsible for introducing yoga postures into gyms. To find out more about Power Yoga, head to Book IV; Book V offers Yoga with Weights.
Prime of Life Yoga follows the principle of modifying postures to match the needs and abilities of the student. It offers a safe, user-friendly approach targeted to men and women ages 45 to 75. Hallmarks of this approach are its focus on the breath, function over form, a mix of dynamic and static movement, and Forgiving Limbs. Throughout this book, you can discover aspects of Prime of Life Yoga: Head to Book I, Chapter 3 for information about Forgiving Limbs and explore the basics of the breath in Book II, Chapter 1. For a video of a beginning Prime of Life routine, go to www.dummies.com/go/yogaaiofd
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Hot Yoga isn’t really a style itself; it just means that the practice occurs in a high-temperature room (usually 104 degrees to 109 degrees Fahrenheit). Best known is Bikram Yoga, although other styles also heat the room. For more on Hot Yoga, head to Book VI, Chapter 3.
Since yoga came to the West from its Indian homeland in the late 19th century, it has undergone various adaptations. Broadly, you can look at yoga in four overlapping approaches:
The first two approaches are often categorized as Postural Yoga; it contrasts with Traditional Yoga, which generally encompasses the last two approaches. As its name suggests, Postural Yoga focuses (sometimes exclusively) on yoga postures. Traditional Yoga seeks to adhere to the traditional teachings taught anciently in India. The upcoming sections take a look at the four basic approaches.
Conscious breathing often joins awareness and relaxation as a third foundational practice. Normally, breathing happens automatically. In yoga, you bring awareness to this act, which then makes it a powerful tool for training your body and your mind. You can read much more about these aspects of yoga in Book II, Chapter 1.
The first approach, yoga as fitness training, is the most popular way Westerners practice yoga. It’s also the most radical revamping of Traditional Yoga. More precisely, it’s a modification of traditional Hatha Yoga. Yoga as fitness training is concerned primarily with the physical body’s flexibility, resilience, and strength.
Fitness is how most newcomers to yoga encounter this great tradition. Fitness training is certainly a useful gateway into yoga, but later, some people discover that Hatha Yoga is a profound spiritual tradition. From the earliest times, yoga masters have emphasized the need for a healthy body, but they’ve also always pointed beyond the body to the mind and other vital aspects of the being.
The second approach, yoga as therapy, applies yogic techniques to restore health or full physical and mental function. Though the idea behind yoga as a therapy is quite old, it’s growing into a whole new professional discipline. Different from even highly experienced yoga teachers, yoga therapists have specialized training to apply the tools of yoga to promote and support healing.
Yoga as a lifestyle enters the proper domain of Traditional Yoga. Although practicing yoga only once or twice a week for an hour or so and focusing on its fitness training aspect is beneficial, you unlock the real potency of yoga when you adopt it as a lifestyle — living yoga and practicing it every day through physical exercises and meditation. Above all, when you adopt yoga as a lifestyle, you apply the wisdom of yoga to your everyday life and live with awareness. Yoga has much sage advice about everyday living, including diet and sleep habits, how you relate to others, and where you focus your attention and energy. It offers a total system of conscious and skillful living.
Lifestyle Yoga (see the preceding section) is concerned with healthy, wholesome, functional, and benevolent living. Yoga as a spiritual discipline, the fourth approach, is concerned with all that plus the traditional ideal of enlightenment — that is, discovering your spiritual nature. This approach is often equated with Traditional Yoga.
When you know the lay of the land (see the preceding sections), consider what motivates you to practice yoga, as well as your lifestyle, physical style, and any limitations. Then find the style of yoga and practice environment that are good fits for you. Ask yourself these questions:
If your goals are entirely spiritual, choose a branch of yoga that can best help you achieve those goals. You may resonate with Bhakti Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Raja Yoga, Karma Yoga, or Tantra Yoga. If your main interest is in improving your health or overall physical well-being, or if you primarily want to become fit and flexible, select a style of Hatha Yoga that fits you best. To help you wind down, go with one of the more restorative styles. To get the juices flowing and blood pumping, try one of the flow styles. And Viniyoga and Prime of Life styles of yoga are especially well suited for people with physical concerns such as achy backs and shoulders.
Chapter 2
In This Chapter
Quieting and calming your mind
Concentrating on transitions between exercises and activities
Listening to your body as you exercise
Breaking the mind barriers to exercise
Focusing on the here and now
You may not know it, but when you exercise, you have the potential to exercise with your mind as well as your body. And in yoga, the mind plays a bigger part than it does in other exercise disciplines, because one of the goals of yoga is to be self-aware and to develop your relationship with your consciousness in everything you do.
This chapter explores training your mind and some of the mental aspects of yoga. You look into quieting and calming your mind, listening to your body as you exercise, and breaking the mental barriers that keep you from wanting to exercise. You also discover a mental visualization technique for focusing your mind and a special contract-and-release exercise for wringing all the tension from your body.
One of the objects of traditional yoga is to discover how to calm your mind to achieve clarity of thought. An overactive mind is sometimes called a “monkey mind.” In traditional yoga, a monkey mind is one that swings wildly from branch to branch — that is, from thought to thought — without really considering where it’s going. A monkey mind is always busy, so much so that it leaves you feeling exhausted and robs you of your precious energy resources and your ability to concentrate.
Taming a monkey mind isn’t easy. It takes time, practice, and, perhaps most importantly, a commitment to discovering how to relax your mind and always remain in the moment. What does “in the moment” mean? It means to be consciously aware of your surroundings and how you feel now — not letting your mind drift into memories or fantasies. When you tame the monkey mind, you achieve self-awareness and the ability to think with clarity. You literally pull yourself together, body and mind. For more tips on taming a monkey mind, check out “Bringing Your Mind into the Present Moment” later in this chapter.
Yoga masters pay a lot of attention to transitions. The entire yoga philosophy is not about abrupt stops and starts but rather smooth transitions of breath into breath and moment into moment. This philosophy applies to all activities in life — the transition between sleep and wakefulness, the transition between work and play, and even the transition from year to year and decade to decade, for example. In yoga class, it means paying as much attention to getting into and out of a pose as being in the pose itself.
By focusing on the transitions between exercises, you can carry vitality, strength, and endurance from one exercise to the next. With enough attention to transitions, you can turn your yoga workout into a living dance, with all the postures connected through balance, presence, attention, and breath. And guess what? You’ll even have some fun in the process.