Anusara yoga is one of the youngest schools of yoga, being founded in only 1997. “Anusara” roughly translates as “go with the flow” or “follow your heart”. Anusara yoga sprouted from the much older hatha yoga. Although there are some changes from hatha yoga, both schools of yoga hope to help each person find health of mind, body and spirit.

The History

Anusara yoga was created in 1997 by John Friend, one of if not the most popular American yoga instructor of the time. After years of studying and teaching hathat yoga, John was inspired by a text in Sanskrit which included the word and concept of “anusara”. John Friend claims he felt “divinely inspired” to help people discover and appreciate their uniqueness in the universe, as well as become healthy and happy.

John Friend was born in Youngstown, Ohio – not the sort of place you would expect a creater of a new school of yoga to come from. As a child, he would eagerly make up yoga poses to “illustrate” the stories of Yogis his mother would read to him from Fate magazine. His mother never practiced yoga, but encouraged her son to study it, especially when he announced to his mother that yoga was better than comic books.

John went on to study phusics and accounting in college, while discovering the works of real yoga masters and spiritual writers such as Madame Blavastsky. He began to see that everything was connected — mind, body, muscles, spirit, events in your life – and studied Eastern meditation. One day, the meditation teacher got sick and had John teach the class. Through his students, John came to the conclusion that most people who seriously practice yoga are looking for more than just being able to do fancy poses.

John studied with American and Indian yogi instructors in America and India, trying to learn the true soul of hatha yoga. In 1997, he knew the form of yoga he wanted to teach was not hatha yoga.

1997

A friend by the name of Douglas Brooks sent John some verses from the Kularnava Tantra wich contained the word “anusara”. Yoga was never the same for him since. He knew that everything was connected – but what was the connecting force? In Anusara yoga, the connecting spirit is believed to be the Divine.

There are now over 900 Anusara yoga teachers all around the world. To find one near you, you could check out “Anusara yoga” on the web.

Popularity: 97% [?]

The purpose of advanced yoga is not to be better or strike cooler poses than anyone else in advanced yoga class. One of the traits of an advanced yoga student is humility, and so they should not seek to be better doing advanced yoga poses than anyone else. Yoga seeks to the practitioner to find the balance between mind, body and soul. Advanced yoga poses are not party tricks.

Kids: Don’t Do This At Home

In books, magazines, tapes, DVDs and online there are many resources that demonstrate people doing advanced yoga poses. Do not think “Ahh, I can do that,” and immediately get up and try to do them. Your doctor will most likely choke with laughter as you try to explain why you are in the emergency room.

Do not try advanced yoga poses unless you’ve been training in yoga for months or years. Even continually doing Pilates will help let your body know what it’s in for. (Pilates and yoga are very similar, although Pilates concentrates entirely on the body and ignores the mind and soul). You wouldn’t decide to take up weightlifting by beginning with half ton barbells, would you? Well, maybe you would, but most same people wouldn’t.

You need to gradually build up to the advanced yoga poses by learning easy yoga poses, which will be hard enough. In yoga, there should be no pressure to be the best in class – you just do what you are comfortable with. If at any time, the yoga poses starts to hurt – STOP.

Strike A Pose

There’s more to advanced yoga than just striking a series of poses that make onlookers twinge. Depending on what school or branch of advanced yoga you are following, you are also encouraged to be a calm, moral person that can be flexible enough to weather life’s blows and move easily into God’s will (or the will of whatever Deity you follow).

There are other spectacular things advanced yoga followers can do. They can lie on a bed of broken glass and not get cut, walk through fire and not get burned, not eat, not even breathe for hours, read minds, communicate to friends and disciples in dreams or even levitate. But doing cool stuff is not the point of advanced yoga. The point is to become one with the universe, which can be your point in life and in advanced yoga, if you so choose.

Popularity: 98% [?]

Yoga props were introduced by B.K.S. Iyengar who truly understood the importance of using yoga props to support the proper alignment of your joints and bones whenever you are working on postures. Herein lies the key to proper alignment, which is very important if you do not want to injure yourself as you move deeper into the poses. These yoga props are especially useful if you are just beginning to practice yoga, if you are not very flexible, if you are recovering from an injury or if have any special physical needs.

Typical Yoga Props

One of the many yoga props that are available is the yoga block. This is a great prop because it will allow you to maintain proper alignment whenever you are in challenging poses. It is possible to stack several of these blocks together in order to gain height or for extra support.

Another good prop is the yoga strap. A strap will help you reach your hands and feet in specific postures wherein you are not very flexible. These yoga props basically help to lengthen your body.

A yoga ball is actually quite versatile and can be used for developing your core strength. It will also offer you help with both support and alignment whenever you are working on stretching and lengthening your range of movement. The yoga ball can also help to keep you from falling.

Other great yoga props are yoga blankets, which can offer a lot of great benefits. Not only can they offer you support in poses, but they can also provide padding and provide you with warmth so that you can be comfortable whenever you are in restorative poses.

A-Typical Yoga Props

Backbend benches are not your typical yoga props. However, they can provide you with support whenever you are doing backbends. Plus, they can also reduce the amount of strain that you put on your spine as they are able to help you maintain proper alignment. At the same time these benches can also help to increase the flexibility in your shoulders, chest and front of your body.

Eye pillows are also not your typical yoga props. These are soft cushions that you place on your eyes so that you can focus while you are meditating. This will help you to achieve a greater sense of peace and calmness during relaxation poses too.

Conclusion

Sometimes yoga props are helpful in deepening your practice. However, there are also times when you may not feel as though you need to use these yoga props. Whatever you decide, make sure that you pay attention to your body and do what it is asking you to do.

Popularity: 8% [?]

It is normal to consider that one’s children do not lead a stressed life as these are formative years where they must be enjoying a life free of care and worries. However, taking into consideration that they can often become quite obsessed with their going to school, playing sports as well as learning their lessons, you might begin to wonder whether they are really as stress-free as you might have imagined.

Helps Ease Various Pressures

Yoga for kids is something that parents can consider as being well suited to help ease these various pressures on the lives and minds of kids, and which will also teach them to learn methods that can equip them well to face life’s challenges that are both immediate and which will occur in future. The advantage of yoga for kids is that it is non-competitive an activity that helps inculcate in the child’s mind a sense of better and improved self-esteem as well as make them more aware about their own bodies. With yoga for kids, children will be able to learn how best to relax and gain inner peace as well as stay more healthy. It will also make them realize the benefits of being more compassionate and less aggressive.

There are many physical benefits to yoga for kids that include improvement in their flexibility as well as making them stronger and well co-coordinated. They will also feel calmer as well as relaxed, and they will also be able to concentrate better.

Yoga for kids means having to learn different yoga poses some of which owe their inspiration to animals and plants, and when children mimic such movements and sounds of nature, they will not only gain a lot of enjoyment, but will also experience things such as the strength of a lion and the grace of a swan, amongst other things. The true essence of yoga is the union, expression as well as learning how to honor the self and also others.

When yoga for kids is taught, instructors realize the importance of an interactive as well as multi-disciplinary approach. Many of the yoga asanas may require expansion such as playing and also imitating various plants and animals. All in all, such yoga classes for kids are an excellent opportunity to teach the young children how to explore their innate abilities that spans a number of planes including linguistic, visual, logic as well as musical and also kinesthetic and more.

The main challenge facing teachers of yoga for kids is to be able to hold their attention, and since yoga promotes motion, which is well loved by children there, should not be any problem on this front. Children will love playing just like some animals and also imitate the motion of trees and flowers, and letting them roar like lions, bark when in the dog pose as well as hiss like cobras will certainly involve them totally in yoga for kids and thus help them get all the accompanying benefits.

Popularity: 7% [?]

There are many different reasons why you should learn yoga, namely because of the numerous different benefits that it offers for your life in general. Not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually as well, and not many other exercises can claim this.

Reasons to Learn Yoga

Yoga is a great exercise to learn for a number of different reasons. For one, it is excellent for stress and relaxation, and this is because the practice of yoga involves stretching the body and forming different poses, while at the same time making sure to keep your breathing slow and controlled.

This results in making the body relaxed and yet controlled at the same time, and there are even some specific types of yoga that focus even more on meditation and relaxation.

Another reason why you should learn yoga is because you will be able to work on getting your body lean, toned, and fit. Yoga does not only help you to lose weight but also to tone and strengthen your body, and so you can gain muscle in an attractive way, rather than building too much bulk.

It is a great exercise for everyone, regardless of your gender or age, and it is truly better than any other exercise out there. It does not take long to learn yoga either, as you can start off simply learning the basics and then work your way up to the more difficult positions and postures. Ashtanga yoga is considered as being the most basic and simplest type of yoga, with Bikram yoga being one of the more difficult, as with this type of yoga the temperature of the room is heated to 105 degrees with an average humidity of 40%.

How to Learn Yoga

If you are interested in learning yoga, then you can either buy books or DVDs so that you can learn on your own, or you can go into a gym or fitness center and learn with an instructor teaching you. Either way is fine, although you may find that the latter option will help you more, so that you will have someone there who is experienced and knowledgeable and who can show you when you are doing something wrong.

Yoga is one exercise that you will definitely never regret learning, and you can practice it for as long as you want to, because it is not overly strenuous or difficult. It is the only exercise that helps you physically, emotionally and spiritually, and so you are definitely missing out if you are not already into yoga.

Popularity: 7% [?]