Do you think you are too old for yoga? Have a look.

Lot of people I have talked to feel that they are too old to practice yoga. I feel you are never too old to practice. Recently I was following a discussion in a group and discuss was around a question whether Shoulder stand can be practiced by people in middle age. Different people had different opinions. Then someone presented this video link. I feel this should stop the debate.
Here are few inspirations...

1. 93 year old Ida still practices yoga actively and teaches others also. A lot of her students are in 70s and 80s.


2. A 92 year old Yoga instructor featured in CNN.

http://www.yogabodynaturals.com/oldest-yoga-teacher-in-the-world

3. Swami Yogananda - 99 Year old yogi.


If these cannot inspire you, nothing can.

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3 Life Lessons I Learnt in 8 weeks

I have a list of life goals and one of them is to practice the 32 week Yoga Course. It has been almost 2 years since I thought of starting this but it kept on getting postponed. Then one day in December I wrote down this goal and other goals. Time passes by as usual, and suddenly today I am into the 9th week of my practice which means I have covered more than 25% of my goal. Now I am confident that I will be able to complete the goal of 32 week practice.

My Earlier Way of Practice
The practice I am doing is different from the way I used to practice. This is more goal oriented which make it more challenging and fun and at the same time more like to make me achieve greater results.

Earlier I used to practice in one of the two ways. I used to pick a set of poses and practice them and tried to analyze their effect. I used to make quite a bit of progress and then go on to another set of poses. That gave me chance to try out many poses and experiment with the effects but I was lacking the consistency and not practicing the sequence for long enough times. Another issue was once I moved to another set of poses I used to lose the efforts I made on the previous poses. Therefore when I used to come back to the previous poses again I had to start from almost the beginning stage.

I followed another route in which I joined a yoga class in 2008, which was following Bihar School of Yoga. In the class the sequences consisted of some set of beginning poses, followed by 8 to 10 rounds of Surya Namaskar and then Yoga Nidra and finally 10 minutes of Pranayama. I benefited a lot from that class due to the fact that I learned about Surya Namaskar and also Yoga Nidra (Yogic Sleep). in this case there were fixed set of poses and there was no scope of progressing to next level. These poses are good for a person who wants to practice yoga on a day to day basis for fitness and well being, where as my goal to explore Yoga at a more deeper level.

Later, late 2009, I decided to practice 42 rounds (21 sets) of Surya Namaskar every day for 30 days as an experiment and completed that in December 2009. I have already documented my experiences on that experiment in this blog. Success of the experiment led me to start this 32 week course.

In these last 8 weeks I have learned some valuable life lessons which I want to share. Though these lessons may already be known to you, it doesn't harm to reinforce them.

1. Take Challenging Goals to Achieve More
   Take up challenging goals. They will excite you more though they may be daunting, but these are the goals which will give you the most satisfaction. Goals which appear challenging today will continue to remain challenging till we attempt to achieve them and once we do that we mostly find that those are possible. Till I started this practice I never attempted few of the poses in this course and kept on thinking that they are quite difficult. Of course I underestimated my ability to attempt them. Once I practiced those difficult poses and gained more control, though not total control, now I am more confident about going for other poses.


2. Practice Makes Any Task Easier
   Another key thing I learned is that practicing any activity everyday will make it easier each time we do it. Gradually tough poses become easier. As we keep on practicing, we start gaining more knowledge and insight and that proves useful in other tasks and situations. This knowledge can be applied to other areas like work, or learning a new skill.


3. Concentrate on the Task, Results will Follow
   When I started practicing few poses the first time, I knew that I was not doing them right. I had to adjust various muscles, stance or take support to gain the balance and to gradually gain control. I concentrated on making gradual progress and eventually got the pose right. Similarly when we concentrate on making small gains slowly we get on course to get the intended output. If we concentrate on the result instead of the process we will be discouraged and more likely to fail.

There are lessons to be learned in all spheres of life and it is up to them to learn from them make it part of our life.

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Using the Freshness of Morning in your Yoga Practice

You may be a night owl and be at your best during the late hours but the fact is your energy and freshness is more likely to be more in the morning. It is law of nature that morning time is the time for renewal of everything. Sun rises after the dark night, birds starts to leave their nest to begin another day with the first rays of sun. Flowers start blooming again. Similarly morning is the ideal time for Yoga Sadhana or practice.

In the morning the body may be stiffer compared to evening but it is also having more strength and no mental fatigue which happens after a day of work. Apart from the mental fatigue, there are not thoughts which accumulated after interacting with people around us during the day. The thought process disturbs the mind while in the morning when the mind is calmer, the Yoga poses can be done with more awareness.

You will need more determination in the morning for the poses because of the stiffness but with practice the poses become easier to practice. Morning time is also the best time to detoxify using various therapies like water therapy and practicing yoga after that enhances the detoxification process.

Practicing in the Morning
If possible try to practice in a airy room or balcony which has fresh air.
This is one of the routine I can suggest you to try out which works very well.

1. Start with some small routine where in you rotate the joints of wrists, shoulders with breath awareness. Then follow with neck stretching and followed by kriyas which open up the leg joints. Take some rest in Shavasana.

2. Try some stretching asanas in the beginning like Tadasana. Try out some new asanas which is easy for you but keep changing this every few days. For example you can try out asanas which strenghten the arms and upper body for few days, then go for spinal twists or back bends etc.

3. Practice 7 to eight rounds of Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutaions). This will set the blood flowing quickly in the body, remove lethargy and increase the alertness.

4. Follow with 5-10 minutes of Shavasana.

5. Practice Kapalbhati pranayama for 10 minutes and Nadi Shodhana pranayama for 10 minutes followed by 3 to 5 rounds of Bharamri pranayama.

Practicing yoga in the morning sets your day in the right direction with right mindset and healthy body. Within few days you will see the difference this practice make in your day and you will looking forward to the next morning eagerly.

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Yoga In Times Square

A yoga Festival was celebrated in Times Square in New York on Sunday June 21. I came across this news in the news paper in India and searched the net for this. It appears around 200 yoga enthusiasts turned up for the event. This is a yearly event being celebrated for last seven years. The purpose is to promote peace and health. I feel it is a wonderful way to celebrate and spread yoga.

For the participants also this must have been a wonderful experience. Usually we practice indoors, but practicing amongst the worlds tallest buildings, where there thousands of vehicles everyday must have been real awe inspiring experience.

Swami Ramdev holds camps regularly which is attended by thousands of people at a time. Most of the times more than 10,000 people attend these camps. Practicing at a camp has its own benefits and people get inspired by others and it motivates them to practice regularly. But having the yoga festival has a different meaning and purpose.

Just like we have marathons in different cities, similarly yoga festivals should be celebrated in different cities of India and other countries. If the mood is festive, people will also bring their kids to these events and they will develop interest in yoga. Too many times we present yoga as something serious and scare away lot of people. I hope such events become part of festival calendars for all the metros in the beginning and then it will gradually spread to the smaller cities. Spread of yoga will create a stronger nation. It will create strong ethical and moral values in the people and solve many problems in the society.

More more information please visit:

http://www.timessquarenyc.org/about_us/events_solstice.html

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Siddhis (Supernatural Powers) from Yoga

Patanjali describes various siddhis (Supernatural Powers) which can be acquired by practice of yoga in Yoga Sutra. By constant practice the yogi discovers powers which are considered to be supernatural but already available in all human beings, and only needs to be uncovered.

Most of the siddhis are achieved through mind control, high level of concentration and meditative state. The physical aspect of Yoga, Hatha Yoga, make us ready for the mental and spiritual aspect, though the the physical aspect also has very important role to play in purifying and strengthening the body.

I have not experience any of these powers myself and at present miles away from them, may be several births. But I believe that we should strive for this state, not for achieving the power but to reach the level where the siddhi is available. In Buddhism also there are description of how the Buddha had several powers and few of his disciples gained power to fly. These were all gained from meditation and mind control. But the Buddha tells us not to use those powers as they are distractions in the progress and make you fall in spiritual progress.

In the third chapter of Yoga Sutra, Vibhutipada, Patanjali describes various siddhis some of which are mentioned below. Most of these Siddhis are attained through the later part of the eight limbs of Yoga, namely Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi and combination of all these three.

In the aphorism 107 Dharana is described as "binding of mind to a specific subject with firm determination".

In the aphorism 108 Dhyana is described as "prolonged period of determined concentration on a single subject". It is somewhat equivalent to Meditation.

In the aphorism 109 achievement of super consciousness where "form disappears and only substance is experienced", is called as Samadhi.

Practice of all the three Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi is known as Sanyam.

Here are some of the powers which can be achieved by a Yogi through Sanyam and control over the five elements of nature.

• Yogi can understand the nature as it is.


• Yogi can read the thoughts of others.


• Yogi can know the past and the future.


• Yogi can understand the language of the animals.


• Yogi can perceive the past lives and the deeds done in past life.


• Yogi can leave his body and enter others' body.


• Yogi can predict death.


• Yogi gains knowledge about the entire universe.


• Yogi conquers thirst and hunger.


• Yogi can move at will.


• Yogi acquires the capacity of flying bodily in the sky.

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4 Common Yoga Myths Busted

Yoga originated in India several thousand years ago. There is no single source from which this originated but Rishi Patanjali formalized the teachings in a common book which describes the path to achieving Samadhi, the ultimate state which all beings strive to reach. In the last century Yoga started reaching the West through teachers who went to Europe and America. That provided a major boost to Yoga. At present there are millions of people who practice Yoga in America alone. In fact I found that the teachings of Yoga is better organized in America as compared to India, but the commercial angle is more there. There are several organized but independent efforts going on in US towards popularizing yoga. In India there are several important schools of yoga and dedicated yogis can be found in many places. But in recent years there is a revival of yoga in masses mainly through the efforts of Swami Ramdev. I will talk about him in some other article.

While there are millions of yoga practitioners in the world but there are equal number of skeptics also. There are several myths surrounding Yoga and which stop people from learning more about this great science and reap the benefits. The major opposition is from the religious institutions although that is breaking down. I have seen people in the US who were very enthusiastic when I talked about yoga, but at the same time I have seen very friendly people become closed, and this mostly consisted of the religiously conservative people. Here are some common myths about yoga.

1. Yoga Promotes HinduismOne of the major concerns of people who are interested in Yoga is that it promotes Hinduism. When you are a follower of any religion, practices of other religion can cause concerns. Although yoga is one of the six orthodox philosophies of Hinduism, Yoga does not promote Hinduism. It is a set of Mental and Physical practices which aim to take a person towards liberation. It is a scientific method, and any practitioner (Yogi) need not worship any Hindu god or goddess. In some practices there is chanting of OM or AUM but OM is not a god. It is the symbol of eternal omnipresent god. As per the ancient sages of India, they heard this sound in deep meditation and this is supposed to be the sound of the universe. This is called brahman (ultimate reality) and gist of all reality. Although Hindus worship different god and goddesses, but as per the root of Hinduism there is only one god who has no shape. OM is symbol of that god. Some teachers encourage the students to chant the sounds from their religion in case they have objections in chanting OM.
   
   To learn yoga there are no formal membership required of any organization or religion. There are no special temples for Yoga. It can be done at home.
   Yoga is about self mastery and achieving super consciousness by controlling self through practice rather than worshiping any god.



2. Yoga is for girls
   I have been exposed to yoga since childhood since there were weekly yoga classes in the school. That time, like many of my friends I did not take this seriously. Later on after I grew up, I had the feeling that yoga is not for men. In fact I used to joke that it is for lazy people as there hardly seems to me much activity. When you look at a yogi practicing it does not look much tough. Another factor is most of the yogis do not have muscles like the body builders, although it is another matter that they can have tremendous strength not visible from outside.
   
   Few years back I gained interest in yoga and when I started the basic poses, I suddenly realized that this is the hobby and passion of my life. Then came the "Light on Yoga" the great book from BKS Iyengar. I started to practice from the basic pose and realized how tough it is to practice even the basic poses if you are untrained. In body building you work on the major muscles, but in yoga you will come to be aware of muscles, tissues which you did not even know those existed. You gain great control over the various muscles in your body and will get knowledge about how to heal yourself.
   
   Most of the teachers have been male till last 40 years and in fact some of the teachers did not want to teach females as they thought they may not be able to practice strenuous routines. The image that it is for females is because of how it is marketed in the West. In India most of the teachers are still male. I for one would definitely vouch that it is for all human beings and in case you have still doubts it is better to try once. You will emerge a stronger and better human being.



3. Yoga is a set of stretching exercises and I don't have the flexibilityIt is true that yoga has stretching poses, but that is only one of the many routines. There are poses which increase the strength and stamina. There are poses which work on almost any part of the body. Yoga has poses which is beneficial for all the major systems of the body, like nervous system, circulatory system, respiratory system, reproductive system, muscular system etc.
   
   Beginners see the experienced yogis and think that they can never achieve such levels and get scared off or feel inferior. You need not compare yourself to any other person. Everybody is different. Even the most experience yogis keep on practicing to improve themselves. If you practice regularly you will see that you are making a progress every week. You will be surprised to see the results by constant practice. The point is to keep on practicing and improving. The joy is in the journey and not the perfection.



4. Yoga is Asana or Poses
   Most people associate yoga with Hata Yoga The physical aspect of yoga is the one which is promoted the most, but yoga consists of eight limbs called (Ashtanga Yoga - Eight limbs of Yoga). Hata Yoga is one of the eight, and works on the body to purify it, make it stronger and make it ready for the penance. Ultimate aim of yoga is to achieve Samadhi(Eight limb of Yoga), where in the yogi loses the difference between self and the subject through extreme levels of meditation.

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Healing Links Between Yoga Asanas and Acupressure

I have exposure to both Acupressure and Yoga for a long time now. Like most people I was attracted to Yoga initially for its healing power, though I did not believe in it initially. If you look at the Yoga poses as an outsider it is difficulty to visualize how it can heal us. They also look easier to practice till you attempt the easiest one. But once I started to practice the beginners asanas from the great master BKS Iyengar's "Light On Yoga" book I realized how difficult even the easy looking asanas are for an average level fit person like me.

In the initial days I was hooked on to Yoga because of the relief it provided to me after a hard day at the office. All tiredness used to disappear, whereas weight training exercises makes you tired and you would need rest. Gradually I was able to experience the other aspects of Yoga, and its affect on the body and mind. Another point which provided boost to the experience was the fact that even with my relatively less experience I was able to assist people in their health problems. Since people knew that I was practicing Yoga and they had heard about its healing abilities, they approached me. I just used to read the relevant asanas (Poses) from the books and used to practice with them and guide them. They were healed of their problems. This left a great impact on me and encouraged me to pursue Yoga with more enthusiasm.

At around the same time I also started reading on Acupressure. It was quite interesting to learn that applying pressure on certain points of the palms, hands or body could help in curing diseases. Based on the learning, I applied Acupressure on myself and anybody willing to receive help. I immediately saw how useful it was. I cured lot of people from stiff neck problem and also helped people recover from lower back sprain and so on. I also successfully tried the treatment on convulsion points on my sons when they had febrile convulsion during high fever and it was really convincing.

How this thought was born?

I was just wondering if there could be some links between the healing powers and working of Yoga and Acupressure. This thought came to me while I was preparing to sleep in the night, and thinking about what could be the link although there may not be total match, but I saw quite a few definite links. I realized that during the practice of the asanas which heal certain diseases, often Acupressure points related to that disease are also pressed.

Most of the acupressure and reflexology points are located on Hands, feet, back of the neck and front of the body. As per the theory of Acupressure there are different energy meridians (or lines) in the body which passes through different areas of the body. At certain places in the body these meridians are near to the skin and pressing those points affect the organs and body parts associated with the meridian.

Examples where asanas and acupressure converge.

1. When we practice Sarvangasana (Shoulder Stand Pose), pressure is applied on the back of the neck, throat region and the palms, as they support the body. Most of the points related to thyroid problems, cough and cold and eyes etc are located in the areas which are pressurized during the asanas. No wonder Sarvangasana is helpful in illness related to Thyroid, cough and cold, sore throat etc apart from many other diseases.
2. When we practice Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose), we use our palms to support ourselves. Cobra pose strengthens the back, and relieves back pain. There are certain points on the base of the thumb which are used in Acupressure for back pain, which are pressed during this pose.
3. In Janu Shirasana(Head on Knee Pose), which is good for Liver, the “Liver point” which is just below the ribs on the right hand side is also pressed.

There are many other examples which we can find. Though more research needs to be done on this. Though both are independent therapies, there is some evidence that there may be some common ground between these. One more thing to notice is Asanas complement the Acupressure treatment, but the reverse may not be true, but at the other hand Acupressure treatment can be taken by people who may be too ill to practice Yoga Asanas. To conclude, we can safely say that practicing Yoga asanas, may be benefiting us in more ways than we may be aware.

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How to Enhance Your Yoga Experience While Recovering From Injury?

We all need to deal with some major injury, disease or pain from time to time. There are two ways we can react. Either suffer and whine about the painful situation or try your level best to be as cheerful as possible and turn it into an opportunity to learn new aspects about life. Although it sounds easy and ideal to be positive about a negative condition or incident, it is not that easy in reality. At the same time if we really look forward to learning something new during the recovery from the problem we can definitely use that knowledge in future and take positives from the injury.

While traveling on vacation to Puri, a city situated on the eastern coast of India last week of December 2008 I injured ligament on my left knee. It was very painful to say the least. On top of that I felt more pain because I was unable to practice near the sea side as was my wish while I was looking forward to the trip.

Best time to improve self knowledge

Human body is tremendously complex system of muscle groups, bones, ligaments, tissues and cells which form the various body parts and organs but mostly our awareness remains is skin deep or till the major muscles. Injury to any body part increases the awareness about that part as well as the connected muscles, ligaments and bones. My knee injury gave me time and opportunity to explore the knee problems which can happen to us.

Internet is a tremendous medium to gain knowledge, but we do not dig for the right kind of information. Almost all the information which we need to understand our body and the pain is available on the internet. It contains more information your doctor will ever care to tell you. There are some excellent books on Physiology and Yoga which provide information on the affect of various asanas (poses) on the different parts of our body. Injury rehabilitation is the right time to know more about ourselves as we will have better understanding about self and also remember them.

Best way to understand the pain and about rehabilitation is of course through your Doctor, but try to read and gather as much information as you can. One of the ways to gain more knowledge is by asking lots of questions to your Doctor, and once you have done some research and reading you will automatically get the right questions to ask.

This is going to stand you in good stead in future.

Use this knowledge in future Practice

Pain in the injured area helps us to identify the body movement which affects a particular part of body and this helps us develop what I call muscle intellegince.

Although some of the pain may be due to inflammation and all muscles which have pain may not be the ones which are actually injured. Many nearby muscles also become tense during injuries and recovery and they also start paining. Due to this, sometimes it leads us to wrongly conclude about the extent of the injury. But the bigger point which I want to make is at least we are aware about the major muscles in that location, which is very useful. For example, whenever I practice now after my recovery, I am clearly aware about each of the muscles in my legs. This has heightened my awareness and I use this knowledge to experiment and see the affect on each muscle. This awareness is going to be very useful as this will also provide more insight on how to control the muscles correctly while practicing a pose. This will lead to muscle intelligence & I will also be aware in case I am doing a pose incorrectly leading me towards perfection in the pose.

Find out alternatives

There are numerous aspects of Yoga and we can be surprised by the option of activities which can be in front of us if we explore them. Lot of people who practice Yoga are not even aware that asanas(Poses) which we practice is only one of the eight limbs of Yoga defined by Patanjali. Try to learn more about the other seven limbs and see how we fit there. Apart from asanas there are other things to learn like Mudras, Bandhs, Pranayama etc.

After my injury I took up Jal Neti seriously and have added a new dimension to my practice.

Recovery based asanas

Along with regular treatment like physiotherapy we can also go for therapeutic Yoga, for example for shoulder pain we can practice Tadasana. But before you start you should consult a qualified and experienced yoga teacher.

Apart from all the above injury also provides opportunity to appreciate the gift of good health once we realize how people are suffering while facing life threatening conditions or illness. It is time to feel blessed. One philosophy is, God gives suffering so that we remember him. It is also brings out the idea that impermanence is the only truth which is what Yoga also tells us.


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