Yoga: an introduction

What is yoga?

Is it standing on your head or sitting cross legged for many hours contemplating your naval? It can be, but it can also be learning to breathe correctly to help de-stress the body. It can be having a laugh and relaxing. It can be correcting bad postural habits learned through years of emotional problems. As we think, so we are. Years of worry will produce a defensive foetal posture, with the shoulders hunched and forward, chest collapsed and chin jutted forward. The lower back and hips will be tight. A person in this condition cannot feel better until they have straightened out their body and taught it a correct manner of being.

The Yoga taught at the Cavendish Pavilion in Eastcote is based on the approach pioneered by Vanda Scaravelli, an Italian aristocrat, who worked originally with Mr Iyengar, but went on to develop a more subtle approach. Using this method the student will learn to undo the spine. How can we undo something like the spine? With a lot of attention we can use the exhalation to wake up the deep postural muscles connected to the diaphragm. With even more attention we can take this supple spine into the Yoga asanas. The postures then take on a new life. They lose the rigidity often associated with them and the body uses the asana and not the other way round.

Yoga and meditation

there is no such as emptying the mind. You have to put something else in. There are many techniques. The Buddhists concentrate on noticing their thoughts. The mind does not like to be watched and eventually the thoughts become less and less. Focussing on the breath and feeling the spine move is another technique. You can even focus on a dishcloth - anything so long as the mind is quiet.

There are several paths of Yoga, with the main four being:- Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga and Hatha Yoga. When most people talk of Yoga they mean Hatha Yoga, which is in reality very much a preliminary stage. In the ancient writings the words 'harmony' and 'steadiness' occur many times. These lines are from the Svetsvatara Upanishad. 'And when the body is in silent steadiness, breathe rhythmically through the nostrils with a peaceful ebbing and flowing of breath. The chariot of the mind is drawn by wild horses, and those wild horses have to be tamed.'

Archaeologists say that Yoga is at least 6,000 years old and was widespread across the Middle East from Egypt to India. Jnana is the Yoga of Knowledge and was thought to have originated with the Vedic culture in Forest Schools, from 1500 to 600BC. Wandering sages who went around naked marked their bodies with orange dust of the Indian soil. They later adopted orange robes, which have remained the traditional attire read more