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Our Yoga for Beginners book takes you through the basics of practicing yoga and then teaches you the poses in the context of a yoga practice sequence. |
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| From the Editor |
I always tell new students that the most important thing to do in yoga is to breathe. The breath is the canary in the coal mine: if you cannot maintain a slow deep breath during yoga then something is wrong! If you find yourself holding your breath or not able to take a slow deep breath, then you need to back out of the pose or come out completely.
The breath is considered the foundation of the practice of yoga, and using slow deep yogic breathing is one of the major differences between yoga and other forms of exercise. The importance of maintaining this yogic breath is emphasized by the yogic teaching that says we are each born with only a certain number of breaths. Therefore, to extend the length of our lives we just need to slow down our breaths.
Granted, that can seem a bit simplistic and naive, but modern science shows that there is some truth to that ancient theory. Breathing slowly and deeply activates the parasympathetic nervous system, or the rest and renew response, which reduces stress and allows the body to heal. (The opposite of the rest and renew response is the fight or flight stress response of the sympathetic nervous system.) Because medical research has shown that stress is the number one contributing factor in most diseases, it would not be difficult to believe that minimizing stress through slow deep breathing could indeed help prolong your life.
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Namaste,
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Timothy Burgin
Founder & Executive Director
YogaBasics.com |
| Yoga and Trauma: The Power of Release |
| We all have emotional trauma, and it seems the more my trauma releases and quietens, the more I can hear the pain of others. My body, breath and mind hold the memory of the patterns of trauma, not yet fully released. This residual energy primes me to the feelings and patterns of others. I can hear them more clearly. I can feel the energy of consciousness moving through the world. |
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| Handstand: Turning My World Upside |
| I toiled for the better part of a year to conquer the handstand. Long into my yoga practice, I committed to landing Adho Mukha Vrksasana, admittedly partly seduced by photos of yogis suspended against the force of gravity by powerful arms and backs. |
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| The Myth of Multitasking |
| As Ferris Bueller observed, “Life moves pretty fast.” Isn’t this why we multi-task, to get more done in a day, despite an ever-mounting number of distractions? On average, each of us handles 100+ emails daily, with another 5,000 cramming our inboxes. Add phone calls, IMs, tweets, paper memos, meetings—it’s no wonder that U.S. citizens take fewer vacations than nearly every industrialized nation in the world. But evidence is growing that all this “productivity” is actually counterproductive—a sleep-stealing, concentration-scattering myth. And yogis aren’t exempt. |
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| Traveling On Wheels of Light: Exploring the Chakras |
| When I travel, I think of T.S. Eliot’s inspiring words: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” This applies also to the inner journey of yoga, where we explore deeper dimensions of being on a quest for self-understanding. Just as a map can guide us up a mountain trail, a map of the nadis and chakras can help us explore the unseen realm of pranamaya kosha, the energy body. |
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| Fifty Shades of Yoga: Body as Prison |
| Ten years ago I shivered as I climbed into a giant birdcage, wrists bound. Crouching inside as I peered out for the camera’s glare, I marveled at the sense of familiarity. Imprisonment, enslavement; these were familiar friends, in body and soul. Relief briefly surged; in acknowledging my soul’s pain, the physical bonds afforded momentary release. For years I continued to engage my body in battle. Glancing in the mirror one day at the gym, I witnessed both physical beauty and hopeless emptiness staring back. Disciplining and perfecting my body had failed to free my soul. Yet this is the premise of a controversial new coffee-table book project, Fifty Shades of Yoga, which depicts shots of an unnamed, scantily clad, statuesque blonde executing yoga poses while tied in various rope configurations. |
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| Does Modern Yoga Perpetuate Samskara? |
| Do you ever feel trapped by your body, as if it were something separate from you that you just have to live with? If the answer is yes, you aren’t alone. Philosophically, many cultural and religious traditions, including Patanjali’s Classical Yoga, conceptualize the body as bound to base lusts and desires that distract from loftier abstract moral and religious principles. Rene Descartes memorialized this with Cartesian Mind-Body dualism, which posits body and mind as comprised of distinct entities. Our cultural samskara (beliefs and patterns) thus perpetuate the notion that embodiment equals imprisonment. Unsurprisingly, this worldview aligns well with modern forms of yoga. |
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