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Back pain is insidious and can be debilitating. It’s also quite scary, since the spine is the nerve center of your entire body and damage to it can lead to partial or even complete paralysis. It’s not something to be taken lightly, and not something to go the do it yourself route with.

That’s why doing yoga for back pain is such a risk unless you’ve been directly prescriped to do such by a doctor or a licensed chiropractor. While yoga in general is a good idea - it improves muscle tone, increases flexibility and blood flow, and is good for your blood pressure as well - specifically doing yoga for back pain can be a risky proposition. You’re not a doctor, so you don’t know if your back pain is because of something as simple as having slept wrong and pulled a muscle, or if you’ve slipped a disc, or even if you have some sort of degenerative condition that yoga will actually exacerbate rather than help. And bear in mind, your body doesn’t always register pain when you’re abusing it. You may even find yourself in less pain after yoga but actually have done some structural damage. That’s the last thing you want.

So now that you’re properly warned, it’s time to educate yourself on the different kind of yoga for back pain options there are out there. Of course, Yoga itself isn’t just one particular set of stretches or poses. There are different kinds practiced in different ways for different reasons, and finding out just which one is best for your aching back or shoulders is a matter of consulting a licensed professional.

That said, most back pain is caused by improper posture. If that’s the case for you, then your best starting point is Hatha Yoga, a style and technique of Yoga that focuses on posture as a means of physical purification and restoration. It was created in the 15th century by the Yogi Swatmarama, and he took the word “Hatha” as its descriptor because “ha” means sun and “tha” means moon in sanskrit. The idea was to strike a true, unencumbered balance between the two - just as that should be your goal when practicing yoga for back pain.

Of course, fixing your posture won’t do much if you’ve slipped a disc or some other similarly gruesome injury. That’s why you need to be diligent and realistic about what will work for you back pain and what will just make it worse. So remember, step one is see your doctor.

There are many types of yoga including Vinyasa yoga. The term “vinyasa” means “breath-synchronized movement”. This style of yoga is a dynamic connecting posture that creates a flow between static traditional yoga postures.
This is a consistent breathing meditation and a rapid breathing-oriented posed yoga.
Its another way of power yoga.

Unlike other hatha styles of yoga, attention is also placed on the journey between the postures. In hatha yoga styles, attention is placed on postures only. In a standard vinyasa, the poses are performed between repeats of “Downward Facing Dog” in a Sun Salutation: Plank, “Four Limbed Staff”, and “Upward Facing Dog”.

The vinyasa flow is a variant of “Suryanamaskara” whish is also called the “Sun salutation”. The whole method is defined by six specific series of postures combined with specific breathing patterns. These series of postures are done in the same order.

The main purpose of the Vinyasa yoga is to generate heat in the body which leads to purification of body by increasing blood circulation and sweat. It can also improve the flexibility and increases the tissue strength. This will help the student to practice advanced asanas with reduced risk of injuries.

The six series of vinyasa yoga are as follows- Read the rest of this entry »

Before starting your first yoga class its worth considering what you would like to wear to the class. Yoga involves different movements and several positions including stretches. If you are not wearing the right clothing then you might not get all the benefits that you expect from your yoga class. Here are a few recommendations-

First thing that you need to consider would obviously be comfort. The dress that you wear should be comfortable to you, especially while you perform certain stretching poses.

Cottons are preferred for proper ventilation, as they can breathe easily and keep your body cool during your yoga workout.

Pick your clothes based on the type of yoga workout that you are doing. If you are performing the workout in an air conditioned area, then you can wear tracksuit or sweatpants. In an airconditioned room, then the ideal dressing to wear would be long sleeves or elbow length. If you are practicing bikram yoga then choose a lighter dress.

The main aim of yoga is to relax your body and mind, so your attire needs to support this. So choose clothes that will relax you.

Always choose close fitting tops and bottoms. This is because when you perform inverting poses, your body parts wont be revealed if you are wearing them.

You need not worry about the shoes because yoga is mostly practiced barefoot. Generally people prefer to attend yoga classes with sandals and flip flops as they would be very easy to remove before the class.

Shorts and light tops are apt for yoga classes during vacations.

Loose clothing is preferred but do not choose dresses that are too loose for you, because they may show off more than what you want to.

Do not choose very tight clothing because they may hamper some of the poses. Also, clothing that is too tight can be stretched too far and rip during the class. Tight clothing will be too revealing and may disrupt the opposite sex in your class (if present). Your clothing should be comfortable to you and others also.
Track and jogging suits are popular choices among the yoga practitioners during winter.

Like other exercise activities, you will sweat while practicing yoga movements, so choose fabrics taking this in to consideration. Some fabrics will absorb sweat and will keep your body dry during the workout, but still can  burn those calories.

If your clothing is wet then attempting certain positions could be dangerous and the same is true if your clothing is too loose. Take suggestions regarding the clothing from your yoga teacher.

The recommendations that are listed here are only suggestions to direct you.

If you are not sure about the clothing that you have to wear for your yoga classes, perform some basic moves and test the clothing yourself. You should feel free and good when you are practicing the movements. Clothing is very important for yoga, so solicit help from your yoga teacher. All the best .

When many people hear the word “yoga” mentioned, they invariably think of extremely agile bodies twisted into contorted positions. However, there is nothing inherently complex or complicated about the practice of yoga.

Yoga is in large part, all about ‘union’. Union of the body, mind, and spirit. It is practiced not only physically but mentally, emotionally & spiritually also. One of the best ways to accomplish this unity is yoga which is essentialy a spiritual pursuit.

Taking this idea further, yoga can have the effect of strengthening the spirit. The spirit forms the core of a person, and when it is strengthened, the personal as a whole will be also. The art of Yoga poses, created so many years ago, has time-tested principles that are still very much relevant today.

The study of yoga is synonymous with growth. I can think of no other animal that grows as much as a caterpillar turning to a butterfly. A caterpillar grows to about 27,000 times the size it was when it first emerged from its egg? If a human baby weighed 9 pounds at birth and grew at the same rate as a caterpillar, it would weigh 243,000 pounds when fully grown. If we were to even try to compare our own spiritual growth with that of the expansion of a caterpillar in its process of growth, we would be completely overwhelmed. In truth, we expand much more than this. Just like the caterpillar, which literally is turned inside out into a completely different form of life, we are turned inside out also, to view our world in a whole new way. Although the caterpillar is able to transform itself into a butterfly in approximately two weeks, and our spiritual process can take many lifetimes, we are both undergoing a tremendous transformation. Such transformations can be seen in these yoga videos.

Our own spiritual metamorphosis can be visualized as the same type of revolution that happens within a chrysalis. When we initially start to develop new patterns of thought, and new ways of seeing things, our egos feel very threatened. This is why sometimes, when we undertake a wholehearted approach to changing ourselves we feel like we’ve been rolled over by a ten thousand ton truck. Our ego is trying every tactic possible to destroy these new (and delicate) ways of seeing the world. Similarly, when a caterpillar fist builds its cocoon, new cells called ‘imaginal cells’ begin to form. These cells are so totally different from what the caterpillar knows that its immune system sees them as a disease and tried to destroy them. The new imaginal cells are persistent though (as we must be in our spiritual quest) and soon the immune system of the caterpillar cannot destroy them fast enough. More and more of them survive to create what the caterpillar will soon be instead of itself. Once the imaginal cells have developed a strong minority, they begin to form together. This can be seen as a similar process to the forming of universal consciousness. The little imaginal cells group together and start to resonate the same frequency, passing information from one cell to another in a more expeditious way. Eventually a long string of imaginal cells forms just like our very own DNA does! Eventually the string of imaginal cells realizes it is something very different from a caterpillar. It is meant for more grandiose things (as are we). The realization of this fact leads to the caterpillar becoming a butterfly. It eventually becomes more of a butterfly than it is a caterpillar, but it takes overcoming itself to do so.

If we were to imagine this metaphor as a translation for what happens within us spiritually, we can begin to see how we eventually become Gods having a human experience instead of human’s having a Godly experience. We start to realize, first one by one, then in small groups, then in large masses, that we are all one. We are Infinite Capacity. We are Infinite Love.

This is where you have to become a little but of a rebel. You have to be an imaginal cell. You have to shun the norms of society and take on a completely new outlook even though everyone around you is shouting at the top of their lungs, “You are only a caterpillar!” there have been social and spiritual deviants in the past, and they were killed just like the earliest imaginal cells in the caterpillar, Mahatma Ghandi, President Kennedy, and Benigno Servillano A. Aquino, Jr. were willing o sacrifice themselves in order to awaken the true nature of all of us. People like Nelson Mandela and Chadrel Rinpoche have been jailed when they were not killed so that society could try to silence the greater message they have to tell the whole. But there are larger groups of us now. We have begun to form a string that is unbreakable. We cannot be killed because our message has affected enough of the group consciousness that it no longer wants to fight but become what is in its truest nature – a spiritual force so strong that it leads only to peace and love for all sentient beings. The old order of crime and anger, war and greed is over. All around us we can the external symptoms that this order is collapsing and waiting to be transformed into a level of complexity and order.

It may seem that we are in times of chaos, but can you just imagine what it feels like to the caterpillar inside its chrysalis? It has to be eaten alive by its own immune system to become something radically different. It is absolute mayhem, I am sure. Society is perhaps reaching its own fevered pitch of change. We can each be imaginal in our own right, though, and be part of the change that gives the human race wings to fly up out of poverty and hatred. We are metamorphosing into our grander selves, into Bodhisattvas and then into Buddhas. From this vantage point we are again like butterflies, influencing the grandest things just by the smallest flap of our wings. In 1969 Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”.

How can you mimic the imaginal cell more completely? Do your hatha yoga practice daily. It will keep you in alignment with the greater picture. You can meditate with a friend, or commit an act of kindness toward a stranger. You can give someone a smile or a compliment when they are complaining or sad. You can volunteer in your community. There are a million ways that you can shorten our time within out spiritual chrysalis. Your bravery and foresight will be the overriding factor which makes the world steer away from its path of self-destruction and into the light of creation. We were meant for this all along.