Hatha Yoga - admi.lv

<h2>HATHA YOGA</h2>Translated from Sanskrit, “hatha” means might, force, necessity or effort. The syllable “ha” stands for the sun and the syllable “tha” - for the moon, and the chief task of hatha yoga is to establish a balance in the body between sun and moon, between activity and relaxation. First and foremost hatha yoga is meant to restore a person's physical health: to give the joints back their mobility, to halt the curving of the spine, to normalise blood pressure and digestion, to strengthen the immune system and the hormonal balance. And the health of mind and spirit is to follow directly from physical health.Of the theoretical eighty-four thousand asanas, 84 are considered the best, and 32 of those the most beneficial to health. The asanas usually include the poses of animals (the cow, the cock, the locust, the lion and so on), of plants (the tree, the lotus) and of objects (the plough, the bowl). An asana is considered to be performed correctly when the yogi can remain in that position without discomfort for three hours. Asanas develop flexibility in the corresponding muscle groups, and they also affect the tone of the veins and arteries, particularly during such specific poses as the shoulder stand or the headstand. Many asanas help build maximum flexibility of the spine by alternating forward and backward bridges performed with a different point of gravity. Asanas also improve the working of the internal organs, the glands and the nervous system through constant gentle pressure.It is worth remembering that although hatha yoga, more than any other yogic path, directs its attention precisely at physical health, one must not lose sight of the central point, the core of this school, which lies in union with cosmic consciousness. Acquiring the poses is merely a way of reaching the final point, to which many other paths also lead. It is simply that in our own society, which even at a stretch could not be called physically healthy, this tool appears the most effective, since along the way it solves some very pressing problems.The Iyengar style is static: each asana is held for several minutes. Unlike the dynamic kinds of yoga - Ashtanga Vinyasa, Kundalini - here the body is literally rebuilt from scratch, with a great deal of attention given to the finest nuances: the stretch, the tension in the muscles, the turns and the twists. Moreover, for each person the standard poses may vary slightly depending on what precisely that particular person needs. Wooden blocks, ropes, blankets and bars are used to build the poses correctly.Iyengar himself suffered from numerous illnesses in his youth: malaria, typhoid fever, tuberculosis. Doctors doubted he would last beyond the age of 20, and at sixteen the young man began to practise yoga with his sister's husband - Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, one of the finest masters of yoga in India, who brought up a whole generation of teachers. Iyengar is now 90 years old, he still stands on his head with ease, and his followers number in the hundreds of thousands.