There are a lot of yoga poses and you might wonder if some are still exercised and applied. The answer is yes. Yoga poses function and perform differently. Each pose is designed to develop one’s flexibility and strength.

Here are some of the yoga poses that are commonly used:

Standing Poses

Standing is one of the important yoga poses. This type of pose is helpful in aligning your body and your feet. This is also very useful in improving and maintaining a good posture. It is an advantage because if you have a bad posture, your backbones can be stretched and straightened without noticing it. Standing poses helps in giving strength to your legs and at the same time increase elasticity in your legs and hips because they are all connected to each other.

Seated poses

These types of yoga poses increase your lower back and hip’s flexibility. This also strengthens your back. This adds suppleness to your knees, groin, ankle and most especially your spine. Another advantage is that it helps you to breathe in deep which gives you that calm and peaceful feeling.

Forward Bends

This type helps you in stretching the hamstrings and your lower back also strengthening it. This lessens the tension found in your neck, shoulder, back and increase flexibility in your spine. Calmness is also achieved in this type of pose.

Back bends are amazingly helpful in opening your chest, hips and even the rib cage. This is helpful in strengthening and making your arms shoulders stronger. At the same time, it simultaneously increases your flexibility and elasticity in your shoulders. The great thing is that it helps to relieve the tension from the front of your body up to your hips and it increases your spinal ability. Your spinal cord is one thing that is important in your body so you need to take good care of it.

Back Bends

Notice that the forward bends are challenging because the exercise gives you a nice feeling and it can cause to fix some injuries. In this type of position, you can use a prop like the strap or the black because it will be very helpful.

Balance

Balance poses are very challenging. People who do yoga get too excited in performing balances. This is good because the fun that the person acquires helps him to live up his spirit and enlighten his soul. Balance is helpful in improving your posture. In improving your posture, the spinal cord is elongated which helps to keep yourself from some injuries and falling over.

Balance helps in training your ability to focus on your main goal and attention. However, attention should be obtained in the ultimate level because if your concentration is weak, for sure you cannot perform this type of pose.

Balance is one of the yoga poses that people truly appreciate and exert effort for. Along with the balance poses comes the twist which extremely releases tension all over your body. The tension in your spine is made clear. Twisting may seem to be hard to obtain. It is important to execute twists on both sides of the body so that the balance and alignment is obtained.

Taking note of these yoga poses will help you get along with yoga perfectly. Keep in mind that concentration is your main key if you want to be successful in doing these yoga poses.

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When you teach Hatha Yoga, you are asked many questions. Although public awareness of Yoga, and its teachings, has increased, many people are just discovering some of the benefits within the many styles of Yoga. Therefore, you have to be prepared for the unexpected questions that arise about the mysteries of Yoga.

Once in a while, the question of religion does come up. Many times, Yoga teachers are asked if they are a Hindu, Sikh, or Buddhist. To the public’s amazement, many Yoga teachers come from all of the major religions in the world. There is no single religion that all Yoga teachers participate in.

How can this be? Some Gurus preach that Yoga should be founded within a particular religion. Some Yoga teachers read the Rig Veda, Bhagavad Gita, and speak Sanskrit words, so they must be covertly teaching Hinduism, or some other religion, right? Wrong - some Yoga teachers do teach religion in their classes, and some do not.

If your Yoga teacher has the Vedas, Torah, New Testament, Holy Quran, and the Gnostic Gospels, in his or her library, what does that mean? It means that your Yoga teacher likes to read, study, and does not have a closed mind. That is all it means, unless your Yoga teacher preaches religion as part of his or her practice.

If a Yoga teacher does preach religion within Yoga classes, this should be easy enough to see and hear. In Yoga studios that reside in the Americas and Europe, this may not be what most Hatha Yoga students are seeking. Each student has the right to leave, but the public should be made aware that a Yoga studio is conducting religious classes.

Many of these potential Yoga students are not seeking religious conversion, religious instruction, and live in a culture with a strict separation of religion from government. This means that religion in the West is often compartmentalized.

For example: If a concerned doctor recommends Yoga to a patient with back problems - the patient is not being referred to a Yoga studio for religious instruction.

Therefore, if you teach a form of religious Yoga in the West, be honest about it. Most students, from western cultures, are in Hatha Yoga classes for the physical and mental aspects.

If you want to teach Yoga as spiritual health, get the proper training first, and give the public “fair warning.” Teaching good virtues is one thing, but teaching religion to your Yoga students is quite another. This is the “line in the sand” that some Yoga teachers should never forget.

The answers to spiritual enlightenment are within all religions, but it is up to Yoga students to pursue their own religion and find the answers to their spiritual health. There is no single “man made path” to spiritual health, enlightenment, or union. This is a myth that, as a species, we never seem to learn.

Throughout our history, Holy wars are always justified by both sides. Of course, the other side is always less human, less understanding, evil, and ignorant of the true path. “The world would be a better pace without the unbelievers;” is always a good battle cry.

Religion is too volatile a subject to discuss within a multi-cultural Hatha Yoga class. Therefore, if you are going to mix any religion with Yoga practice, it should be taught within a sectarian atmosphere.

© Copyright 2006 - Paul Jerard / Aura Publications

Paul Jerard is a co-owner and the director of Yoga teacher training at: Aura Wellness Center, in North Providence, RI. He has been a certified Master Yoga teacher since 1995. To receive a Free e-Book: “Yoga in Practice,” and a Free Yoga Newsletter, please visit: http://www.yoga-teacher-training.org/index.html

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For Yoga teachers the value of props as a tool for alignment is priceless. Yet it is amazing when a Yoga teacher has a negative view of props and the students who use them. Every once in a while you get to hear contrasting views, but below I have listed a few quotes that no one wants to take credit for.

“There are no props in my style, in my classes, or in my town. My Yoga teacher says props are a crutch and there is no reason to make them available to students.”

This is a closed minded view, if I ever heard one. What about the student who cannot bring his, or her, spine in a straight line when practicing Triangle posture? One block, placed in the correct location, will change the alignment of the entire body.

A wall might also make a major difference to some Yoga students. So why not adjust a student into a better alignment so she or he can hold the position longer? This will build strength and the Yoga student will actually memorize correct alignment by feeling it.

“Yoga props are fluff. These people are not really practicing Yoga.”

This one comment “takes the cake.” My answer to this person was that she should seek a Yoga teacher who shared her lack of tolerance. Since Yoga encompasses many things; who should say what “real Yoga” is, or is not?

Props are used by Yoga teachers from many styles of Hatha Yoga such as Iyengar Yoga, Tri Yoga, Restorative Yoga, Prenatal Yoga, Chair Yoga, and many more Hatha sub-styles. To be honest, the Yoga mat is a prop. It was not that long ago when Yogis did not use Yoga mats. Why reject progress being made by some of the most innovative minds in modern day Yoga?

One mistake that most Yoga students and Yoga teachers make is thinking of postures as beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Each body is unique and will be exceptional in some ways and less exceptional in others. We should stop focusing on the next “advanced posture” and think about the alignment of the Yoga posture we are in at the present moment.

Proper alignment should never be compromised for the sake of the ego. When you know that a blanket, bolster, ball, strap, block, chair, wall, or another prop would help a student’s alignment; using a prop is a “no brainer.”

Yoga teachers should make props available, but also be prepared to improvise. Most Yoga teachers do not have every prop available in their studio. This is not a problem, and it will teach you to be creative. One of our Yoga teachers shows her students how to use the kitchen counter, the bottom steps of a stair case, and towels as props for Yoga practice at home.

There is no limit to what can be used for a Yoga prop. Our true potential, as Yoga teachers, is only limited by our thinking.

© Copyright 2006 - Paul Jerard / Aura Publications

Paul Jerard is a co-owner and the director of Yoga teacher training at: Aura Wellness Center, in North Providence, RI. He has been a certified Master Yoga teacher since 1995. To receive a Free e-Book: “Yoga in Practice,” and a Free Yoga Newsletter, please visit: http://www.yoga-teacher-training.org/index.html

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