Today is Wednesday and, according to The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga by Deepak Chopra, is the day of the Law of Least Effort. The Law of Least effort is not about laziness or slacking. It is about “effortless ease”. Nature does not strain, a flower does not struggle to grow; these things happen effortlessly. The Law of Least Effort is about putting in minimal effort to maximum effect. We can do less and accomplish more.
Yoga Breath
Breathe easy…
5 ways to find ease in your yoga practice
One of my current goals or intentions in yoga is to put in less effort and find more ease in every pose. One of the mistakes a novice user makes is to put so much effort into each pose, your whole body tenses up. This is the opposite of what yoga tries to achieve.
STOP! Spiritual growth is only for unhappy people
The question came up on whether I am unhappy. Why would I be pursuing spiritual growth and unity in mind, body and spirit if I was happy?
How to Ujjayi
Ujjayi breath has been described in many similar ways. I have heard it defined as conqueror’s breath, success breath and victorious or victory breath, all synonyms of each other.
Pranayama: it’s not just breath work
For many, Pranayama is simply the mastery of breathing techniques to be used with yoga. Pranayama is actually much more that this. Prana means life force and pranayama is the practice of mastery of the life force. The life force translates to breathing for our human bodies. Certain breathing techniques can be used to achieve certain effects in the body. There are many prana exercises that can help energize you, or help you fall asleep. It can be a practice in its own right, apart from yoga, but it is useful in yoga too. It helps maintain an easy and calm mental state when flowing into and out of pose.
How to Down Dog
I don’t know why, but down dog seems to be the most popular pose in my yoga class. This may not be 100% true, but it seems like it. I must do anywhere from 10 to 20 dogs every class. Now, I may be a beginner, but I feel like I have my Dog down. And so I would like to share with you how to Down Dog.
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Can Yoga unite mind, body and soul?
I have a great yoga teacher at the local yoga workshop place in the hood. Each session is more than but still is all about yoga. One of the things she does at the start of each session is to ask the class to clear our minds, and to be with the intention that brings us to practice yoga that day.
In the beginning, it was to help my aching back (oy! such pain). Now, I try to use yoga to learn how to unite my mind, body and spirit. But what does that mean exactly?
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