Yoga Style
The image of yoga has changed during the past years. If once, the first picture that popped your mind was of a group of white wearing weirdoes standing on their heads and breathing loudly, now you are probably thinking about Madonna's well shaped arms. Currently, yoga is one of the most popular fitness activities worldwide. One of its appeal is that it can be practiced by elders and it can improve the overall physical fitness of athletes. If you want to start practicing yoga, here is a quick guide to the basic types of yoga. While most of them are based on the same ancient postures, each yoga style has a different focus.
Some of the yoga styles focus on strengthening the body while others focus on flexibility. Other types of yoga focus mainly on breathing, relaxation, and meditation. Most of the yoga sty les that were adopted in the west, were derived from the Hatha Yoga, which is a general term that refers to the physical branches of the ancient Indian philosophy. The purpose of the traditional Hatha Yoga was to achieve balance between mind and body through moral discipline and physical exercises, which are expressed by a series of asana: postures, panorama: breathing and meditation. Western culture adopted mainly the physical aspects of the Hatha Yoga and ignored the moral aspects, usually even the breathing and meditations aspects. All the yoga styles that were derived from the Hatha Yoga share the same basic principle that mental balance can be achieved through practice of physical exercises and postures. Each yoga style chooses to focus on different aspect.
Types of Yoga
- Ashtanga Yoga
- Power Yoga
- Bikram Yoga
- Iyengar Yoga