How Yoga is different from other forms of excercise?
Understanding will help build connection with one's practice
3 min read
When people come to a yoga class, whether they have been exercising or not, they find it different.
First of all, a proper yoga class is quite slow, the physical exercises are slow with holding the postures for a certain period of time. They are 2 forms of exercises Isometric & Isotonic. Yoga postures are basically Isometric, what that means is that, we hold the postures for a long time.
When we practice yoga – asana, pranayama, suryanamaskars & relaxation, you work on the flexibility of the body, you work on strength, you work on stamina, endurance, you also work on natural ability & agility. So, all yoga practices are towards working these within the system.
In addition to stimulating and encouraging the proper functioning of all the organs, Yoga infact, unlike many forms of exercises, it’s a complete form of working on the human system for optimization of all bodily functions.
There are 10-12 systems in the body, including the nervous system, cardio-vascular system, respiratory system, digestive, muscular, eliminatory system, reproductive system. Yoga works on each of these systems holistically.
1. When you are practicing the asanas, some asanas work on certain parts of the body and other work on other parts of body.
For instance, when you do Sirsasana (Headstand) the blood flow is towards the brain from the heart, you are actually reversing the process of gravity and the venous blood from the legs is coming down to the heart, a fresh supply of blood and oxygen is entering the brain.
In other forms of exercise, especially with things like running and cardiovascular training, we are not doing the same kind of activity. For example, we are not using the help of gravity and help of breath, to drive extra nutrition or blood supply to the brain. Yoga is doing that with one specific posture like headstand. When you do Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand), Halasana (Plough Pose), Matsyasana (Fish Pose) each of these practices are working very deeply and specifically with different systems, including the endocrine system which is the hormonal system running through the entire body.
2. The other amazing difference with other forms of exercise is the attention to relaxation and attention to breathe; the understanding is that everything that we do, breath is vital, breath is important. No Breath, no life. No breath, no exercise. So, the focus on breath is the second fundamental difference between other forms of exercise and the practice of Yoga.
3. Attention to relaxation and the attention that is necessary to practice yoga. It’s a training for the mind, not only it’s training for the mind, in fact as you practice yoga, you start to realize that it’s the training of the mind and not of the physic. So, in the most fundamental level how yoga is different from other forms of exercise is that it is the oldest form of training your personality, it is training your mind, it is training of who you are. So, it is actually a comprehensive approach to everything that you call YOU. It’s not just the development of your muscles or many kilos you can lift and how long you can run.
It is about who you are as a person and the discovery of your entire being. That’s how different Yoga is from other forms of exercises.
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· Yoga is holistic in its approach
It involves
Attention to practice
Attention to the breath
Attention to being relaxed
· Yoga works on all 12 major systems in the body including cardiovascular, endocrine, lymphatic, circulatory, nervous, digestive, muscular, skeletal, reproductive, eliminatory, immune & respiratory systems.
· Yoga improves flexibility, strength, stamina, endurance, ability, agility, not just of the body, but also of the mind.
· Yoga is said to be the mother of all forms of exercise that we know of today.
