Skip to content

Yoga Classes

YOGA

CLASSES

A yoga class is a group exercise class that involves a series of poses, breathing techniques, and meditation. Yoga is a physical and spiritual practice that originated in India over 5,000 years ago.

Yoga is a mind and body practice that can build strength and flexibility. It may also help manage pain and reduce stress. Various styles of yoga combine physical postures, breathing techniques, and meditation. Yoga is an ancient practice that may have originated in India.

Benefits of Yoga

  • Physical health: Yoga can improve strength, flexibility, balance, and coordination. It can also lower blood pressure, cholesterol, and glucose levels. 
  • Mental health: Yoga can help improve focus, reduce stress, and improve sleep. 
  • Overall health: Yoga can help improve posture and body awareness.

There are many types of yoga classes.

Hatha Yoga 

Hatha yoga is about balancing the body and mind. ‘Ha’ represents the esoteric sun, and ‘tha’ the moon. The practice of Hatha yoga aims to join, yoke, or balance these two energies. 

Raja Yoga

Raja Yoga popularly known as “Ashtanga Yoga” is for the all-round development of human beings. These are Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi. In Sanskrit, ashtanga means eight-limbed (asta- eight, anga- limb). Ashtanga Yoga is an eight-limbed path towards achieving the state of Yoga, also known as Samadhi. Ashtanga Yoga is one of the classifications of Yoga in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, which states that optimum mental and physical health can only be achieved by being ethically and morally right through karmas (deeds or actions), meditation, discipline, inner and outer cleansing, and physical exercises.

Bhakti Yoga 

Bhakti Yoga, is a system of intense devotion with emphasis on complete surrender to divine will. The true follower of Bhakti Yoga is free from egoism and remains humble and unaffected by the dualities of the world. The word “bhakti” comes from the Sanskrit word “bhaj,” which means “to love” or “to devote”. Yoga, on the other hand, means “to unite” or “to connect.” Therefore, Bhakti yoga is the path of uniting with the divine through love and devotion

Karma Yoga

Teaches us to perform all actions without having any desire for their fruit. In this sadhana, a Yogi considers his duty as divine action, performing it with whole-hearted dedication but shuns away all desires.

Gyana Yoga

Teaches us to discriminate between self and non-self and to acquire the knowledge of one’s spiritual entity through the study of scriptures, a company of Saints, and practices of meditation.

Japa Yoga

To concentrate one’s mind on a divine name or holy syllable, mantra, etc. like ’OM’, ‘Rama’, ’Allah’, ’God’, or ’Vahe Guru’, etc. through repeated recitation or remembrance.

Swara Yoga

Swara Yoga is Science, which is about the realization of cosmic consciousness, through awareness/ observation and then control/ manipulation of the flow of breath in the nostrils. Swara Yoga involves the systematic study of the breath flowing through the nostril (or Swara) in relation to the prevailing phases of the Sun, Moon, time of day, and direction. It is the association of the breath in relation to the activities or phases or positions of the Sun, Moon, Planets, Seasons, and Time of day, with the physical and mental conditions of the individual and then taking the appropriate action according to these subtle relations.

Kundalini

Kundalini Yoga is a part of Tantric Tradition. Since the dawn of creation, the Tantrics and yogis have realized that in this physical body, there is a potential force residing in Muladhara Chakra, the first of seven Chakras. The seat of Kundalini is a small gland at the base of the spinal cord. In the masculine body it is in the perineum between the urinary and excretory organs. In the female body its location is at the root of the uterus in the cervix. Those people who have awakened this supernatural force have been called Rishis, Prophets, Yogis, Siddhas and other names according to the time, tradition and culture.

To awaken the Kundalini, you must prepare yourself through yogic techniques such as Shatkriya, Asana, Pranayama, Bandha, Mudra and Meditation. The awakening of Kundalini results in an explosion in the brain as the dormant or sleeping areas start blooming like flowers.

Nadi

As described by Yogic texts, Nadis are flows of energy that we can visualize at the psychic level as having distinct channels, light, color, sound, and other characteristics. The entire network of nadis is so vast that even yogic texts differ in their calculations of the exact number. References in the Goraksha Sataka or Goraksh Samhita and Hatha Yoga Pradipika place their number at 72,000; emerged from the navel center- the Manipuri Chakra. Of all the thousands of Nadis, Susumna is said to be the most important. The Shiva Swarodaya enumerates ten major Nadis which connect to the ‘doorways’ leading in and out of the body. Of these ten, Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna are the most important, they are the high-voltage wires which conduct the energy to the substations or Chakras situated along the spinal column.