I’m currently going through a yogi teacher training course to deepen my spiritual fitness practice, along with the intent of bringing awareness and education to men to give yoga a shot. Yoga is way more than doing postures. Many men, including myself, have been intimidated by yoga because of not knowing how to get started. To go into a crowded yoga studio, never doing it before, can be overwhelming. It is with this intent to write a couple of blogs and discuss on The Humble Warrior Podcast, my experiences to simplify yoga so my fellow brother will give this a shot.
Yoga is about finding oneself. It’s going inward. How do we do that? By concentration on our breath. The breath is one of the main foundations of yoga, the most important. Without breath, one cannot live, therefore one cannot practice yoga. Wow! As long as we are breathing, we are doing yoga. Yes, even if we didn’t do one move and we concentrated on our breath, we would be doing yoga. Close your eyes for one minute, concentrating on your breath, breathing in and out the nose with your mouth closed. Set a timer on your phone and stop reading the blog now.
Congrats yogi! You are experiencing one of the two foundations of the yoga taught at Center For Yoga. Breath & movement known as Hatha Yoga. By concentrating our breath we are building that relationship with our inner self.
I typed in Google how many breaths the average person takes in a day and this is what I got.
On average, a person at rest takes about 16 breaths per minute. This means we breathe about 960 breaths an hour, 23,040 breaths a day, 8,409,600 a year. Unless we get a lot of exercise. This person who lives to 80 will take about 672,768,000 breaths in a lifetime.
There are six types of yoga:
- Hatha-Breath and Movement
- Raja-Meditation
- Karma-Selfless Service. Examples would be Mother Theresa and Gandhi
- Bhakti-Love, Devotion to God
- Mantra- Chanting
- Jnana- Knowledge- Enlightenment, Pure Happiness. When you have all six working together
Even if you haven’t walked into a yoga studio or tried doing on your own, you can do yoga right now. #4 hits home with me. As Love and Devotion to God is paramount in my life. Is God in your life? Would you consider yourself devoted to God? If answer is yes, great! Your practicing Bhakti.
Also that one minute exercise you did would be considered Raja. Raja is yoga.
At the beginning of training, our teacher wrote on the white board what is Yoga? Then he went around the room to each student and here were our responses.
- Breath
- Poses
- Love
- God
- Peace
- Feeling
- Life
- Tranquility
- Mindfulness
- Bliss
- Non-Reactive
- Strength
- Balance
- Connection
My response was and will always be God. This is the most important relationship in my life. By putting this first, everything else falls into place. Yoga has helped me build this relationship. In addition I’m in the best overall physical, mental and emotional condition in my life. It’s the ultimate body, mind and spirit workout.
End by taking a five minute meditation of breathing in and out your nose, mouth and eyes closed. Concentrate on each breath.
Then ask yourself-How is my relationship with God?
Live Brave,
Chris
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This article originally appeared on Chris Forte’s Blog
Photo credit: Getty Images