YOGA is an ancient science. It offers unique, effective and practical methods to attain mental tranquillity and physical health. 5,000 year old carvings from the Indus Valley civilisation depict a figure that archaeologists believe represents a yogi sitting in meditation. The figure is shown sitting in a traditional cross-legged yoga pose with its hands resting on its knees.
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras date from around 200 BCE-300 CE discuss the concepts of yoga as the science of quietening the mind. Our society makes a virtue of multi-tasking. If you were to imagine a hundred cinema projectors, projecting different images on to a cinema screen at high speed and at the same time you would have some idea of the usual state of the mind. Patanjali defines yoga as a multifaceted method of bringing consciousness to a state of stillness.
The mindful practice of posture and breath bring us back to ourselves. It gradually slows the speed of all those projectors and eventually switches them off. We get to spend time discovering and being who we are. Reflect for a moment about how your emotional responses can impact on the way you hold your body and take each breath. Working with awareness of breath and posture can take the slump out of your shoulders and deepen you breath – which will in turn make you feel more positive. It’s not a quick process, but it is one that is worth investing in. Yoga can and does help you maintain physical fitness and will tone the body, but more than this it will bring you peace of mind.
VINIYOGA is a ancient Sanskrit word that means "appropriate application".
viniyogaû = application, progression. vi = special ni = into yoga= union
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Viniyoga is also the term sometimes used to descibe the approuch to yoga taught by Krishnamacharya (left) to his son Desikachar, A.G.Mohan and others. The core principles of this approuch when applied to asana practice are:
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