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This phrase comes up quite often when meeting new people and I tell them what I do for a living. Either this or “I’m not flexible enough to do yoga.” Here and now I would like to offer my thoughts and feelings towards these sentences and to hopefully guide your thinking in a new direction. Let’s start off with the thought that there is no good or bad when it comes to yoga. There’s no right or wrong and if someone tells you otherwise, I implore you to ask why.  Ashtanga Yoga In yoga, there is something called Ashtanga Yoga, otherwise known as The 8 Limbs of Yoga. Essentially these 8 limbs or pathways will lead you to liberation. Now, why is this relevant to the ‘not being good at yoga’ statement? This is because there is so much depth and scope to yoga, that you needn’t use only one aspect of it. The aspect most people are referring to when they say “I’m not flexible enough to do yoga”, is asana (postures).  Asana Asana is the 3rd limb of Ashtanga Yoga. It focuses on creating and maintaining a strong and health body in order to achieve a meditative state. If the body is at an un-ease, then the mind will become so. Therefore the practice of asana is import to keep the body strong yet agile enough to withstand the way we live. Focusing on asana, yes there are ways to do certain poses and doing them in a different way may induce an injury. That begin said, as long as you practice with awareness you will avoid most incidents. Yamas Back to The 8 Limbs of Yoga. There is so many options to choose from when it come to yoga. So many different styles, practices and ways in which to apply it in your daily life. The first limb is called Yama or the do’s of yoga. There are five do’s of yoga, one of them being Ahimsa (non-violence). If you just adhered to this practice of non-violence in all its forms, then you are practicing yoga. If you attach yourself to an aggressive way of living, then maybe try Astaya (non-stealing). By practicing one or all of the Yamas, you will most likely be lead down a path in which you cannot help but follow. This is another beautiful thing about yoga, one thing leads onto the next in an almost seamless way. The great thing about yoga is that it is a tool that everyone can use. The meaning of ‘bad’. The only reason we believe we are ‘bad’ at yoga or at anything for that matter, is because we have set ourselves a bar of which if we don’t reach, we class ourselves as bad. This bar has been implanted into our conscience by the media and wrongful education. At points it is good to challenge ourselves and get out of our comfort zone. However, we shouldn’t exert ourselves or apply stress to the body-mind system. It is well known that stress is the number one cause of death and yet we are surprised when athletes fall ill or a race horse collapses. It all due to too much stress. If we remove that bar or expectation, then nothing is good or bad, it just is and in that we can find comfort and acceptance. So many of us are attached to our ego and have lost the simple art of being. We’ve become absorbed in our own creation, rather than connected with creation itself.  Conclusion So know that you’re not bad or good at something, you just require a different approach in order to see things as they are, without judgement. Yoga is a tool to be used to give our lives balance. Use it correctly and you will begin to know true harmony. Thanks for reading. To keep up to date with the latest blog posts, please subscribe to our newsletter.

There are so many ways to get in shape, keep fit and stay healthy. Today we are bombarded with gyms, running clubs, sporting activities, various dimensions of yoga classes and other forms of exercise. That being said, what makes yoga stand out and why choose yoga? Well allow me to share my own journey to yoga and how the practice has helped me. Let me being by saying that yoga is so much more than a means of keeping the body strong and flexible. When I first began practicing yoga, I thought it was just an exercises class. Yes, yoga has elements of strength training and exercises/poses that will increase your flexibility, yet there is much more to obtain through regular practice of yoga. I wanted an exercise that helped support my back and spine. Being a tall guy, I suffered with back ache quite early on in my life. I tried various forms of exercises to subdue to aches and pains, but nothing seemed to gel or actually cure the problem. Then I discovered yoga and although my journey with yoga has been rocky from the start, I knew this was the practice. When I say rocky, at the beginning I just wanted to learn some exercises to help my back. I wasn’t interested in the meditation side, in fact I would often say that my mind was too busy to meditate and I had no patience for the breathwork side of things. Years later, I now realise that it is all one thing. Yoga means union and although you can focus on different aspects of the practice, when you unify all the properties of yoga, then you are in yoga with everything. More on this later. So yoga became a building block for me toward health. It help subdue my back aches and build muscle around the spine to keep it supported. As some of you may have experienced, when you start build a habit, it’s difficult to give it up. Yoga was my habit and as I began to practice more often, I began to go deeper into the practice. I began to focus on the meditative side of things. I began to realise that the postures were there to give you strength and flexibility, yet also keep the mind focused and induce deeper breathing in order to hold the poses for a longer duration. Yoga taught me how to breath correctly (deep and slow). It taught me how to find stillness in my mind. It gave me clarity, subdued my fear, anger and anxiety. Yoga is a tool to be used to bring you into a state of balance. Going to a gym might give you increased strength and stamina, practicing yoga will give you this and more. Yoga don’t even need to practice asana (postures), you can simply pick a portion of yoga that interests you. I have a friend who meditated for 2 years before even holding a pose. The great teachers of yoga have all moved on from such physical practices and focus on the subtle practices, which needn’t come later. If you’re interested in energies, chakras (meridians), scriptures or even the Yamas and Niyamas (the do’s and don’ts of yoga), these are enough by themselves to help health the body-mind system and bring you into a state of balance. This is why I choose yoga now and continue to practice every day. It is a well rounded practice that gives us everything we need to be in balance. If you want more strength for whatever reason, then a gym/lifting weights might be more suited for you. That said, yoga has been the way for me and has helped me so much, that I now teach the practice to others. If you are interested in finding out more through the practice of asana/pranayama (breathwork)/dyhana (meditation), then you can attend one of my classes here. I hope this writing has help clear up a little what yoga is and what is can potentially do for you and for others. It is my wish that everyone finds balance in life, so that this life my be in balance. Namaste