« … I am well aware - based on several years of informal discussions about the material presented here - that my work can cause very specific reactions in certain circles. Those who prefer hagiography to history, some Western apologists for the "traditional" systems of modern postural yoga, can easily dismiss this work as irrelevant or malicious, and its author as an academic transgressor trespassing on holy ground.

Others who are hostile to the authority of modern traditions (or who are unhappy that “everything is already done” in yoga) will revel in what they see as a much-needed debunking of a convenient but deceitful myth.

Both of these responses are based on the assumption that my intention was to "crush" the validity of modern yoga, or to show that postural forms exist today as "illegitimate", "defective", "emasculated", "artificial" (etc.) , in relation to the true meaning and authentic practice of yoga.

However, both of these reactions, in addition to distorting my position, are inadequate and undesirable, since they suppress a genuine and thorough reflection on the essence of modern yoga. » .

Mark Singleton.

This book explores the rise of asana practice in modern transnational yoga. Today, yoga in the West is practically synonymous with asana practice, and postural yoga classes can be found in almost every city in the Western world; their number is growing in the Middle East, Asia, North and Central America and Australia. Yoga "health clubs" are also enjoying a resurgence in popularity among the affluent urban population in India. Although exact statistics on practitioners are difficult to ascertain, it is clear that postural yoga is undergoing rapid development. one

Since the 1990s, yoga has become a multi-million dollar business, and high-profile legal battles begin for possession of the ownership of asanas. Styles, sequences, and the poses themselves are subject to franchising, copyrights, and patents from individuals, companies, and the government 2 , and yoga is used to sell a wide range of products from mobile phones to yogurt. In 2008, yoga practitioners in the United States spent $5.7 billion annually on yoga classes, yoga trips, and related products (Yoga Journal, 2008), a figure equal to about half of Nepal's GDP (CIA 2008).

However, despite the enormous worldwide popularity of postural yoga, there is little or no evidence that asanas (with the exception of a few sitting postures for meditation) were ever a major aspect of any Indian tradition of yoga practice - including and medieval, body-oriented hatha yoga - despite the many claims of many modern schools to their own authenticity (see chapter 1).

The primacy of performing asanas in today's transnational yoga is a new phenomenon that has no analogues in pre-modern eras. In the late 1800s, a revival of mainly English-language yoga begins in India, and new synthesis of practical methods and theories arise, primarily associated with the teachings of Vivekananda (1863-1902). But even in these new forms, the asana practice so common today is missing.

In fact, Vivekananda and his followers clearly distanced themselves from asanas, as well as other techniques associated today with hatha yoga, as inappropriate and unpleasant.

As a result, they continue to be completely absent from the initial manifestations of practical English-speaking yoga. In this work, I began to explore the reasons why asanas were initially excluded from modern yoga teachings, and what changes they underwent in order to be eventually assimilated by them 3

How is it that with such hopeless endeavors, asanas have reached their present position, when they are used as a cornerstone in the foundation of transnational yoga?

What were the circumstances that contributed to the exclusion of asanas from the field of view of early modern yoga teachers, and on what grounds did their return become possible?

At the time of Vivekananda's yoga synthesis, in the 1890s, postural practices were predominantly associated with the yogi (or, more popularly, "yogi"). This term meant, in particular, yogis of the Nath tradition, but in a broader sense served to refer to a variety of ascetics, sorcerers and street performers. Often he was mixed with the Muslim "fakir", and therefore the "yogi" symbolized everything false in some branches of the Hindu religion. The postural contortions of hatha yoga have been associated with backwardness and superstition, and thus many felt that they had no place in contemporary scientific enterprises and yoga initiatives.

In the first half of this work, I explore the image of the yogi as it appears in travel writing, scholarship, pop culture, and popular practice yoga literature in order to understand the specific status of hatha yoga at that time.

This will provide the necessary context for the second half of the study, in which I have focused on the specific modifications that Hatha Yoga has had to go through in order to stop being perceived as a pest in India's religious and social landscape.

The object of this book is an essential but hitherto neglected aspect of yoga development.

Modern yoga studies tend to take into account the transition from Vivekananda's asana-less yoga manifestation in the mid-1890s to the well-known postural-oriented forms that begin to emerge in the 1920s. The two main studies in this area to date, De Michelis (2004) and Alter (2004), have focused on both of these points in the history of transnational yoga, but have failed to provide a satisfactory explanation of why asanas were initially excluded, and how Thus, they were eventually reclaimed 4 .

This work is aimed at identifying the factors that initially influenced the formation of transnational yoga, which is accepted today, and in a sense determines the “prehistory” of the international asana revolution, which received full promotion from B.K.S. Iyengar and others in the early 1950s.

This background includes an examination of international physical culture movements and the ways in which they affected the minds of Indian youth at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries;

The quasi-religious forms of physical culture that swept nineteenth-century Europe and made their way to India, where they shaped and filtered new popular interpretations of nationalist Hinduism;

Experiments that determined the special nature of Indian physical culture, which led to the reorganization of asanas as timeless forms of expression of Hindu exercises;

Western fitness-oriented asana practices developed in India and brought back to the West, where they merged and became identified with the forms of "esoteric gymnastics" that had grown in popularity in Europe and America since the mid-nineteenth century, independent of any contact with yoga traditions.

Posturally oriented yoga as we know it today is the result of a dialogue between the para-religious modern techniques of body culture developed in the West and the diverse yoga discourses of "modern" Hinduism that has been emerging since the time of Vivekananda. Despite everyday appeals to the tradition of Indian hatha yoga, modern posturally oriented yoga cannot really be considered the direct heir to this tradition.

How yoga can destroy your body ( )

Today, yoga classes are closely associated in society with a healthy lifestyle. Usually, this is exactly what many healthy lifestyle experts say - "start eating right, do yoga, exercise, etc."

In Moscow fitness clubs, again, yoga classes are almost always present. Not to mention the countless sections / circles. This is a very popular way of healing, especially among women. Among my female acquaintances, most yoga was or is being practiced. Yes, I myself used to be fond of this for about two months, a long time ago, in my youth. There were no consequences, negative or positive. But over time, I formed a sharply negative opinion about this "physical education" (hereinafter, we are talking specifically about the "gymnastic" aspect of classical yoga).

Firstly, I found out that yogis do not shine with health and longevity at all (as if not vice versa). Secondly, official medicine has not adopted this method of healing, obviously because there has not been a consensus on any significant positive effects.

Of course, I have come across people (usually women) in my life with stories of miraculous healings. But it was all from the series - "let's go to the grandmother, she conjured and everything resolved." Yoga in their stories can be successfully replaced by wearing a magnetic bracelet, drinking charged water, and similar magical nonsense.

And recently in The Times I came across an interesting article about the dangers of yoga, which finally dotted the “and”.
The text is very long, in some places I will freely retell, in some places I will skip, where it is important - I will translate it exactly.

How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body
By: William J. Broad

The author of the article is a 30-year-old journalist who injured his intervertebral disc in his lower back, tried to cure himself with yoga and failed. So he turned to a New York-based famous yoga instructor who is known for specializing in yoga injuries and who knows everything not only about the merits of these activities, but also can tell a lot about the downside. His name is Glenn Black, he studied yoga in India, then practiced for many years, has an extensive clientele among the stars and even the yoga trainers themselves, conducting master classes for them.

Here at such a master class, the journalist managed to talk with Black and hear from him a lot of discouraging information.
The first thing he least expected to hear from a man who had devoted his whole life to yoga was when he said that he had come to the conclusion that the vast majority of practitioners should stop doing it. Fully. It's just too dangerous for their health. Black said that not only beginners, but even famous instructors often do serious harm to themselves, and instead of yoga, they need exercise therapy or even treatment. Yoga is only suitable for people in excellent physical shape, it is not for everyone.

According to Black, various factors can increase the risk for the average person. First of all, this is that the technique was developed by Indian practitioners for whom sitting cross-legged, for example, is an everyday habit. And yoga asanas have become only a development of postures familiar to Indians. Modern office workers, after sitting all day in a chair, come to the gym a couple of times a week and try to twist into a position for which they have neither flexibility nor health.

All this is exacerbated by the explosive growth in the popularity of yoga (in the US, the number of practitioners increased from 4 million in 2001 to 20 million in 2011), which has increased the number of inexperienced instructors who simply do not understand how they can harm students.
A lot of people physically and mentally put pressure on students so that they take certain poses, "I can't through it."

When such unfortunate instructors come to Black with serious injuries, he simply tells them - "Quit yoga!" They look at him like he's crazy, but Black is sure that this is their only way to be cured.

The author asked what the most serious yoga teacher injuries he had encountered, and Black said that he knows several "stars" who injured the Achilles tendons, overdoing such a basic asana as "downward dog pose".
How Yoga Can Destroy Your Body - Downward Facing Dog
He also saw completely "killed" hips. One of the most famous American yoga teachers simply lost mobility in her hip joints, she needed to undergo an operation to implant prostheses. However, she continued to teach!
And many instructors have such big back problems that they are forced to teach lying down!
*************

Among yoga devotees, from gurus to their assistants, there is a widespread opinion about its miraculous healing power.
They say that yoga calms, heals, raises energy and strengthens. Indeed, these activities can lower blood pressure, produce natural antidepressants, or even improve your sex life.

But the yoga community has long remained silent about the overwhelming pain it can cause.

Jagannath Ganesh Gun, one of those who brought yoga into modern times, left no hint of possible injuries in his journal Yoga Mimamsa or book Asanas (1931). Indra Devi avoided such references in her bestselling book, Forever Young, Forever Healthy (1953), as did B.K.S. Iyengar in his work "Light on Yoga", published in 1965. Assurances about the complete safety of yoga are contained in the self-study books of such authors as Swami Sivananda, Pattabhi Jois and Bikram Chowdhury. "Real yoga is as safe as mother's milk" proclaimed Sivananda, the great guru who made 10 world tours and founded several ashrams on several continents.

But a growing body of medical evidence supports Glenn Black's view that for many people, the use of commonly practiced postures carries an inevitable health risk.

The first observations of "yoga diseases" appeared several decades ago and were published in respected medical journals: among them such as "Neurology", the British Medical Journal, the Journal of the American Medical Association. The problems described ranged from mild harm to permanent disability.

How Yoga Can Destroy Your Body - Vajrasana In one case, a college student who has been practicing yoga for over a year, after intensive practice of vajrasana (sitting on his knees), found that his legs were not obeying well, he had difficulty walking, climbing stairs and running.

Doctors diagnosed him with a problem with the branch of the sciatic nerve, passing under the knees. Sitting on your knees reduced the blood supply to this nerve, causing it to malfunction. As soon as the student abandoned this posture, he quickly recovered.

Clinicians have already noted a sufficiently large number of such cases to even introduce a special term:
yoga foot drop

More ominous messages followed later. In 1972, a prominent Oxford neuroscientist, Rich Russell, published an article in the British Medical Journal arguing that although extremely rare, some yoga poses can cause stroke in relatively young healthy people. Russell discovered that brain damage can be caused not only by direct trauma to the skull, but also by the rapid movements of the neck, as well as the excessive bending of the neck that occurs in some yoga postures.
The fact is that normally the neck can bend 75 degrees back, 40 degrees forward, 45 degrees to the sides and rotate 50 degrees left and right. Yoga practitioners usually greatly exceed these possibilities. The average student can turn their head as much as 90 degrees, which is twice the limit. And such super-flexibility of the neck is encouraged by teachers! Iyengar emphasizes that in the cobra pose the head should lean back as far as possible, and in the shoulder stand the head, pressed to the chest, should form a right angle with the body. And he calls such a pose (supposedly stimulating the thyroid gland) - "one of the most valuable gifts from wise ancestors."

How Yoga Can Destroy Your Body - Iyengar in Sarvangasana
Russell warns that such extreme head and neck positions can injure the vertebral arteries, leading to clot formation or occlusion, with subsequent brain damage. After all, these arteries are connected to the basilar artery, which feeds the most important parts of the brain responsible for coordination, breathing, eye movement, and other vital functions.

It is known that a decrease in blood flow through the basal artery leads to strokes, which are rarely accompanied by speech disorders or lead to loss of consciousness, but damage the basic mechanisms up to death.
In most patients with this type of stroke, basic functions are restored, but sometimes headaches, dizziness, and coordination problems can last for years.

Russell is also concerned that yoga as a cause of stroke may be hidden from doctors, since brain damage can occur with a long delay (up to several hours), for example, only at night and some other possible cause may attract the doctor's attention.

How Yoga Can Destroy Your Bridge Body In 1973, a year after Russell's work was published, Willibald Nagler, a renowned rehabilitation specialist at Cornell University Medical College, published an article about a strange case.

A healthy 28-year-old woman suffered a stroke while performing the wheel asana while doing yoga. When taking this position, at some point she was balancing on her head thrown back and suddenly experienced a severe headache. She could no longer stand up on her own, as well as walk.
The woman was taken to the hospital - her right side of the body lost sensitivity, her left arm and leg also did not obey well. Eyes squinted to the left.

How Yoga Can Destroy Your Body - Neck Blood Vessels Doctors have discovered that her left...

Flexibility is the ability of muscles and joints to operate in their full range. We are born with this ability, but in most cases we lose it with age.

In the days of hunters and gatherers, people performed the required number of movements every day, which maintained flexibility and health. Now we do not need to move so much, on the contrary, many people are forced to spend half a day in a sitting position.

Even if you are active, by the time you are an adult, your tissues have lost 15% of their moisture and become less elastic.

Over time, your muscle fibers begin to stick to each other, forming cross-links that prevent parallel fibers from moving independently. The risk of injury is growing.

Gradually, our elastic fibers are bound by collagenous connective tissues and become more and more stubborn and rigid.

Stretching slows down dehydration processes by stimulating the production of lubricating fluids in the tissues. Cross-links in the muscles are stretched, which allows you to restore the normal parallel structure of the muscles.

What are we really stretching

Most physiologists believe that increasing the elasticity of healthy muscle fibers is not the most important factor in increasing flexibility.

According to Michael Alter, author of The Science of Flexibility in 1998, individual muscle fibers can stretch up to 150% of their original length before breaking.

This ability to stretch allows the muscles to move in a wide range, sufficient to perform the most difficult asanas. So, our stretching is not limited by muscles.

There are two main scientific opinions about what actually prevents us from touching the floor with our hands. The first school argues that it is necessary to increase the elasticity of connective tissues, the second school speaks of training the nervous system.

The role of connective tissue in the development of flexibility

Connective tissue makes up a large part of our body. It forms intricate networks that connect all parts of the body and divide them into separate anatomical structures: bones, muscles, organs, and so on.

Connective tissue. biology.about.com

In the study of flexibility, we will only deal with three types of connective tissue:

1. Tendons. They serve to transmit power by connecting muscles and bones. Tendons have a huge tensile strength, but they are quite sensitive to stretching. By stretching the tendon by only 4%, it can be torn or lengthened so that it cannot return to its normal position.
2. Ligaments. A little more tendon can be safely stretched, but not much. They bind the bones within the joint capsule and play an important role in limiting flexibility. It is generally advised to avoid stretching them, as this can make the joints unstable and increase the risk of injury. This is why the knees need to be stretched very gently.
3. Fascia. This is the third type of connective tissue and is much more important for the development of flexibility. Fascia account for 41% of the total resistance to movement.

Let's apply this knowledge to one of the basic asanas - pashchimottanasana. This is a forward bend in a sitting position. It stretches the muscle chain that starts at the Achilles tendons, rises to the back of the legs and pelvis, and then continues to the spine and ends at the base of the head.

MyGoodImages/Depositphotos.com

As a rule, in yoga classes, this pose is simply fixed for a while - from 30 seconds or longer. While holding the pose, the instructor corrects the students and encourages them to breathe deeply and evenly.

This practice allows you to change the quality of connective tissue plasticity. Prolonged postures cause healthy, permanent changes in the fascia that binds your muscles.

If you hold the pose for a short time, there is a pleasant feeling of stretching the muscles. But this will not necessarily lead to structural changes that increase flexibility.

Julie Gudmestad, Physiotherapist and Certified Iyengar Yoga Instructor

The pose must be held for 90-120 seconds to change the base substance in the connective tissue. The base substance is a non-fibrous gel-like substance that contains connective tissue fibers - collagen and elastin. It is she who stabilizes and lubricates the connective tissues.

How does the nervous system affect the development of flexibility

Along with stretching the connective tissues, most of the work in yoga is aimed at turning on the neurological mechanisms, due to which the muscles contract or stretch. One of these mechanisms is mutual (reciprocal) inhibition.

Each time one group of muscles (agonists) contracts, the function of the autonomic nervous system causes stretching of opposite muscles (antagonists). For thousands of years, yogis have used this mechanism to facilitate stretching.

To experience the principle of mutual inhibition for yourself, sit in front of a table and gently press the edge of your palm on the tabletop. If you touch the triceps located on the back of the shoulder, you will notice that it is tense. If you touch the opposite muscles - the biceps, you will feel that it is relaxed.

The same mechanisms work in paschimottanasana. When you tighten your quads, the hamstring muscles relax and you can deepen the pose a little.

Why You Can't Stretch

Physiologists, who recognize the nervous system as the main obstacle to the development of flexibility, believe that the key to overcoming the limitations lies in another function of the nervous system - the stretch reflex.

To understand what the stretch reflex is, imagine walking in winter. Suddenly you are stepping on the ice, your foot starts to move. Your muscles kick into action, tensing to bring your legs back into a stable position and regain control. What happens in your nerves and muscles?

Each muscle fiber has a network of sensors - neuromuscular spindles. They run perpendicular muscle fibers, tracking how much and how fast the muscle fiber lengthens.

Neuromuscular spindles. anatomytrains.com

As the fibers lengthen, the muscle spindles feel stressed. When stress occurs too quickly or continues for too long, the muscle spindles send out an urgent neurological SOS, activating an immediate defensive contraction.

This is why most experts warn against jerking while stretching. They quickly stimulate muscle spindles, which cause reflex contraction and increase the risk of injury.

Slow, static stretching also elicits a stretch reflex, but not as abruptly. As you lean forward in paschimottanasana, the neuromuscular spindles in the hamstring muscles cause resistance, creating tension in all the muscles you are trying to stretch.

This is why improving flexibility with static stretching takes time: it happens through slow training of the muscle spindles. You train them to take more tension before the nervous system kicks in.

How to improve stretching by exercising the stretch reflex

Recently, neurological techniques have appeared in the West that train the stretch reflex, rapidly increasing flexibility. One such technique is called proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF).

To apply PNF to paschimottanasana, try the following:

• lean forward a little less than to the maximum stretch;
• tighten the muscles of the back of the thigh, trying to push them into the floor;
• hold the tension for 5-10 seconds;
• then relax and try to deepen the asana.

As the muscles of the hamstring contract, tension is released from the neuromuscular spindles, so they send out signals that further stretching is safe.

If you contract and then stretch your muscles in this way, you will find that you are much more comfortable in the position that you considered your maximum stretch just a few seconds ago.

How Breathing Helps During Stretching

The connection between relaxation, stretching and breathing is well known and recognized in both yoga and Western science. Physiologists explain this by the neurological dependence of movement and breathing, known as synkinesis - involuntary muscle contractions that accompany any motor act.

Let's look at this with the example of paschimottanasana. As you inhale, the muscles become stiffer, making it harder to stretch. The abdomen fills with air like a balloon, making it difficult to lean forward.

Exhalation deflates the lungs and raises the diaphragm higher - into the chest. This frees up space in abdominal cavity so that it becomes easier to bend at the lumbar spine and tilt the chest closer to the hips.

In addition, exhaling relaxes the back muscles and tilts the pelvis forward. In paschimottanasana, the muscles of the lower back are passively pressed.

When your lungs are empty and your diaphragm is pulled into your chest, your back muscles are stretched and you can bend into your deepest pose.

Place your palms on your back and start breathing deeply. You will feel the muscles on either side of your spine tense as you inhale and relax as you exhale.

If you pay attention, you will notice that each breath engages the muscles around your coccyx, at the very bottom of your back, gently moving your pelvis back. Each exhalation relaxes these muscles and frees the pelvis, allowing you to twist in the pelvis. hip joints.

Rigid method of rapid development of flexibility

You may have seen a photograph of B.K.S. Iyengar in mayurasana (peacock pose) on the back of a student in paschimottanasana. Or a teacher standing on the hips of a student in baddha konasana (butterfly pose).

Mayurasana (peacock pose). Yoga Asanas Online

Such techniques can be dangerous for beginners, but when supervised by experienced instructors, they are extremely effective and bear striking resemblance to advanced Western flexibility training techniques aimed at rewiring neurological mechanisms.

Sometimes during stretching, a physiological reaction occurs that allows you to suddenly stretch much better than usual. For example, after many years of stagnation, suddenly completely sit on the twine.

This is a neurological switch that suppresses the stretch reflex. While the stretch reflex causes tension muscle tissue, a switch known as the reverse myotatic stretch reflex, completely relieves muscle tension to protect the tendons.

How does he work? At the end of each muscle, in the place where it connects to the tendon, there are sensitive bodies that track the load - the Golgi tendon organ. These bodies react when each muscle contraction or the stretch puts too much pressure on the tendon.

Check yourself: raise your leg on the back of a chair. If you can do this, you already have enough stretch to do the splits.

Pavel Tsatsulin, Russian Flexibility Expert

However, using this mechanism is rather risky. To engage the Golgi tendon reflex, the muscles must be under extreme pressure in a fully extended position.

The use of such methods requires the supervision of an experienced teacher who can correctly position your skeleton and establish that your body is strong enough to withstand such stress. If you don't fully understand what you're doing, you can easily get hurt.

Ancient techniques or modern science

A good teacher will tell you that yoga is more than just stretching.

Yoga is a discipline that teaches us to perceive the world in a different way. So that we can give up our attachment to suffering.

Judith Lasater, Physical Therapist

According to Lasater, there are only two asanas: conscious and unconscious. In other words, what makes an asana a posture is awareness, not just a change in body position.

However, stretching is also important for progress in yoga, because the practitioner's plastic body will allow him to better control energy - prana. And there is no contradiction in using the analytical findings of Western science for in-depth empirical knowledge of ancient asanas.

Master B. K. S. Iyengar, perhaps the most influential yogi in Western Hatha Yoga, has always encouraged Scientific research, advocating the application of strict physiological principles to perfect the practice of sophisticated asanas.

Maybe you are a supporter and think that ancient techniques are enough to develop flexibility and get all the benefits. But perhaps by supplementing the wisdom of the East with the discoveries of Western science, you will be able to advance further in your practice.

Yoga trains the body and mind. All yoga exercises for beginners are designed to train all muscles. The workout will take only 30 minutes of your time, help the body gain flexibility, relieve pain and give peace.

The result is a balanced and healthy body, beautiful appearance muscles, less risk of injury. These workouts for beginners increase energy levels and are great for when the body feels tired, stressed, and depressed.

Beginners of the practice want to cope with daily stress, relax and rest their tired body.

The Sivananda Yoga program is based on five principles that improve physical condition, develop flexibility and mental well-being through:

• regular classes;
• deep breathing;
• relaxation;
• healthy eating;
• meditation and positive thoughts.

Lesson for beginners

The various yoga poses and the specific order in which they are performed are so beautifully designed that the body gets rid of stress and the muscles and joints gain mobility and flexibility.

Asanas systematically work to stretch and contract the muscles of the body, to relieve tension and lead to a deep sense of relaxation.

Introduction to yoga

Below are the elements of a yoga class for beginners, including the health benefits of each exercise. It is best for beginners to learn yoga asanas under the guidance of an experienced teacher. When training your body at home, the book “Yoga. A guide for beginners and experts ”(Edited by Sivananda Yoga Center), which will provide valuable assistance in home practice. Yoga according to the book takes about 30 minutes. It is important to remember that in yoga you do not need to compare your flexibility with a ballerina working next to you, it is not the perfect performance of the pose that comes first, but:

• feeling of stretching;
• deep breaths;
• feeling of balance and rejuvenation.

Pre-relax

Beginners lie on their backs in a relaxed position (Shavasana) and breathe deeply. Then they start active rest, in which they either strain or relax individual parts of the body. It helps:

• calm the mind;
• relieve body tension.

The perfect start to every yoga class.

forward bends

Pose stretches lower part back and hamstrings. A minimum of 30 seconds is done, a maximum of 3 minutes. When returning to tadasana, straighten up slowly to avoid dizziness.

1. Stand up straight. Feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent for a more stable position and slowly tilt the upper body until it stops at the knees.
2. You can touch the floor with your hands or grab opposite elbows.
3. After your body has gained more flexibility, you will be able to straighten your knees, but remember to always start and finish the exercise calmly.

1. Lie face down on the floor with the palms of your hands hip-width apart, fingers forward.
2. Knees and feet shoulder width apart top part feet are on the floor.
3. Using the strength of your arms, lift your hips off the floor, lifting your torso and pulling it up. Press your heels to the floor.
4. Look straight ahead or look slightly up.
5. Hold the position for 30 seconds and lie down on the floor.

1. Lie down on the mat. Put your palms in front of you.
2. Raise your buttocks up until your knees are off the ground. The legs remain straight.
3. The torso and arms form a straight line.
4. Hold the position for 30 seconds to stretch your hips and shoulders.

1. Stand up straight, bend your knees slightly so that you can see your toes.
2. Arch your back and stretch right hand down past the left ankle or as low as possible.
3. Stretch your straight left arm toward the ceiling and try to keep your shoulders in line with your left arm.
4. Look up and gently stretch after your left hand.
5. This exercise opens the chest and collarbones.
6. Hold the position for 30 seconds and repeat on the other side.

1. Stand in Tadasana.
2. Lower your arms along the body.
3. Gently lean forward, keeping your back straight and bringing your hands close to your toes.
4. Hold the position for 30 seconds.

This is a great yoga position for flexibility in the torso and back. One of the benefits of yoga is that it helps relieve back pain. The camel pose is perfect for this.

1. Get on your knees, hands along your hips.
2. Grab your right ankle with your right hand. The thighs are perpendicular to the floor, the lower leg is on the floor.
3. Arch your back back and move your body forward a little to reach and take your left ankle in your hand.
4. Tighten your buttocks and round your back again to open up your chest more.
5. Hold the pose for 30 seconds (or less if your back feels too tight).

Relaxation

Between yoga exercises, beginners should rest on their back, in the so-called "corpse pose", breathe deeply and feel the positive effect of the previously performed positions.

This yoga exercise stretches the entire back of the body, increases flexibility lumbar spine and improves posture in general. For 30 minutes a day, beginners increase the flexibility of all muscles. This asana provides a complete massage. internal organs helps to eliminate diseases such as constipation.

Final rest

Beginner reward at the end of the 30 minute yoga session. The fullness of the exercises is felt in 10-15 minutes of rest at the end of classes, by active rest(muscle contraction and relaxation), deep breathing and visualization.

“When the mind has mastered maya (illusion),
When your "I" has become still and stable,
When the senses finally fell silent, and the mind threw off these shackles,
Then “I” and “you” are one and the same…”
Adi Shankaracharya(Yogataravali)

The preliminary goal of Nidra is to relax the body and mind. The second goal is to separate yourself from body and mind. We constantly identify ourselves with the body and mind that give us so much anxiety, tension, stress and grief. However, at night, when a person falls into a deep sleep, his separation from the body and mind occurs automatically: you are called - you do not hear, they come close to you - you do not see, the bad smell does not bother you, in a dream you forget your name, you switched off from outer life, you are not awake. In the same way, you are absent when you go into the deep relaxation of Yoga Nidra, but here you need to consciously separate yourself from body and mind.

5 kosh

While modern psychologists distinguish 3 layers in the nature of the human mind (consciousness, subconscious and unconscious), we, relying on the teachings of Vedanta and the philosophy of Yoga, find gross, subtle and causal essences in the human personality, which are divided into 5 koshas (or forms) - from the grossest to the most subtle manifestations of life:

• - blood, bones, fat, skin, that is, the pasture of feelings, the grossest level of manifestation.
• - a deeply hidden energy network in which prana circulates ( life force or protoplasm).
• - the activity of the mind.
• Vigyanamaya kosha (astral or soul body)- the sphere of our individual personality, manifested at the astral level, during sleep, that is, various mental phenomena.
• - the transcendental sphere of the human personality, freed from attachment and aversion. The condition is very important, but difficult to explain.

Word "ananda" often misinterpreted as “holiday”, “joy” or “bliss”, because this is really a special state when joy-grief, pleasure-suffering, poverty-wealth, etc. are not realized. Yet in this state one experiences universal awareness known as anandamaya. For the average person, pain or pleasure causes anxiety, his mind goes out of balance. This means that pain or pleasure is a touchstone, a test for a person, but in anandamaya a person does not experience anything like that, because his consciousness is transformed and he has transcended past experiences. Yoga Nidra in the final phase leads precisely to this state, when the vibrations of the unconscious are no longer capable of modifications and the absolute unconscious manifests itself as the blissful body of anandamaya.

Table: 5 koshas represent 3 modifications of mental phenomena

Kosha or body shape	Psychic Phenomena	Physiological state	Experience as experience
Annamaya kosha (nourishing body)	Consciousness	wakefulness	Physical body awareness
Pranamaya kosha (energy body)	Consciousness	wakefulness	Awareness of physical functions (digestion, circulation, etc.)
Manomaya kosha (mental body)	Subconscious	Sleep and dreams	Awareness of mental-sensory processes
Vigyanamaya kosha (astral body)	Subconscious	Sleep and dreams	Awareness of mental and causal phenomena
Anandamaya kosha (blissful body)	Realm of the Unconscious	Deep dreamless sleep	Awareness is nondiscriminating. superconscious

Experience of subtle bodies

As interest in gross koshas fades, subtle koshas begin to awaken. If the gross bodies (koshas) consist of physical organs (lungs, heart, intestines, etc.), in which the physiological processes of respiration, blood circulation and digestion take place, the subtle bodies also have their own structure and characteristics. In an extensive system of nadis and chakras (psychic centers), pranic and psychic energies circulate, which form the energy infrastructure that conditions the physical body. Word "nadi" translates as "flow, stream, passage or channel." Yogic texts There are more than 72,000 nadis, of which 3 are the most important: ida, pingala and sushumna. They function within spinal column: ida governs the left side and controls mental energy ( manas shakti), the entire range of mental and mental capabilities of a person; pingala nadi is responsible for the right side, controlling the vital energy ( prana shakti), on which the state of the physical body and all the processes occurring in it depend; sushumna - the most important nadi - begins to function in the middle passage of the spinal column, if a person awakens an active interest in spiritual life. Yogic texts speak of sushumna as a dormant latent power that governs spiritual energy ( atma shakti). Ida, pingala and sushumna originate in the muladhara, the psychic center located at the base of the spine in the perineum. A creative energy lives here, which, as it were, instantly erupts from here at the moment of its awakening, forming the self-consciousness of a person. This power symbolizes the snake kundalini shakti, sleeping and folded into 3.5 rings. In the male body, the muladhara chakra is located in the perineum between the urinary canal and the rectum, and in the female - in the cervix. Ida and pingala start from 2 points of the Muladhara chakra and then rise up, crossing each other along the central and spine in 4 intermediate chakras and finally meet at the ajna chakra (“third eye”), at the top of the spinal column, behind the brow center. 4 intermediate chakras are: svadhishthana (in the coccyx area), manipura (behind the navel), anahata (in the center of the chest, behind the heart), vishuddha (in the pharynx).

Sushumna-nadi is a direct highway between muladhara and ajna, a kind of ladder connecting the earth with heaven. Unlike ida and pingala, which function in each of us, the sushumna channel and spiritual energy must be awakened. These "narrow gates", "narrow path" and "razor blade" are capable of awakening the Yogi. Such an awakening is the most important event in a person's life.

Penetration into the unconscious

If a person is aware of his physical body, he can be aware of his other bodies - pranic, mental, psychic and unconscious. Such a process of expanding consciousness is offered to you by Yoga Nidra. When you dive into the depths of your being during Yoga Nidra, you cannot fail to notice the different levels of insight.

At first, the realm of the conscious mind is limited to the range between the physical and pranic environments, but if consciousness penetrates further, into the area between the pranic and mental spheres, this will mean that you have entered the realm of sleep and the subconscious in such a way that the thread of awareness is not interrupted, although all your the senses, except hearing, are abstracted. Here there is a penetration of consciousness into itself or the process of formation of self-consciousness, comprehension of the phenomena of the mind, sleep and dreams, as well as sharpening of memory. A further transition from mental to psychic awareness mobilizes all astral and psychic experience, the practitioner begins to perceive higher impulses and contemplate other perspectives. It is at this level that such phenomena as astral projections and the exit of the body into the astral take place.

Although Yoga Nidra brings out and develops such abilities, they are not the goal of Yoga Nidra at all. Rather, it's just side effects. However, there are no prohibitions or restrictions - from a spiritual point of view, all this is insignificant and such astral phenomena can enchant us, as a new toy enchants a child ... In the light of the rising dawn of self-realization, all this soon dims and disappears, just as twinkling stars disappear at the rising of a radiant luminary .

The source of the final decline in interest in astral phenomena lies in the sphere of transition from mental to homogeneous (homogeneous) awareness, when the sphere of the unconscious is exposed, where there is no place for mental hesitation and ideas, where everything is permeated with the all-consuming rhythm of the unconscious-superconscious Universe that reigns, not limited by any space , neither time nor the individual properties of any person.

The highest goal of Yoga Nidra has been achieved - the luminous unconscious is revealed with the help of the luminous superconsciousness.