Guidelines for yogis: sports, age, superpowers, guidence for beginners, necessity of theory

 

 

What aptitudes does yoga give to a person who practices it? Who gives the guarantees that I will get these aptitudes if I practice yoga?

Yoga doesn’t claim to give aptitudes to people. Yoga just opens up and improves the aptitudes, which the person already has inside and they are simply waiting for the person to use them. Thereby in yoga it is regarded that all of these magical aptitudes, that some yoga practitioners demonstrate, are “free supplements” given for those who work on self-exploration.

And due to the fact that all magical aptitudes are not taken from outside, but simply are side-effects and are not the goal of self-exploration then everything depends only on the person, and not on somebody else. Then from this we can conclude that nobody can give you any guarantee at all, everything depends entirely on you .

Can I practice the yoga and to do some sports or they are incompatible?

It’s not only possible, but sometimes also advisable. Yoga combines with sports perfectly, and vice versa. But remember, goals and approaches of yoga and sports are different. At the large extent sport is directed to one or the other result, but yoga is system of self-exploration, where the focus is made on the internal harmony and freedom, and any result comes as an indirect effect. If there is a result, the yogi is happy and if there is no result – the yogi is not sad. Otherwise, the person who practices yoga wouldn’t have self-satisfaction and it would make him/her constrained and break internal harmony of practicing.

Are there any age restrictions for yoga?

Yoga doesn’t know any restrictions. You can practice yoga in the childhood and when you are old. Everybody can get benefit from yoga, if they apply common sense, harmony and sequence.

It is recommended to start doing yoga under the guidance of the instructor. It will save a lot of your time, it will make the correct accents in exercises and protected you from misunderstandings and misconceptions in yoga.

But if you don’t have a possibility to find a suitable instructor then you can learn it yourself: by books, DVDs and yoga tutorials you should have common sense and be cautious, don’t put too much stress on your body. Independent study of yoga asks from you more time then if you would decide to study it with instructor.

As the experience shows you will require much more time and efforts using even very good yoga materials but otherwise there are no restrictions regarding this question . In yoga it is said that each person has to rediscover yoga as it was done by the ancient yogis. Nobody will do it for you, even if you find the best yoga instructors available. Yoga is the system of self-exploration – it means that nobody can walk this way instead of you.

Even if you live on the lonely island you can always re-discover yoga by yourself. Only for rediscovery of this ancient wisdom you will need fantastic amount of time. It is not justified. Besides, ideal of yoga is freedom. It means if you don’t have a suitable instructor, but you are eager to study yoga, you always can start to study it by yourself.

It’s a mistake when the person waits many years of his/her life to find the suitable instructor instead of studying yoga by himself/herself. It is better (and sometimes even necessary) to walk significant part of the way by yourself and later to make some work of the instructor easier. That’s why we have created the site OpenYogaClass.com in our International Yoga Open University for all who wish to study so they could do it gradually (especially the ones who live outside big cities where it is very hard to find the suitable instructor of yoga).

What should I choose – individual classes with the instructor or practicing yoga with a group?

There are advantages in the both variants. When you are practicing in the individual classes, the instructor can give you all his/her time and attention. But from the other side, if you are studying in the group, you are in the common field with other students and it increases your progress several times. Yoga says that with more people practicing at one site and with the experienced instructor it is easier to tune on the intangible wave of harmony which sometimes called „The Cloud of School” (impacting people in it and gives additional strengths). Like a one dewy branch wouldn’t burn on its own, but if you would put several branches together you might get a very good bonfire. (Because branches warm each other in the same way like higher number of people on one area unit makes practicing of yoga greater and more powerful). This synergetic effect makes wonders sometimes.

Yes, you can. Sometimes you even need to do it, especially when you start practicing yoga. You can practice yoga just for maintaining the well-being and peace of your mind. Yoga says that any motivation bringing you to yoga is appropriate and deserves respect: a wish to get a nice body, to get rid of stress, to open up creativity or to engage in self-exploration. In yoga everything must come harmoniously. If you feel that it is not the right time to study the yoga theory and you are interested only in the physical component of yoga, leave these philosophy questions for future . Now you can take from yoga what you need at the moment . As experience shows that the intellectual component of yoga becomes interesting to people somewhat later.

Do I have to be a vegetarian to practice yoga ?

No, you don’t have to be a vegetarian to practice yoga and to receive benefit from yoga . Yoga i s not a gastronomic club, yoga does not impose people any restrictions in diet or lifestyle . The ideal of yoga is a freedom . If you decide to become a vegetarian , it should come naturally, without undue violence . The vegetarianism as the rejection of meat and fish has two components: the physical aspect ( harm or benefit for the body when not eating fish or meat) and the moral aspect. Physical aspect is very individual and depends from the physical condition of the body. Moral aspect is not so simple. When the modern civilization gets vegetarian food it is often using pesticides on plants and as the result killing innocent animals.