Yoga and exercise - A comparison.

29th July 2011. Friday- Day 3- Shreedhar Parab (1943 born, age 69 years!).

S. Parab starts by saying yoga is an applied science; just like swimming for example, inferring that it needs PRACTICE. Patanjali Yog text was written 200 years before Christ! In his text, he had not defined ANY asanas! He described yoga as "Sthira, sukham ananta-samapattivia prayatna-shaitilya" Parab says "Be Sajag (aware), be conscious for being effortless. He says prayatna-shaitilya means to minimize your efforts. Technique used to facilitate this is by "conscious differential relaxation". This is "its USP" he jokes!

For example, if you are not using your left leg, why contract it?! Relax all the muscles that are NOT in use. This is consciously done by differential relaxation.


Doing within limitation and not competing!

Whenever you compete, you can make out by observing your chest/breath. As soon as you are out of an asan, if your chest bounces or if you hold your breath or if you take a "sigh", it indicates that you were exeeding your limits. Remind yourself - AC = According to capacity, AC= Avoid competition. Sajagta, Sahajta and Samarsatha (total involvement).

This is where Yoga differs from an exercise. Slow/normal breathing is required in Yoga to slow down the Asana (into anata). If any asan is dependent on stopping or altering your breath, it will not seem into anata, beyond border, frame, or limit. In an exercise, exhaling while contracting and inhaling while inflation would be desirable to increase the quantity of exercise and to streamline it into a rhythm. That will assist you in creating a better, healthier body. Yoga is use of your body to limit your thoughts.

Ultimate purpose of yogic practice is NOT flexibility, exercise or good health! It is Spiritual attainment. We begin with contouring our body and then we count our breath. By doing so we reduce the space available for our fickle mind. This is useful for extending the asana into ananta. Whenever your breathing is fast, your mind follows it. In general the mind follows your breathing. Breathing and the Mind are strongly connected. Conversely, in Yoga all the actions slow paced. Slow action helps you to breath normally and hence steady's your mind. When you are into an asan, you are asked to count your breath. You can focus on anything but it is observed that if you just count numbers without focusing or associating each breath with the number, you tend to hold your breath and try to exceed your limitation. With a number in your mind, you will treat Yoga as a target and when you find that you are not able to achieve what you set out for, you would hold your breath and count faster. Then you would come out of the asan in a hurry and SIGH!

Note: While doing Uttana Vakrasan, while performing the twist, we tend to be aware of our back and are cautious. This is because when we are doing this for the first time, we doubt our capacity. Backache patients would need to be fully aware, breath normally and relax.

Words learnt today-

Purva = Prior or preparatory
Ardh = Half
Shalabh = Locust
Uttan = Lying on one's back
Samarstha = Total involvement,

Anatomy learned today-
Vertebrae- 33.
7 vertebrae in the cervical region, (C1 to C7)
12 Thoracic vertebrae,
5 Lumbar vertebrae (L1, L2, L3 L4 AND L5)
followed by Sacrum and coccyx.