How Can Specialty Workshops deepen your Yoga practice?

Poor current health standards can be accounted to unhealthy food habits, improper lifestyle, and professional monologues. In an attempt to ameliorate our lives, yoga, a holistic science, offers different forms and types to hit the bull’s eye. There are many forms of yoga, which are diligently practiced by both the west and the east that includes; traditional Hatha Yoga, dynamic Ashtanga Yoga, subtle Yin Yoga, hot Bikram Yoga, enigmatic Kundalini Yoga, etc. Still many of us struggle with even the basic postures. This can be explained by every day, a modern disease like stress, anxiety, high BP, insomnia, adrenal fatigue, inflexibility, back ache, migraine, sinus, etc., that create a barrier in performing all the poses to the best of our abilities. The benevolent art of yoga takes everybody into consideration and has specialty yoga workshops for not just the ill, but for the curious as well. Here are some of the reasons that state how specialty workshops can deepen your yoga practice.

Experience the graveness of poses

In a class full of 25 students, on an average, only four to five students will be able to perform all the postures in its entirety and reap the desired benefits. However, students with illness or on a beginner level will perform the asana on an exterior level and will work their way up the ladder, gradually. With the help of themed yoga workshops, the students can experience the richness of the simplest of poses because same muscle group or similar postures falling under the same category will be taken up again and again in the same class. For example, in a back strengthening workshop (for those with back-related diseases), the teacher will take up hip-opening poses like; the Pigeon Pose, Butterfly Pose, Seated Wide legged Pose, Head to Knee Pose, or other yoga poses targeted towards increasing the flexibility of the upper and lower back like; Bridge pose, Cobra Pose, Cat Pose, Cow Pose, Camel Pose, Plough Pose, etc.  This will gradually open the tight muscles of the hips, soothe lower backache, strengthen the pose, and allow the practitioner to deepen his or her practice, further. With a thorough practice of specific body parts, we can add strength and offer greater support to the same area, which will go a long way to give an edge to our practice in generic classes.

Get Connected to the Breath

Asana or Dhyana practice is incomplete without engaging the breath. In an everyday yoga class, a teacher may command the students to involve the breath into the poses, and engaging the breath every time can be challenging. Certain specialty yoga workshops have their roots established on the theme of controlling the Prana. A specified practice dedicated to Prana allows the practitioner to follow the flow of the breath and make deeper attempts to incorporate the inhalations and exhalations in every move. Consider Ashtanga yoga, where five long Ujjayi breaths are mandatory to be performed after entering every pose. If a practitioner, working with Ashtanga Yoga, takes specialty workshops fixated on Breath Work, he or she will be able to reap fruitful results almost immediately and continue to receive them invariably.

Overcome hidden illnesses

It is a well-known fact that a single asana works on different body parts. While some muscles are actively involved, others are passively integrated into the pose. In a Chaturanga Dandasana or a Four-Legged Staff Pose, the pectoralis muscles engage the chest, while both, the Deltoids and Latissimus Dorsi hold the back, the wrists are working to keep the upper body in the air and the elbows are held close the chest. The core is contracted that provides strength to the Transversus Abdominis that provides a deeper stability to the spine. Furthermore, the toes are actively pressed to the floor and the heels are pressed together to the wall to keep the lower body hanging in the air in a straight line. The point in question here is that by just performing a single posture to its full potential, a practitioner can hit two birds with one stone. Firstly, overcome the illness for which a specific posture is performed, and secondly, bring out other hidden illnesses that can prove malignant in future. With specialty workshops, the students can work on not just one, but a multitude of problems together and even come face to face with diseases they were not aware of previously.

In the end, we can say that the specialty yoga workshops allows a practitioner to experience more profound benefits related to performing certain poses, build higher strength, overcome hidden illnesses, create a deeper connection to the breath, and acquire a firmer grip on their practice.

Author Bio: Manmohan Singh  is a passionate Yogi, Yoga Teacher and a Traveller in India. He provides Yoga Teacher Training in Rishikesh, India. He loves writing and reading the books related to yoga, health, nature and the Himalayas.

Website: https://www.rishikulyogshala.org/

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