hatha-yoga-full-guide-beginner-advance 2021

hatha-yoga-full-guide-beginner-advance
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 Introduction to Hatha Yoga

What exactly Hatha yoga is hasn’t changed for thousands of years. However, our thinking and perception of it certainly have. Language is a powerful thing, and in different cultures, the same word can have a variety of definitions. Throughout the evolution of yoga practice, the same word – Hatha – has come to mean different things too.(hatha-yoga-full-guide-beginner-advance 2021)

Popular thinking ‘in the West’ (an all-too-common expression now), is that Hatha yoga is about balancing the body and mind. ‘Ha’ represents the esoteric sun, and ‘that the moon. The practice of Hatha yoga aims to join, yoke, or balance these two energies.

A yoga class described as ‘Hatha’ will typically involve a set of physical postures (yoga poses) and breathing techniques. These are typically practiced more slowly and with more static posture holds than a Vinyasa flow or Ashtanga class. And indeed, that is how we describe our Hatha yoga classes on EkhartYoga.

However, Hatha means ‘force’ and is more traditionally defined as ‘the yoga of force’, or ‘the means of attaining a state of yoga through force’. So Hatha yoga can be considered as anything you might do with the body

History of Hatha Yoga(hatha-yoga-full-guide-beginner-advance 2021)

Around the early 15th century, some yogis from the Natha lineage did not want to wait so long and began practicing asanas before mastering Yama and Niyamas. As the mind was not ready for further practice they had to work harder. They called it their ‘stubborn’ practice of Yoga. These Natha Yogis kept practicing the asanas until they mastered them. This way of practicing Raja Yoga, not following the strict order of first mastering Yamas and Niyamas, was named ‘Hatha Yoga‘.

Swami Swatmarama, a 15th-century sage compiled Hatha Yoga Pradipika and briefly described six limbs of yoga to achieve Samadhi without the long process of the first two steps of the Yamas and Niyamas. Hatha Yoga is also known as Shatanga Yoga (six limb yoga).

Swami Swatmarama advised starting with the physical practices at first because most people will find it easier to master the mind through the body, than purifying their character, habits, and mind directly through the observance of the Yamas and Niyamas.

Hatha Yoga, therefore, focuses primarily on the purification of the body as a path that leads to the purification of the mind. The purification of the body and mind is essential also to be healthy. Being and staying healthy is a central goal in yoga because only then will you possess the best vehicle for your further spiritual development.

Benefits of Hatha Yoga(hatha-yoga-full-guide-beginner-advance 2021)

Physical Benefits(hatha-yoga-full-guide-beginner-advance 2021)

Some of the benefits of Hatha Yoga on the physical body are:

1. It improves mobility in the joints.
2. It improves flexibility in the connective tissue.
3. It stretches the fascia and improves its condition.
4. It improves metabolism.
5. It improves the functioning of all body systems.
6. It stimulates cell repair and regeneration.
7. It improves blood flow in the spinal cord and brain.
8. It rejuvenates the ligaments.
9. It helps to stimulate the lymphatic system and cleanses the body.
10. It improves the overall range of motion of the body.
11. It improves energy levels.
12. It improves the function of the lungs and heart.
13. It brings balance to the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

Mental Benefits(hatha-yoga-full-guide-beginner-advance 2021)

Some of the mental benefits are:

1. It helps to calm down the senses.
2. It helps to improve concentration.
3. It sharpens the focus.
4. It brings balance to emotions.
5. It relieves anxiety and depression.
6. It removes mental fatigue.
7. It stimulates creativity.
8. It stimulates learning facilities.

The Practices of Hatha Yoga

The practices below come directly from the Hatha Yoga Pradipika. You can think of them as sequences or stages of yoga towards the goal of samadhi. Another way to think of this is as a liberation model.

Asana (Physical Practice)

Gives you steadiness, frees you from disease, and makes your body light.

Pranayama (Including Ujjayi Breathing)

This is the primary practice and is also known as kumbhaka or breath retention. Prana means breath, inhale, and lifeforce. The theory is if you can control your breath, you can control your life force. If you can slow down and extend your breath, you can extend your life.

It is here we get an explanation of the Nadis, “rivers” or subtle channels running through your body, and chakra theory.

Mudra (and bandha)

Channeling energy and directing it to areas within that body, as well as turning speech into gesture.

Samadhi

Absorption with the void.

You can also think about it this way:

• Asana frees energy.
• Pranayama teaches us how to contain energy.
• Mudra directs and expresses energy
• Samadhi connects us with the vibration of the universe.

Modern Hatha and Traditional Hatha Yoga

This is the tale of two hats, one dating back to around the 13th century and the modern, twenty-first-century method, which is nothing like it.

Traditional Hatha Yoga(hatha-yoga-full-guide-beginner-advance 2021)

Hatha yoga was born around the 13th century with its most famous text, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, written by Swami Swatmarama, appearing 2 centuries later.

Together, with the Gheranda Samhita and Siva Samhita, they comprise the corpus of hatha yoga. Hatha Yoga Pradipika translates to Light on Hatha Yoga. Therefore it is a text to illuminate and describe what hatha yoga is about.

As your guide, my goal is to explain how the theory works, not to agree with the point of view. We are not in the 15th century anymore, and our knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and other sciences has grown.

At this time, the Hatha yogins imagined a coiled serpent at the base of your spine called the kundalini. Through yoga, you could wake up or strike the snake with your force, and that would cause it to stand up and move through your chakras–said like “chuck” not “chalk,” that lie along your central channel, the Sushumna Nadi. Be careful, though. kundalini awakenings could lead to “mental anguish.” (Feuerstein)

Besides the metaphoric serpent smacking, the goals of traditional hatha yoga are:(hatha-yoga-full-guide-beginner-advance 2021)

• Body purification
• Balance of the mental and physical energies
• Connect with pure consciousness

One final goal is to create balance. Hatha yoga seeks to bring harmony to the two sides of the body, though of as two separate channels–the Ida and Pingala.

Like many Eastern practices, such as acupuncture, the goal is to keep the energy of the body flowing. The most significant problem you can have, in the Indian mind, is when things get stuck. You’ve got to keep them moving. Eastern practices imagine we have blockages that we need to remove before they can cause disease.

That’s not a foreign way of thinking to us, as we still use terms like stuck, blocked, or plateau.

Rod Stryker says that you can think about asana as a way to “dissolve or break down the resistance to energetic flow.”

Modern Yoga

Modern hatha yoga is heavily focused on asana or physical postures. According to Mark Singleton, it focuses on “health, fitness, and wellbeing” and ignores “the subtle system of hatha yoga.”

Hatha is thought of as a gentle practice, but in reality, it encompasses the full degree of effort.

Modern hatha yoga took a hard turn and left the “traditional” practice of Hatha yoga in the dust.

But, Singleton concludes, “While it is going too far to say that modern postural yoga has no relationship to asana practice within the Indian tradition, this relationship is one of radical innovation and experimentation.”

Precaution in Hatha Yoga(hatha-yoga-full-guide-beginner-advance 2021)

Hatha Yoga asanas are considered to be among the easiest and safest. The exercises are not very demanding. In hatha yoga asanas, the movements are relatively slow and the impact on the targeted muscles is also not very intense. But that does not mean you can’t get injured while performing these asanas. If you are planning to practice Hatha Yoga then you must know about the precautions to be taken. Beginners should join a reputed hatha yoga class for a beneficial and injury-free experience.

Form and Posture(hatha-yoga-full-guide-beginner-advance 2021)

The key to getting the most out of hatha yoga asanas is good form and posture. You can’t do an asana half-heartedly and then expect to get good results. If your posture isn’t right you run the risk of getting injured. Therefore it is better to subscribe to a trusted hatha yoga program. The instructor will most likely explain to you the importance of breathing and correct posture.

Safety measures for Advanced Poses(hatha-yoga-full-guide-beginner-advance 2021)
Anybody can perform hatha yoga asanas irrespective of his/her fitness level. But some advanced poses entail a risk if you are a beginner for example Garudasana (Eagle Pose) and Shirshasana (Headstand). It will require a bit of practice to do them perfectly. That is why it’s important to learn hatha yoga only from seasoned instructors, like the ones available at AyurYoga Eco-Ashram. Such instructors can guide you about an asana’s modifications if you’re not comfortable doing it. For instance, instead of doing the Headstand straight away, they might ask you to balance against a wall thus eliminating the risk of falling, and injury.

Conclusion

This is (hatha-yoga-full-guide-beginner-advance 2021)You must build your fitness at the speed that your body can handle. Upon joining a hatha yoga class you are likely to see people who are extremely fit and who can perform even the toughest of asanas easily. It is not your goal to be like them. Your goal is to be able to do the asanas correctly. But if you try to push your body’s limits, the chances are high that you might get injured.