Addressed to all “young people” from 3 to 120 years, Yoga is proof that you can create health with art, developing the physical along with the mind. A piece of oriental art in the present and for the future. On behalf of a better quality of life!
Rush hour in the capital, and the “traffic does not forgive”. Pedestrians furiously walk the streets to get in time for work, vehicles exhibit maneuvers and horns…
Everything to not lose time. In urban chaos, early, it is almost impossible to escape this scenario, unless you are right in the center. In Portuguese Yoga Center. Located on a street in Lisbon, busy as many others, but where the confusion is immediately forgotten by passing the door.
Through the colors, the comfortable decor, it offers harmony of body and mind. And it is done in absolute silence, broken only by the deep breathing of the practitioners, because of the commitment and effort that exercises require. So, silence please, Yoga practice will begin.
All positions practiced have a specific name and particular effects. Can be grouped into sets (standing, sitting, anteflexion, retroflexion, torsion, lateral bending, muscular or inverted), and must be interconnected to form sequences. ”
As in life, everything comes out better if done in the right sequence. And the Yoga secret is knowing how to put the appropriate sequences in physical techniques (Ásanas), in breathing techniques (Pránáyáma) , in relaxation (Yoganidra), and also in meditation (usually called Ohyana)”, begins by explaining Carlos Rui, Yoga teacher, and whose interest in this art took him a few years ago, to travel to its site of origin. And it is to India he travels every year to learn and study with the most credentialed teachers.
However, despite the birthplace of this art being in the East, most likely somewhere in the Indo Valley, “what matters in Yoga is something universal.” Therefore, according to Carlos Rui, “any purpose is valid to practice it.” Even if the objective is very concrete: “to lead the practitioner to an unconditioned state of mind, which means his release, that is Moksha, as it is known in yoga .”
Breaking conditioned states: physical and mental
At first glance, a yoga class might seem no more than a fitness class, consisting of exercises for flexibility, strength and coordination. But who would say that the set of all these movements “means 90% of mental activity and 10% of physical activity”?
The Ásanas follow precise criteria of body alignment, always synchronized with breathing and attention. Practitioners are also doing meditation, while moving.
It is a dynamic meditation, although there are also times when the body is stationary. In this class, where students are already in the intermediate B, they know that each movement involves putting the eyes and tongue in a certain way, as well as contracting the plexus, compress glands and focus attention on certain areas of body.
There is a process of meditation that is not visible externally.” For, according to the professor, “the mind is an extension of the body. And is nearly impossible to separate them. Each person is its own history and physically our relationship with the world, with emotions, with intellectual structures and with our learning process, will form our own psychomotor structure.
The way how we assume our physicality (how we put our shoulders, sit …) is closely related to our mental program “. Start the practice of yoga, will “break these boundaries and these conditioned, physical and mental states, because it develops other physical consciousness.”
Hence its action on the body is profoundly mentally (see Mental Benefits box).
Yoga is first and foremost a learning process, “which takes a few years to be learned, as it involves an inner and personal development. And every person is a special and particular with its own learning process.”
The practitioner of Yoga
To who is then Yoga dedicated? “To all the young people from 3 to 120 years,” replies the teacher. “It is not for, for example, to old people of 20 years old, because for sure they will find other much more appropriate activities to the degree of mobility and lack of desire to do something for their lives.” 82 years old, has the oldest “youngster” of yoga practice by Carlos Rui.
He began practicing at age 70 and today, “moves better than when he was 30, taking into account, of course, the limitations imposed by the passage of 70 years” (see Physical Benefits box). Knowing the profile of the potential yoga practitioner, it is worth getting to know who is the good practitioner of yoga: “one who practices yoga with the aim of improving the quality of life and wellness, it is natural to have more concerns with nutrition, in order not to harm the body.
Yoga does not require a lifestyle or a diet, but it is natural that practitioners begin to eat more cereals, vegetables, avoiding products chemically processed. It’s also likely to stop smoking or even stop spending the night jumping at the disco, for the reason of wanting to get up in a good mood the next day to do yoga. And also they become more environmentally friendly, gaining greater awareness of their body and to the fact that is the Earth who feed us.
Obviously that yoga practitioner is more interventionist socially and has increased tolerance to the surrounding world. Above all, is integrated in society, developing physically and intellectually”. And if after 3 years of practicing yoga, the person does not improve in these areas, Carlos Rui ensures that is “because he was simply doing contortionism.”
Yoga is one of the few arts that acts deeply on the internal organs and health comes from the balance of these organs. ”
Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana (stretching exercise for control and development of balance)
Yoga – Physical Benefits
Motor coordination
Strengthening of joints and muscular structures
Profound action on the stimulation of bone density level (“We have some students who do densitometry studies regularly and they have increased, especially at the level of the coxofemoral joints, knees and lumbar joint, areas that are generally very devitalized by osteoporosis. And the truth is that densitometry increase from year to year until they reach almost the normal limits within 2 or 3 years.”)
Weight gain, if you have less weight
Weight loss, if you have extra weight. (Development of muscle long fibers, which causes you to lose muscle mass, when it is excessive)
Yoga – Mental Benefits
Greater ability to concentrate,
Increased mobilization,
Greater control of emotions
Wellness and tranquility, “which has nothing to do with apathy”
Kronnchasana (strengthening of the lower back and extension of the muscles of the back of legs)
“The yoga will break the boundaries and conditioned, physical and mental states, developing another type of physical consciousness”
Parivrtta Trikonasana (exercise acting on the kidneys and digestive system)
“Above all, the yoga practitioner is integrated in society, developing physically and intellectually”