That's right, you got it right: if an article can ever look like a preliminary lesson in a Yoga course or if at least it can bring readers closer to this millenary discipline. We ask ourselves and try to make sure that the answer is positive. Step by step, we investigate a Yoga course.

Enroll in a Yoga course

They say that Yoga is the antidote against a life of tension and fatigue. They say that a Yoga session can be compared to a kind of internal massage capable of acting on all organs. It's true. Think of it doing the same with the internal glands. The Yoga session is, in a sense, a return to the rhythm of nature . The deeper qualities of the person come out, which continues on the path of self-knowledge or begins the journey from scratch.

Positions, relaxations, meditations work like fingers that remove layers of uselessness to something, the person in the noblest sense of the term, which tends towards shine, its true form. Enrolling in a Yoga course is therefore not exactly like deciding to attend classes where exercises are performed to firm, burn, lose weight. A good starting point that precedes the step to enter the place where a Yoga course takes place may be to desire to feel better in one's body and to perceive or return to perceive an internal harmony lost or never known.

Basic vocabulary for starting a Yoga course

Let's look closely at some key words that are part of the fundamental vocabulary of Yoga:

- Asanas

Or the positions. There are about 84, 000 and slowly they came from the East to the West, first in the order of a few hundred, now more and more. The incredible variety of asanas is functional to the complete development of the body, since some positions stimulate certain muscles rather than others, they bring out certain sensations rather than others, they stimulate viscera, glands and nervous system in a different way. In reality, the beginner really needs no more than fifty positions. They should be performed slowly and with awareness, in harmony with the respiratory phases. Once in the position, the body remains there for a moment that can be brief if the position is "dynamic", that is, it is performed with breath held, while long if it is "in static", that is maintained with controlled breathing.

- Prana

It is found in the air, in foods, in drinks. It circulates everywhere in the body and ensures its proper functioning. According to the Yoga tradition, the disease arises when this energy circulation is too weak, unbalanced or blocked in certain points. With Yoga it is possible to direct prana, to learn to breathe consciously and in a controlled way. Under the word pranayama the techniques for circulating prana fall both in the etheric body and in the physical one.

- Ujjayi

It is a pranayama, that is a respiratory exercise practiced independently of the positions. This involves making a contraction at the throat level (glottis and epiglottis), causing air to pass back to the lungs. From the friction of the air against the walls comes that typical ujjayi sound, similar to the snoring of a sleeper. This technique makes it possible to slow down breathing and promotes concentration.

- Relaxation

You will wonder what there is to explain about a word that is already so eloquent. And instead in Yoga this term has an extended meaning that covers physical relaxation, nervous distension and mental relaxation. This distension is sought in any asana; to bring beginners closer to sensation, the master often induces relaxation even of the parts of the body that are not stressed (the face, for example), marking the distinction between relaxation and softness. A relaxation understood in this way regenerates the body and has an effect comparable to one or two hours of sleep.