What is Yoga?

Yoga was developed in India some 5,000 years ago by ancient wise men called risbis (seers). These rishis were not interested in getting tight abs, losing weight, eliminating back pain, or even relieving their stress. Rather, they were creating a method of using the body and breath to tame that wildest of beasts: the mind

Yoga is a Sanskrit word that can be roughly translated as “union” or “yoking”, and the ancient sage Patanjali tells us yoga is indeed two things, both noun and verb - a state of being, and the actions and practices associated with attaining that state.

The state of yoga is one in which the practitioner experiences a deep awareness of, and an identification with rather than being at the mercy of the endless spinning of the mind, it is a consciousness much greater than the individual ego. The word “enlightenment” can also be used to describe this spiritual state.

The practice of yoga focuses on the concrete and practical aspects of the techniques designed to evoke this enlightened state – the quality of the breath, the pressure of our feet on the floor in Tadasana (Mountain Pose), the sensation of stretching along the backs of our legs in a forward bend, and the tenor of the thoughts that flow through the mind while we move from one pose to another.