Although Vinyasa or Flow Yoga does exist in our reportoire of yoga styles, much of the Asanas are traditionally practiced through holding it for a certain number of breaths to bring maximum benefit to the practitioner.
In Vinyasa each pose flows into the next and the next. This too has its own merit and benefit.
These days however, we don't actually get to test our range of agility and mobility until we challenge our body to articulate certain movements. Recently in my practice and class, I've started introducing interesting mobility challenges to spice things up and to also gain valuable information.
These bizarre balance movement provide instant feedback on their strengths and areas for improvement. It also helps move neural circuitry in new ways which is good for cognitive function.
So how can it get any weirder than twisting into a pretzel? Well, you could twist and untwist on the Go!!
One example from today is a modified bear crawl to cross the legs and tap at the palm of the opposite hand, then continue forward in this cross cross motion.
Yoga as an ancient science has tremendous benefits. I am a true believer and keep to the best practices as prescribed as much as possible.
What we lack in our modern day lifestyle however, is the use of our limbs to its maximum capacity, as our current lifestyle has limited our range of motion and repertoire for agility and flexibility. W
Yoga was first introduced thousands of years ago, people were a lot more mobile, agile and engaged in various activities.
So it is good to take a few of these Yoga poses and then challenge oneself to move in new, odd and unique ways (that is also safe) to get an idea of how well you are doing with your balance, coordination, strength, flexibility and agility.
Don't be afraid to explore the fingers and toes as well, they have a lot to offer given our advanced evolution of these appendages.
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