What is Hatha Yoga?

Classical Hatha Yoga is about mastery. A patient path that has no goal but is wholly about process. Done in the traditional style, yoga becomes a form of healing. The main focus of attention is on the breath; its rhythm, speed, texture, sound, where and how you feel it in your body. The breath is the initiating impulse for all movement. By cultivating the natural diaphragmatic breath, we unite mind, body and breath and weave them together to form an infrastructure that supports the wholeness of our being.

The results of yoga come from a slow, gentle, committed process of daily practice. It takes time to undo the unhealthy habits that have developed over years of living unconsciously in our bodies.

One of the many ways yoga promotes good health is through the circulation of the blood. The twisting and turning movements of the postures along with the controlled breathing removes sluggishness, raising the level of oxygen distribution and removing toxins. By insisting on movement in harmony with carefully regulated breathing, the cardiovascular system is massaged, the bloodstream is oxygenated, and the spine lengthens and stretches, restoring the nerve and energy impulses to the vital organs. This in turn, strengthens the immune system.

Another benefit of yoga is management of stress. Using sequences and poses that balance the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system, anxiety and living in the past and/or future is replaced with moment to moment presence and a state of calm.

Yoga can be taken up at any age and can be adapted to suit the challenges that life presents us with at each stage. It does not require you to be flexible or strong but instead will develop these qualities as you practice.