cgrover wrote:Day 4 of famine... "hot yoga" class ("hot" room and fast pace). My trainer had suggested I try it to work on flexibility and balance. It was certainly not easy...was a good challenge and I kind of enjoyed it.
Just curious how this fits in with the Blueprint if at all? Is this bad for the famine phase since it improves circulation? It was certainly good cardio...I was sweating A LOT.
Good idea. Not at all contra indicated for famine. But…
…my general opinion of ‘yoga’? It SUCKS! Americanized hatha ‘yoga’ is a commercialized corruption of the original intent of yoga. Most ‘western’ instructors only know Asana and a pinch of Pranayama ie they don’t really know squat about seven of the eight Limbs of yoga
1. Yamas - restraints 2. Niyamas - observances 3. Asana - postures 4. Pranayama - breathing 5. Pratyahara - withdrawal of senses 6. Dharana - concentration 7. Dhyana - meditation 8. Samadhi - absorption
Yanging it up more by adding a ‘calisthenics’ element corrupts it even more – speed asana, speed dating, speed sexing…
Initially it’s going to ‘feel good’ because it’s bringing circulation and compensation to areas that have been deprived. But I had to ask myself - why I was depriving those areas in the first place?!
For the great majority of athletes / bodybuilders, ‘pop yoga’ will not, IN THE LONG TERM, discreate unwanted tensions and help create wanted tensions. It will not provide adequate ‘compensation’ for the ‘chronic overuse’ of certain body parts that any athletic specialization, including lifting, will incur. More to the point, it will not directly produce the level of health in the myofascial bags and trains an athlete needs for staying power.
So - I 'think' real yoga and pop yoga is stupid. That said, I diligently practice prasara - a grueling, hard, yang practice that will accomplish those things mentioned that ‘american’ yoga will not. It is about flow, being in true flow, free from fear/reactivity – something only about 3% ever really attain to and are able to sustain… It, like with BP, is in a short list of real, relevant, significant discoveries I have been blessed with over the last 3 years...
(Disclosure: …have no financial interest… not an endorsement… yada yada)
hth