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About Strala Training
Strala is moving with ease during restful and challenging circumstances alike. When you find ease in effort, your body and life become very capable and strong. You become an expert at creating space in your life for peace, creativity, inspiration, and all-around feeling great.
by Tara Stiles
One of the biggest problems facing America and the world is obesity. We know that burning calories and restrictive diets don't work. Aggressive exercise triggers a stress response in most of us that makes unhealthy weight gain even more likely. The science behind diets changes with each decade, and blanket recommendations too often ignore what is unique to each of us. Above all, these solutions start too late. They're focusing too much on the outcome — our weight — and ignoring a cause that happens even before our food choices. This cause is in our minds, and has everything to do with stress.
for complete article: http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-23700/why-easygoing-yoga-is-our-best-hope-for-weight-loss.html
by Sam Berlind
I’ve been thinking about the concept of alignment lately, how it’s understood and used in teaching and practicing yoga.
Some people think about it this way:
‘In yoga, the main focus of touch is on bodily alignment and improvement.
Teachers touch students to help them align better. We all know that. What many practitioners don’t realize is that sometimes they’re so out of alignment that they might actually hurt themselves.
Posture alignment refers to how your muscles are integrated and bones are aligned to support your body for optimal movement during exercise. The aim of good posture alignment is to establish a solid foundation with your body, so you can support your limbs, back, and head while you exercise.’
And from the other end of the yoga theory spectrum:
‘Instead of postural forms (static asanas), it is the individual animating spirit that should motivate our yoga practice. Energy-based, spontaneous yoga is like the developmental movements and perpetual stretchings of infants. This is action of the body in which reason takes no part, and which does not originate as an idea. Yogis perform actions with their bodies like the movements of children.’
When we ‘correct’ the alignment or posture of a yoga student through touch or word, we are implying that there are universal principles of yogic alignment that we ‘know’ and should be teaching others. It’s as if the goal of yoga practice is to achieve some kind of ideal symmetry or balance, as if a perfect pose awaits our mastery.
Really?!