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Yoga
and Athletics
By
Joan Moore
Whether you already practice yoga or barely know
anything about it, you can greatly improve your athletic abilities by doing yoga. Yoga enhances your training
by increasing your strength, flexibility, and focus. Yoga focuses on the performance of asanas or poses.
Yoga can improve your athletic ability in many ways.
Firstly, you can use yoga to improve your physical strength. Yoga for strength
especially makes use of poses that involve holding oneself up in various ways using the limbs. Think about
it like this: Simply getting down in push up position and trying to hold that position would give you a
tough workout. Yoga uses many props like that.
Yoga also aims to improve your stamina and endurance. Obviously, stamina and
endurance play a major role in athletics. In yoga you especially work your stamina and endurance when you
hold poses for extended periods of time.
Yoga helps you improve your flexibility. Flexibility will help you avoid injury
during any athletic endeavors. Also, being rigid and inflexible will hinder your ability to perform well
in sports and other athletic activities.
Doing yoga will also help you recover from fitness training. It will preserve your health
and improve blood circulation, which in turn will improve your physical potential. Training a lot for a
specific sport can make you physically unbalanced, but doing yoga will help balance you out.
Finally, yoga teaches you focus. Focus
on yourself and your body. It helps in athletics to be focused on what you are doing at any given moment
and yoga teaches that.
Many athletes
use almost all of their free time practicing their sport. That dedication is almost always required from
top-level athletes in any field. That may leave you little time to take on other exercise routines.
Luckily, yoga does not take that much time. Attending one class a week will benefit you greatly.
A simple 20 minute practice once a day or a few days a week will do you great. And, once you start,
you will get better and better at it.
If you are an athlete, I recommend you try yoga. Whatever you do, good luck and have
fun!
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Chakras
By
Kristrine Heitner
Chakra is Sanskrit for “wheel” or “disc”, located
in the nerve ganglia along the spine. Each chakra is symbolically depicted as a lotus that has a different number of petals.
The more petals the chakra has the higher the vibration. The ancient sages taught that the spiritual life force known as the
Kundalini is sealed within the chakra that is located at the base of the spine. We can unlock the powerful energy through
acts of kindness, love, service, prayer and meditation. As the Kundalini rises along the spine it activates each chakra along
the way and causes the wheel to spin and the lotus to blossom. As the energy spins it emanates its own vibration and color.
The color varies in intensity and purity depending on whether the chakra is balanced or blocked.
When an energy
channel is blocked it is believed to cause illness, confusion and emotional difficulties. When the energy is flowing we feel
energetic, creative and at peace. Since our energy centers are interconnected, if one chakra is blocked it affects our entire
energy center. The beauty of life is that we are spectacularly unique and personal growth is a creative process…and
a wonderful adventure! Our well being is not purely physical: we are mind, body, and spirit and not one
function alone. Yoga helps balance our chakras and our well being. (more chakra information
in our next newsletter).
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Healing
Life By Usha Sanghrajka
Cumin is popular in Indian, Mexican
and Middle Eastern cuisines. According to Ayurveda, it is balancing for all three doshas. It aids digestion and helps flush
toxins out of the body.
Cumin can be used either as whole seeds or ground, raw or dry-roasted.
Ground raw, it is a dull brown color, which can be enriched by sautéing in Ghee or oil. Powdered dry-roasted cumin
is a rich brown color. Both sautéing and roasting make the aroma and flavor of cumin come alive. Cumin combines well with a wide range of other spices, including turmeric, ground fennel, ground coriander, ground dry
ginger and cinnamon. This masala can be used in any curry. Sprinkle ground, dry-roasted
cumin on fresh yogurt, add salt to taste, and enjoy at lunch. Or blend yogurt, water (50-50) with ground, dry-roasted cumin
and salt to taste for a refreshing lunchtime drink. Called “lassi” in India, this drink is
excellent for digestion. This form of cumin can also be combined with some minced ginger, lemon
juice, salt and black pepper to make a dressing for a salad or cooked white beans or lightly steamed shredded carrots. Whole
cumin seeds make a flavorful addition to lentil and legume soups. Wholesome and nutritious, these soups can be meals by themselves.
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Illumination – Aphorisms By B.K.S.
Iyengar “Words
cannot convey the value of yoga- it has to be experienced.”
“Asanas
keep your body, as well as your mind, healthy and active.”
“Nothing
is perfect, you can always improve; that is creation of life, creation of interest.”
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*
The Yoga Center of Stuart l 1304 NW Federal Highway l
Stuart, FL 34994
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