Yoga

Yoga traditionally conjures up images of long hair, loin cloths and incense burning in a darkened room with strange music playing! It had an almost cultish persona. Nowadays your gran is quite likely to tuck her Yoga mat under her arm and head on down to the local gym for an hour of Yoga and meditation. Yoga is coming out of the darkened room and is being embraced in it many forms by old and young alike.

Yoga originated in India. It is considered one of the most ancient forms of self-improvement exercise in history. Yoga was formally documented around 200BC by one of India's most famous Yoga masters, Patanjali, who wrote the 'Yoga Sutras'.

Traditionally though, the ancient art of Yoga is passed down from Master to student and so on.However, throughout the years, Yoga has undergone many changes and new streams of Yoga have been developed from the original sources.

Also, during history, when India was invaded, many texts that documented Yoga techniques and teachings were destroyed.It was not until the early 1900 century that Yoga was revived by Yoga Master Tirumalai Krishamacharya, known as a 'Yogi'. Following this time, Yoga began to become a World Wide exercise that has since been embraced by millions of people as a way of life.

Essentially, traditional Yoga is made up of eight limbs that represent ethics, the physical body, breathing, consciousness, concentration, meditation and God. There are also five 'Yamas', which a 'Yogi', Yoga teacher, must adhere to, which are, non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, fidelity to God and non-grasping, meaning not being attached to material possessions.