Sri Sri Yoga

Many people have mastered yoga and each one has a different name and a style. The one I decide to go was called Sri Sri Yoga, named after Sri Sri Ravishankar the founder of the Art of Living organization (AOL). Art of Living is a non-profit organization which helps people in making their lives better, peaceful and enjoyable by teaching various techniques. Techniques when practiced relieve stress, heal and harmonize the body, helps in handling the negative emotions and situations, practical wisdom for improving the work and relations are some of the many.

Sri Sri Yoga is one of the many courses offer by AOL. It is stretching and low impact yoga for health, circulation and body stillness. This was an eight hour course and we had about 80 people taking it. The age group range was very wide. I think the youngest was about eight years old and the oldest about 80 years.

The teacher who taught was swami Pragyapadji. He is young but a very senior teacher with lots of experience and wisdom. There was never a moment where the teacher didn’t have a big and charming smile on his face. We were taught various kinds of stretching exercises, asanas (postures), pranayams (breathing exercises) and mediation. There were two rules which have to be followed when doing these. We always have to smile when doing these and the second one is to do only as much as we can and not to overstretch our selves.

We learnt four kinds of Pranayamas:
1. Kapalabhathi: kapal means forehead. Bhathi means shining. When practiced regularly this pranayama energizes every cell in the body and eventually the forehead starts shining.
2. Bhastrika: This is a fun Pranayama to do. When we do this pranayama, all the cells in the body get oxygenated and energized.
3. Nadishodhana: If translated to English, it can be called alternate nostril breathing. This pranayama activates the sutle channels through which the prana or the life energy flow.
4. Bhramari: This is called BEE breathe. You will have to learn pranayama to know why it is called so:-). This pranayama relaxes the nervous system, both central and peripheral.
There are seven energy centers located in our body. They are called chakras in Sanskrit. They are located at the base of the spine, behind the genitals, the navel, center of the chest, base of the throat, between the eyebrows and the top of the head.

Some of the facts I learnt in the class are:
•There is no word called YOGA, the right word is YOG.
•Yoga is technique that helps create harmony between the mind, body and breath.
•We have to drink about 2.5 liters of water each day and half of this quantity has to taken within half an hour of waking up in the morning.
•PRANA means the life energy. We get this by four sources. Food, Water, Sleep and Breath.
•Two of our handfuls put together, is the size of our stomach. So, we need to eat only that quantity of food which fits in our two handfuls.
•Smiling helps reduce tension.