(Willpower, asana principles, and internal health)
When you stubbornly stick to the practice, you cultivate willpower and overcome fears and other mental interferences. For example, when you practice asanas, you do not remain only within the comforts of easy postures and well-known routines. Rather, you try to overcome fears and thoughts such as “I cannot do this.”
To sum it up, an asana practice according to Hatha Yoga principles: 1. aims to keep the internal body healthy and in balance rather than focusing on weight loss, toning, and shaping the exterior physical body; and 2. performs asanas with long, comfortable, and steady holds, rather than in a vigorous or dynamic manner.
Yoga asanas work in three ways to increase the flow of lymph and relieve lymphatic congestion: 1. Inversions reverse the effect of gravity and drain lymph and used blood from your legs. 2. Twists (as well as forward, backward, and side bends) stimulate the flow of lymph up through the core of your body. 3. Contracting and releasing large muscles move lymph through your body. To eliminate toxins is one of the key qualities and purposes of Hatha Yoga. Practicing asanas steadily and comfortably promotes this because it increases blood and lymph flow. Does this apply to a more dynamic and vigorous asana practice as well? To a certain extent, yes. This is because of the varied movements of your body.
(Lymph flow, lactic acid, and the logic of ease)
When your body cools down after practice or exercise, your lymphatic system has to work hard to carry away the lactic acid. After strenuous exercise your body might even feel stiff, swollen, and heavy because of the built-up load of lactic acid.
In Hatha Yoga, though, you avoid this build-up of lactic acid. After all, you perform asanas easily, so that your muscles get enough oxygen. For this reason, even when you work on challenging asanas, it is important to sequence the practice well. You need to make sure to include sufficient moments of relaxation. For example, when the heart rate becomes too high and you begin to breathe fast and perspire, it is time for a relaxing asana. This will normalize the heart rate, allow your breath to calm down, and minimize the formation of lactic acid.
This effect is more pronounced with breathing exercises where the emphasis is on exhalation, as with Anulom Vilom and Kapalbhati.
So the calm and comfortable practice of Hatha Yoga leads to an increased blood supply to the brain, which in turn allows the brain to absorb more oxygen.
If you incorrectly practice some yogic breathing exercises with active inhalation, rather than only active exhalation, you may trigger these same effects of hyperventilation. Kapalbhati (Skull-Shining Breath) is an example of this. If practiced incorrectly it becomes a different kind of pranayama, the so-called Bhastrika (Bellows Breath). Bhastrika is an advanced pranayama exercise, which is suitable only for experienced practitioners, and if practiced by beginners these same effects of hyperventilation may occur. In Hatha Yoga, the lungs’ capacity to absorb oxygen and the blood’s capacity to distribute oxygen optimally improve.
The purpose of asanas, then, is not to increase cardio fitness levels or metabolism. In fact, the intention and the effect of Hatha Yoga prove to be the exact opposite.
A team of scientists studied more than 100 men and women. They prescribed a diverse Hatha Yoga routine. The men and women—their average age 33 years—followed the prescribed routine for at least six months. The team reported that a regular yoga practice cut the basal metabolic rate by an average of 13 percent.
The regular practice of asanas affects the mind and desires. These in turn help to curb overeating and stress-related eating.
(Glands, fascia, and the body’s self-regulating system)
By performing Headstand, the fluids within your skull become slightly compressed: intracranial pressure increases. This leads to a gentle squeeze and release once you come out of the pose. Headstand is considered beneficial for the functioning of your three master glands: the hypothalamus, the pituitary, and the pineal gland.
These positions trigger a nervous reaction in parts of the body that in daily life are mostly neglected. As a result, your body’s own regulatory functions are stimulated.
When you practice asanas, there is a lot of movement, compression, extension, and rotation in your trunk. By bringing movement to the fascia in the trunk you remove restriction and activate your body’s self-correcting and self-regulatory system. By using movement to activate and release the fascia, you stimulate the internal organs and glands and improve their function.
Time: Traditionally asanas were practiced either at dawn (brahmamuhurta) or at dusk (sandhya), when the rhythms of life are calm and gentle and temperatures are mild. Though dawn and dusk are ideal, one can practice whenever when one is not tired or sleepy, as long as it is not within 2 hours after a main meal.
Breathing Exercise Kapalbhati Skull-Shining Breath
Traditionally, the Sun Salutation is performed with your back toward the rising sun, your spine and spinal cord warmed by the sun’s heat. Each movement of the Sun Salutation proceeds in coordination with breathing: each motion connecting to an inhalation, an exhalation, or a retention.
As we have seen in the chapter about the history of yoga, it is impossible to draw upon a unified and classical tradition of yoga asana practice. It is therefore also not possible to give a watertight explanation of why asanas should or even can be sequenced in any particular way.
(Sequencing from the crown downward: prana and Kundalini)
Hatha Yoga: following the laws of nature, following the Principle of Minimal Action. We should aim to design sequences that create the most natural and effortless flow of prana through the body. The sequence of yoga postures described in this book works from the Crown Chakra downward. This replicates the downward-descending, purifying element that purifies and stimulates your body. In doing so it creates space and the possibility for astral energies, such as the Kundalini Shakti, to rise upward.
So starting with the Crown Chakra and moving along the spinal cord in a downward direction, we activate the complete nervous system in a systematic manner and in a way requiring the least effort.
yoga asanas were convinced that maintaining
If you want to learn something, read about it. If you want to understand something, write about it. If you want to master something, teach it.”