The five major misconceptions of yoga common sense

Many people have some one-sided understanding of yoga, thinking that doing this is right and doing that is wrong. However, is yoga what you imagine? Let's take a look at the five common misunderstandings of yoga to help you correct your wrong views.

First misunderstanding: Which teacher taught it right?

Friends who like to go around the classroom to practice yoga should find that some common movements are slightly different for each teacher, and the requirements are different. Even teachers who have taught for a long time will change them, so that what former students learn will be different from what later students learn. Even the world-famous Indian master Iyengar, let alone ordinary teachers.

In fact, no matter where you practice, the answer given by every teacher is correct. A serious teacher talks about his serious discovery, while a non-serious teacher talks about the experience he copied from his teacher. No matter which kind it is, people who learn yoga should not be obsessed. You should have a mentality: "You must practice every part of the body" because "different requirements can practice different parts of the body," so don't worry about whether there are any contradictions.

Second misunderstanding: If you practice hard, you will make progress?

I believe that at least one out of ten people who practice yoga must want to practice yoga very well, but there may not be ten yoga masters out of a hundred people. Why? I quit because most people were injured and accumulated a lot of frustration.

The reason is very simple. This body cannot be overworked. When you want to strengthen certain parts of your body specifically, you may increase the chance of strain on that part, so sooner or later you will get injured and cause problems. I often hear people say that injuries are common occurrences, but I don't think so much. It's not easy to maintain our bodies, but it's not difficult to make them hurt. Every time we get injured, we have to suffer for several weeks. Not only can we continue to practice during cultivation, but we can only recover 70% to 80% of the original, so a bunch of people give up practicing yoga.

In fact, various parts of the body will affect each other, and there is no need to specially control a certain part. Sometimes when the heat is up in other parts, the tight areas can still be improved. In addition, the ligaments on the body are the thickest and thickest in the back and legs, so it is not easy to exercise, and it is not surprising that it takes three to five years. As long as you practice carefully rather than hard every time, you don't have to worry about poor results. Softness does not necessarily depend on stretching the muscles. For example, the effect of stretching the muscles myself is not good. I often feel calm and deep when doing the postures. Occasionally, I suddenly realize something in my heart, and the hardest and tight parts in my life suddenly become soft.

Therefore, instead of practicing hard every time, it is better to increase the number of practices, but practice with the mentality of not asking for anything every time, empty your mind, and your body will become soft.

Third misunderstanding: Is the ever-changing posture cool?

Some people learn yoga and regard asana as the whole of yoga, so they enjoy collecting various asana methods and even like to create or modify asana methods. I have also heard that some teachers prefer to teach postures in class and are unwilling to teach too much, for fear that students will not come and practice it after teaching the postures they know. Therefore, this kind of teacher spends half an hour warming up in each class, practicing Japanese salutations a few times, and then reviewing what he taught before. In this way, the time is up for one or two new moves in one class. It's really unbelievable.

Among the eight-step exercises of Raja Yoga, asana is only one. It is difficult for modern people to learn intangible spiritual lessons, so they regard one-eighth asana as all yoga. This is a wrong concept. The key also lies in the teacher's skills. There is no need to innovate movements. There are already too many postures we know so far that we can't finish them. If the teacher himself has not experienced the experience at all levels, what he can teach is of course limited.

Good teaching depends on the coach's understanding of postures, and the best thing to teach is the moves that can be seen in books and videos outside, so that students can easily review and remember, and it is easier for them to discover the differences in movement requirements between different coaches. This way, we can better understand each coach's intentions.

Fourth misunderstanding: practicing yoga is about making your body soft?

Taiwanese yoga practitioners attach great importance to flexibility, while foreign yoga poses emphasize balanced development. I believe that with correct practice, the body must be soft, but it will also have strength. However, this strength is not the muscle strength to build a large piece of muscle. A well-trained yogi should have the same fairy wind and crane bones as the ancients said. The body looks thin and light.

Some people have insufficient blood and blood in their bodies, and their muscles are not strong enough. They can easily be injured if they are pulled, or their bodies are inherently hard. These people progress slowly, and emphasizing muscle stretching will only make them lose confidence. It would be even more regrettable if they gave up and stopped practicing because of this.

Or loosen the tendons. They look very soft, but in fact, the body does not necessarily become stronger. Ligaments are important tissues that support the body in various postures, standing, and exercises. If you loosen them, you may not be strong and strengthen the muscle strength. This is probably not a yoga exercise that emphasizes the unity of body and mind, but just an exercise.

How to make your body soft? I often think that softness has no absolute relationship with joint ligaments. Seventy percent of the human body is liquid, so don't start with only 30% solid to practice softness, so that the success rate can be improved. Many postures can guide exercise to the internal organs and stimulate the large and small brains to secrete various endorphins that are beneficial to the body and mind. If you practice enough and experience this kind of interactive interaction well, your body will naturally soften. Coupled with relaxation, your body and mind will naturally become healthy. Even if your muscles are not stretched, it will be a lot of benefits.

One of the characteristics of the human body is that it has X-shaped cross symmetry between left and right, which is also related to the left and right brains. Our body is used. In any way we use it, it will have a fixed inertia over time. As long as you continue to practice with patience, don't take it seriously, and don't compromise, you will overcome it. If your heart regards body rigidity as a worry and adopts a confrontational attitude, it will become even more troublesome and disobedient. As long as you continue to practice and truly experience relaxation and tranquility, this worry will gradually decrease. The process is almost the same as overcoming psychological problems.

Looking back, don't think that just because you practice body softness yoga well, you should regard your health as an achievement. This is the right thing.

Fifth misunderstanding: Do you have to learn yoga from a master?

After the popularity of yoga, many master-level figures emerged. The so-called masters are those who perform various difficult movements easily and beautifully. In addition, they are popular in the media when publishing books. Since these masters practice well, they can of course teach well, but the students who go to learn from them can never learn unique skills. Because these masters have many disciples, if you are lucky, you can be at the front of the master to give guidance. If you are unlucky, stay away from the master and only see the master's back. Popular masters usually have more classes, or have more activities and external affairs, so they may not be energetic when taking classes. Some may feel that they are enough to cope with them with only 30% of their strength. The main reason is that people who come to study mainly watch the excitement, and real practitioners rarely appear. In addition, the tuition fees for masters are usually expensive, and if you can't get anything from a class, you will feel very disappointed. This mentality of worrying about gains and losses runs counter to the spirit of yoga.

In fact, practicing yoga requires good teaching by teachers, and the students 'own wisdom is also very important. Wisdom means that they have high physical and mental acumen. This kind of person can understand it at one point, and can also draw inferences from one example, or even know everything from one point to another. When I met a student who was relatively blunt, sometimes he clearly spoke Chinese, but he still couldn't understand it. Even a master could only encourage him to practice hard.

So is there no need to find a master to learn yoga? It is recommended here that beginners to yoga do not deliberately choose teachers. First, find a few classrooms with convenient transportation and affordable tuition to try out a few classes. Just choose the one you are most satisfied with and stay and practice hard. After waiting for a year or two, I should know what yoga is all about. By then, I can go out and visit teachers and friends. If I don't have this ambition, I don't have to do much. If I continue to practice, I can still strengthen my body and live a long life. For people who have not yet developed experience or a certain level of experience, even if you meet a master, you may not necessarily benefit from it. Because the so-called masters are good people who teach their students according to their aptitude. If you have not yet become a success, all a master can do is comfort you and play humor to make you happy, so that you will have infinite merit.

Some people practice yoga well and want to do various difficult movements like masters, so they often feel frustrated here. I don't think that every move must be practiced successfully. Difficult movements can scare people, but they may not necessarily contain any great effects. People who like to practice can regard them as a self-challenge, but they don't have to feel discouraged because they can't do it. On the contrary, simple moves are both easy and effective, and that should be the mainstream. Practice more simple moves, and you can gradually perform difficult movements. (Internship Editor: Yan Lili)