How To Choose Your Yoga Style

Right in front of me - male hairy legs and homeric puffing on the verge of an erotic breakdown. It’s unpleasant, but I still have forty minutes to endure … Yes, this is how my first yoga lesson looked and the man on the next mat, like me, diligently did the “dog face down” (adho mukha svanasana). Ten years have passed since then: the man disappeared, but Iyengar's hatha yoga remained and gradually "passed" from an easy hobby into a norm of life.

However, the beginning of our romance (with yoga, of course) was not at all like a fairy tale “I came, understood, comprehended, plunged, and enlightenment came”. Not. It all started with a crowded hall of a fashionable sports club, where random people rubbed their bodies against each other and torturedly flexed in the most incredible poses. Most of them endured inhuman torment and struggled with monotony and boredom solely in order to have the right to say to the whole department: "Well, that's it, I ran to yoga." It was fashionable and prestigious to do asanas. It was an occupation “not for everyone” - for a narrow circle it was not so much sporting as it was for philosophically minded youth.

About the same boom in yoga was observed in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 70s. After the release of the novel by science fiction writer Ivan Efremov "The Razor's Edge", where the main ideas of yoga were set forth in popular language, advanced enthusiasts from among "physicists and lyricists" plunged into the world of pale samizdat pictures and primitive improvised means. Instead of rugs, cotton blankets were used, wooden bricks were replaced with construction bricks (really, really!), And trouser belts were used in full force for stretching. The outfits were also appropriate: black or blue sweatpants with "bubbles" on the knees and well-worn plain T-shirts.

Much has changed since then. Even finding a studio a stone's throw from home or office is now easy. Well, for a complete immersion in the practice, you can go to a retreat anywhere in the world. No time for the Himalayas? Not a problem either. Famous gurus are happy to come to us on tour and give open lessons, some of them staying here forever. Indian masters have been teaching for a long time in the health and beauty center "White Garden", in the Ayurvedic center "Kerala", in the recently opened chamber studio Be Yoga.

Exercise suits, too, having gone through a certain evolutionary path, have become quite an important part of the fashion industry. Personally, this makes me happy - although I am a yogi, I am definitely not an ascetic. Another pleasant addition to asanas is Ayurvedic cosmetics. If you apply, for example, one of the special body oils after practice in the evening, then you will sleep like a child.

Despite the obvious positive changes, not everything is so cloudless in the world of "secular" yoga. “A big problem for a person today is the choice of their direction,” says Irina Vorobyova, a teacher at the YogPractikUniversity studio, “it is sometimes difficult to navigate among the huge number of options”.

Who would argue … One of my friends faints with enviable regularity during Bikram yoga classes (which take place in rooms with an air temperature of 40-43 degrees), and another whole lesson of kundalini practice (yoga of energy channels) sits with her hands up. To my logical question "why?" The first answers that this is how she learns to overcome herself, and the second - that everything in life can be useful. Here you need to quickly and for a long time raise your hands up, and she is ready … True, my rich imagination does not simulate many such situations.

“Often in ancient practices, people are looking for new forms that are more in line with the spirit of the times,” Anna Rae, a teacher at the New York studio Jivamuti Yog, shares her observations. “For many, painstaking construction of static asanas seems too boring and monotonous. The rhythm of life is accelerating every day, and with it the world of physical and spiritual practices is becoming more dynamic. Increasingly, yoga elements are being incorporated into purely athletic training. Striving for a healthy lifestyle, drive and passion for sports, work on the body, expectation of faster and more obvious results - all this led to the emergence of unexpected (or, on the contrary, quite expected) alliances of running, Pilates, surfing … and yoga. " To decide on the choice of your style, you can simply enroll in an overview course. Or just try something from the latest fashion trends.

Types of yoga:

Yoga artist. During classes, the emphasis is primarily on physical activity, but not without a philosophical context. The elements that will have to be performed will be very diverse - these are jumps, and bends, and lunges and quite traditional asanas. Everything that happens has a lofty goal - to heal and strengthen the body.

Antigravity yoga. In 2007, the choreographer Christopher Harison designed a special silk hammock that makes it possible to work with the body in three-dimensional space. Then a system of exercises appeared that clearly reflected the American approach to practice: simple, accessible, fun, and without burdensome theoretical load. Antigravity yoga trains the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, gives an intense strength load.

Surfing and yoga. Special therapeutic complexes of asanas for the prevention of injuries in kite and windsurfers from now exist in Russia. President of the Russian Federation of surfing Felix Pak has developed a course on preparing the body for work on the water "Strength and balance". This is a set of exercises that train the nervous and respiratory systems. The practice is based on a complex of Hatah Yoga asanas with an emphasis on balance. Well, to strengthen the spirit and willpower, prana yama (breathing system) and meditation are connected to work.

Photo: Getty Images, Kinopoisk