About Yoga

Physical or Hatha Yoga is the most complete exercise system in the world. It mobilises joints, keeps the back amazingly flexible and tones every muscle, helping you find the best body shape for your height and build and keeping that Fabulous Shape Forever.

As the exercises are combined with slow, deep breathing it also helps you relax at will, conquer stress and sleep well. It is a complete system of positive health that you can do in your own time at your own pace and with no financial investment whatsoever.

Yoga works on the entire body releasing tensions and toning every single part of the body but it does much more than that as you practice you start to feel better, to trust your own judgment, to cope with life's troubles much more easily and, gradually, you will develop your own unique potential and achieve self realisation.

What is Yoga?

The word Yoga means "union of the body mind and spirit". The Yogis of ancient India had a tremendous understanding of how the body, mind and spirit were interconnected and for total health must work together harmoniously, a feeling that we find very difficult to understand in the West.

The origins of Yoga date back well before the birth of Christ. In fact traces of Yoga postures have been found in ruins dating back to 5000 BC. We first find Yoga mentioned in the Vedas (3000-1200 BC). The Upanishads were later, about 800 BC and the Bhagavad Gita was written about 500 BC. We are then told that the Goddess Parvati prayed for a solution to all human suffering. In a dream, Lord Shiva revealed to her the greatest of all sciences for the perfect physical and mental development of mankind, the science of Hatha Yoga! This was eventually handed down to Swami Svatmarama who wrote the Hatha Yoga Pradipika which is the classic work on Hatha, or physical Yoga. Since then, Yoga has been traditionally handed down from teacher to pupil and now Hatha Yoga is the most practiced form of Yoga in the west.

Other forms of Yoga are:

• Raja Yoga, the Yoga of the mind
• Karma Yoga, the Yoga of Action
• Bhakti Yoga, the Yoga of Devotion
• Jnana Yoga, the Yoga of the Intellect

If you would like more information on Yoga, starting Yoga, when to do Yoga and much more you can find guidance in Barbara Currie's Yoga Books & Videos.