Ashtanga

Ashtanga yoga is the embodiment of the spiritual yoga exercises that Westerners understand to be part and parcel of the experience. While Hatha yoga and even Iyengar yoga are more or less a mode of attaining physical health as well as spiritual wellbeing, ashtanga yoga poses are the means to achieving spiritual enlightenment and thus this form of yoga considers the spiritual aspect of the exercises to be the key element to the practice.

Ashtanga focuses on the following eight practices: reflections on being and connection to the earthly, adherence to moral living, meditation, refinement of the self and letting go of worldly trappings, self control, awareness of the divine, control over the oxygen intake of the body and thus control over the heartbeat, and finally the practice of ashtanga yoga sequences. Ashtanga yoga postures are initially easy but quickly they grow more and more complicated. Those who look to ashtanga yoga for health and fitness will quite possibly be disappointed when they realize that an ashtanga yoga weekend is much more than just some ashtanga exercises. Instead, the main focus of a properly run ashtanga yoga retreat will be the spiritual aspect that begins with the refinement of the self via various aspects of the eight spiritual practices of ashtanga.

Granted, if you are not ready to put away your ashtanga yoga mat and want to continue pursuing to learn ashtanga yoga with the health benefits in mind, you may choose to find a qualified ashtanga yoga teacher - training takes a long period of time, thus finding one who will mainly focus on the fitness aspect versus the spiritual aspect might not be easy – and attend an ashtanga yoga studio, or you may decide to follow the ashtanga yoga primary series of exercises with the help of ashtanga yoga videos or an ashtanga yoga DVD.

On the other hand, if an ashtanga yoga holiday sounds wonderful to you because you are in search of deepening your spirituality, then you will find that the various practices of the ashtanga will aid you in your quest for communing with the divine. Proper breathing techniques when coupled with advanced ashtanga yoga postures and exercises serves to rid the body of worldly toxins and permit the entry of the divine spirit and the refining and cleansing of the mind and soul. Familiarize yourself with the various philosophies that enter into the practice of this form of yoga, and you will find that you will reap bountiful benefits when attending a weekend retreat.