Things to note about yoga postures

　　The first step in practicing asanas is not to stretch your muscles, but to enhance your physical strength and the strength of your muscles and ligaments.

　　Many people have this experience. When they first start class, they often sweat profusely or yawn repeatedly. This is a sign of lack of physical strength. After getting used to it for a while, you will no longer be sweating profusely, but you will still be sore all over your body from time to time. This is because the body tissue is not strong enough. At this level, practitioners should not force their bodies to be soft or rush to challenge asanas that cannot be performed. They should wait until their bodies are strong enough and their physical strength has increased after a few months. It's hard to say how long this period will last. Some people are young and energetic and can adapt to it in a month or two, while others have to wait several months. However, even if you are young enough and have more than three exercise classes a week, it is not appropriate to rush to keep up with the progress, because although you can persist for a long time, your strength is still clumsy. If you challenge difficult movements like this, your body will be injured. So remember, at this stage, don't care about whether your movements are good or not, and don't force yourself to complete the movements that seem to be possible. The focus of this stage is to strengthen your physical strength and physical strength. Wait until you feel you have enough strength before moving on to the next stage of training.

　　The second stage of practicing asanas is usually the one that most people tend to overlook, which is practicing relaxation.

　　In fact, it is really difficult to relax. Some yoga masters only realize how to relax after practicing for several years. Relaxation is not just about taking a big break, but trying to relax as much as possible during the whole class. You must release your clumsiness through relaxation, otherwise you will easily become a bodybuilder with full muscles and be easily injured. Preliminary relaxation should be cultivated during the first stage of the big rest. If you really treat the Savasana big rest as a rest, where sleep , that would be a pity. The real big break should be after finishing a class, and feel the natural relaxation of the body's tissues after fatigue and twisting. Relaxation at this time must be relaxed, unless you are not tired. If you fully experience this relaxation in the first stage and remember this feeling firmly in your mind, in the second stage you can slowly explore how to relax your body when doing movements.

　　So in the second stage of practice, when you hold on to maintain the movement, because you have enough strength, holding on a little will not be as painful as when you first learned. You must learn to relax your body in this short period of time, not to let go of the movement, but to maintain the most perfect posture with the least effort, and find the most stiff and hard part of the body to let go of it.

　　At this stage, more exercise The most important thing is the ability to observe your body. Because you have to practice relaxation, you have to find out which parts of the body are not relaxed enough. This is the ability to observe. You may only be able to find a few parts at the beginning. Don't stop searching. Slowly you can observe more and more parts at the same time. Your mind must be like the radar on a fighter jet. The old radar can only lock on one or two enemy aircraft for tracking at a time, but the new radar can lock on many enemy aircraft at a time. Once you become proficient in this practice, you will be able to find many parts of your body that are stiff and not relaxed enough, and learn to relax them one by one. Occasionally, I meet friends who have been practicing yoga for many years. They force themselves to stretch their body ligaments to the extreme in some postures. Although they achieve the goal, their bodies are stiff and tight. After practicing, they often have to go to a masseur for a massage to feel refreshed. This is because they have not found the key to relaxation.

　　A challenge at this stage is that you will gradually feel that after practicing a class, not only will you not be tired, but you will feel as if you have not practiced, and you will still be full of energy. Don’t feel like your body isn’t stimulated enough or exercised enough that it drives you to take more classes. Be patient, the physical changes will not be completed in a few weeks, and the study of relaxation and concentration will not take three or two years. At this stage, you need to set your goal direction and be clear about what to do and not get confused.

　　The second stage is also a good time to start training breathing control. Because you have learned how to relax your body, you need to use breathing control to internalize this relaxation into the body. There is no need to rush to set the goal of breathing control too high, as long as it can help you relax more. When you have enough strength to relax, you will slowly discover the interactive relationship between breathing and mind, and how to use breathing to help yourself recover from fatigue or tension. You can then enter the third stage.

　　It takes a lifetime, but if you have some experience with relaxation, you can enter the third stage of practice, which is exertion.

　　Does it feel weird to exert force at this time? In fact, the previous exercises are also about using force, but it is very different from the force used in this stage. The force used in this stage must be smart. The relatively clumsy force used before will be called clumsy force. Chinese martial arts like to use jing to describe this smart way of using force as a distinction. Clumsy exertion can leave your body tired, sore, and prone to strain. For some people's physical characteristics, the use of clumsy force will make you hungry and want to eat a big meal after a class, and it will be easy to grow muscles soon. This is different from the impression of yoga we are familiar with.

　　Explain further what is clumsy power? When ordinary people use muscles to stretch and contract joints, not all muscle fibers are used, so some muscle fibers need to bear most of the burden. In addition, many times, energy is wasted on some unnecessary parts. Over time, those parts will be strained, or as a result, some parts of the body will be damaged. The muscle tissue of these parts is particularly developed, and each part of the body is a continuum. No matter how small the movement of the body is, many places need to work together to exert force. If you can control the use of fewer parts, you must spend more effort to complete the action, and it will also increase the burden on those parts used. The above strength is called clumsy strength.

　　So how to turn clumsy power into real power? Remember to try to avoid the clumsy force mentioned just now, and try to use more muscles to complete the asana. Because of your relaxation, more muscle fibers will be awakened to work together, and you will know how to control not to let excess force appear, and gradually