The Yoga rules

By Kevin Sinclair

Yoga is a very common style of exercise that is practiced by people all over the world. These exercises help to build strength and flexibility in our bodies by creating a balance. Yoga is derived from ancient India and is still going strong in its beliefs and practices. If you are just starting your yoga training or are curious about some basic postures for yoga, then perhaps this article will be of some benefit to you. We will discuss a few of the basic postures that are easy to do.

The first posture that we will discuss is called The Cobra. When doing this posture, we want to do this in easy stages. First we want to lie down with our forehead touching the floor, our face needs to be prone and our legs should be tight together and stretched back. Next we want to place our hands under our shoulders with our palms facing down. Once we have done this we want to inhale and raise your head back pressing your neck backwards. The next step is with the use of our hands we will push up our trunks until we have formed a beautiful arc that reaches from the lower part of our spine to the back of our necks.

Once we have reached this point, there is really no need to go any further, but if you feel that you can, then you can fully extend your arms. Beginning at the knees you can bend your legs and stretch your head as if try to touch your feet. Whether or not you can actually touch your feet with your head is not important as long as you can hold the posture and remain deep breathing. When coming out of this posture, we want to do this very slowly. Return to start position with our faces prone, then relax with your head to one side. This is the Cobra posture. Now all you have to do is repeat the steps.

The second posture of yoga that we will discuss is called the Bow. This posture is a more extreme version of the simple bow posture. Amazingly, there is an outstanding number of children who can easily do this posture easily almost immediately. As with the Cobra posture position, this one also we want to do in stages. First, let us lie face prone on our mats. For this posture, you may want to consider a padded mat, if you are a slim person with a neck that is thick. Now we are gonna inhale and bring our knees up.

Now that we have our knees up, we want to extend your arms back and while our fingers and thumbs are together, grab your ankles. Now that we are in this position, we are going to inhale and raise heads and our chest at the same time we are going to pull on our legs with our hands. This will lift our knees and thighs off of the mat. Now, we want to breathe normally all the while we are trying to raise our legs higher and our heads up. We are now bent into the Bow posture. With this yoga posture, we are balancing our body weight on our abdomens.

Once we have reached this final step, we can stop or we can continue to stretch your body a little further. To do this we need to move our hands down our legs, lifting them higher. Keeping our knees together, we want to pull back as much as possible. Now we want to hold position for a few normal breaths, then we will will relax and return back to our face prone positions with our heads to one side. We have now successfully completed the Bow posture.

The last posture position that we will discuss in this article is the Shooting Bow posture. This posture is also known as Akarna Dhanurasana. To start, we will sit with our backs straight and our legs extended. Now we want to extend forward and reach our feet with both our hands. We want to grab hold of our left foot with our right hand and using our left hand we will grab hold of our right foot.

While we inhale, we will bend the left knee and bring our left foot close to our chest across our body. We also want to make sure that our elbows are pointing up, while slightly twisting our body to the right. The left hand that is holding the right foot needs to stay tight and firm. While we are holding this position we will breath normally, then slowly release and relax.

Once we have completed this step, we will repeat the same steps for the opposite side. For beginners to yoga or this posture position, it will suffice to hold the now bent left leg with our right hand. Once you have done this a few times and it becomes easier to do, we will reach down and grab hold of our left foot with our right hand. Now we will continue to pull on our left foot, bringing it higher with each breath that we exhale.

These are just a few of the basic yoga posture positions that you do easily. They are perfect for the beginner yoga trainee and will help you train your body to be more flexible and stronger at the same time. By following these steps, you will start to create a balance in your body that can not be achieved any other way.

Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of My-Personal-Growth.com, a site that provides information and articles for self improvement and personal growth and development.