Yoga FAQs

• What is Yoga? It is a 5,000 year old system of health and wellness originating culturally from India minus the religious affiliation with Hinduism which at one point rejected the practice of Yoga since it was not going to acknowledge or deny the Existance of a Divine either way maintaining a secular stance that to this day is considered preventive medicine. Some forms of Yoga departed from this. We teach Hatha Yoga that maintains the ultimate goal for an individual is to be healthy in Body Mind and Spirit.
• It addresses all aspects of an individual- physical,emotional,intellectual and spiritual well being.
• Yoga is absolutely not a religion it is a method of Fitness & Holistic Healing that derives from the East Asian country of India. Anyone from any culture can and should practice yoga to enhance the overall well being of oneself. If the individual happens to dive deeper beyond the physical one can seek the inner peace and serenity that is required to become more enlightened and spiritual leading one to become closer to the presence of the Divine. Whatever that particularly means to that individual be it God Nature or the Energy Life Force or within oneself the Inner Light or Spiritual Self. The philosophy is held outside of a Yoga class to ponder upon or seek with books and workshops!
• The original purpose of the postures and breathing exercises was to prepare practitioners to sit still and alert for long periods of time in meditation. It is the oldest physical discipline in existance older than gymnastics and martail arts.
• It is a scientific system designed to bring the practitioners health, happiness, and a greater sense of self helping self esteem and life skills to cope with stress.
• In Yoga, the body and mind are linked as one to create a state of internal peacefulness and integration. This brings the individual from a state of separation to a self-unity that is more flexible, accepting an whole better able to integrate in society. At the most practical level,Yoga utilizes strtetching postures, breathing, and meditation techniques to calm the emotional state,the"frazzled scattered mind" and tone the body simultaneously.
• Today, over 20 million people practice Yoga in the United States and it is growing. It is heard in pop culture on television shows,commercials, physicians promote it and movies have launched its popularity into the mainstream as a way for Health Wellness Fitness and Stress relief. Group classes at Serenity Now Yoga are primarily Hatha Yoga with an Integral Yoga Influence, which integrates all eight limbs of yoga and equally emphasizes the three components of Hatha Yoga: Pranayama (Breath Technique), Asana ( Physical Postures) and Meditation ( Mental focus & concentration to calm and clear the mind)