Looking for something new from your yoga sessions? Aerial yoga may become a hot new trend. The big benefit is that it allows you to take the pressure off your joints and move more freely.

Aerial yoga students explore new heights | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press reports:

“The four-week Saturday sessions allow metro Detroiters to do exercises and poses with the help of fabrics that are hung from the ceiling and can hold more than 1,000 pounds. The fabric is used as support to increase agility, improve flexibility and relieve compressed joints. Unlike regular yoga, where students position themselves on the ground, aerial yoga is more acrobatic and allows participants to bend backward, hang upside down and relax in a cocoon inches off the ground.”

[tags]yoga, trend, aerial[/tags]

New to Bikram Yoga? Here’s a short video which to give you a taste of this great yoga form.

[tags]yoga forms, Bikram yoga, yoga[/tags]

In the West, Hatha yoga is still the most popular of the yoga forms, and  it’s suitable for anyone of any age, young, old, or in-between.

Hatha yoga asanas combine stretching with concentration and breathing techniques.

The goal of Hatha Yoga is similar to other kinds of Yoga – to increase your mental, physical and emotional health.

Hatha Yoga is one of the two branches of Yoga that focus on the physical culture, the other one being Raja Yoga.

Both of these are commonly referred to as Ashtanga Yoga, i.e., Yoga of eight parts (‘ashta’ meaning eight and ‘anga’ meaning limbs).

The main difference is that Raja Yoga uses asanas to mainly get the body ready for prolonged meditation, and hence focuses more on the meditative asana poses: Lotus Pose (Padmasana), Accomplished Pose (Siddhasana), Easy Pose (Sahajasana) and Pelvic Pose (Vajrasana); Hatha Yoga utilizes most of the asana poses. Similarly, Raja Yoga’s use of Pranayama is also devoid of extensive locks (Bandha).

Hatha represents opposing energies: hot and cold (fire and water, following the same concept as the yin-yang), male and female, positive and negative. Hatha yoga attempts to balance mind and body via physical exercises, or “asanas”, controlled breathing, and the calming of the mind through relaxation and meditation.

Asanas teach poise, balance & strength and are practiced to improve the body’s physical health and clear the mind in preparation for meditation in the pursuit of enlightenment.

[tags]yoga, Hatha yoga[/tags]