Go Straight to Video for Yoga Training

The various postures of yoga have long been used as a basis for the stretching moves that are prescribed for athletes or used in other forms of exercise. It’s no surprise, then, that a flood of yoga tapes is hitting the market.

There are tapes for Olympic-level athletes and tapes for rank beginners. There are tapes that will challenge your strength and endurance, and tapes that will lull you into blissful relaxation.

Here’s a look at four yoga tapes, from the most difficult to the most basic. The only thing you need to get started is comfortable clothes and a non-skid surface like a sticky mat.

Embracing Power Yoga
This tape, led by Los Angeles instructor-to-the-stars Mark Blanchard, is the yoga version of boot camp. It’s 85 challenging minutes of constant movement designed to build strength and endurance, with Blanchard leading a class of 13 men and women.

The tape is billed as appropriate for all levels, and there’s a 5-minute segment at the beginning that offers a quick summary of how to do many of the basic yoga poses in the tape.

But that’s not enough for novices, and the rest of the tape is far too strenuous for those who aren’t extremely fit. You can tell that Blanchard isn’t very interested in newcomers to yoga because he ignores the poor, fumbling fellow in the back row who has little flexibility.

Despite these deficiencies, this tape is wonderfully challenging and effective workout, judging by the sweat that pours off the members of the class. But unless you’re already in good shape — and by the standards of this tape, that means you can do push-ups, balance easily on one leg and have abs of steel — you’ll be better off with an easier tape.

Yoga Zone: Power Yoga for Strength and Endurance
This routine provides a great introduction to the strength-building postures of power yoga. It’s taught by Lisa Bennett, who leads two exercisers through the 55-minute class.

One exerciser is a beginner; the other is more advanced. Beginners will be heartened to see that Bennett devotes plenty of time to helping Gina, the beginner, find modified versions of the postures that allow her to complete every segment of the routine. And veterans can learn much from her work with Charles as she guides him into more challenging moves.

One of Bennett’s major strengths is her ability to provide clear, detailed descriptions of proper form, from the angle of a bent knee to the direction of an extended arm.

Though there’s hard work to be done in this routine, Bennett’s comforting tone and understanding demeanor make it pleasurable.

The Seven Chakras

Chakra is a Sanskrit chat acceptation spinning wheel. These are a arrangement of seven activity centers amid forth the spine. Anniversary chakra corresponds to an breadth of the body, a set of behavioral characteristics and stages of airy growth. Practicing yoga and absorption your energies during altered postures can advice you to adjust your chakras and get all the auto spinning in the aforementioned administration and speed. Understanding how to accomplished tune and ascendancy your chakras through yoga and brainwork can advice accompany antithesis and accord to your mind, physique and spirit.

There are seven chakras, anniversary associated with a altered allotment of the physique forth the back from the perineum to the acme of your head. Anniversary chakra is associated with a accurate physique location, a color, a axial emotional/behavioral issue, as able-bodied as abounding added claimed aspects including identity, goals, rights, etc.

The seven chakras are: Muladhara- abject of the spine; Svadhisthana- abdomen, genitals, lower back/hip; Manipura- solar plexus; Anahata- affection area; Visshudha- throat; Ajna- brow; Sahasrara- top of head, bookish cortex.

Through the movements and postures of yoga, you can apprentice to focus your absorption and activity to and from the assorted chakras in your body. This can acquiesce you to atone for areas that may be out of synch with the blow of your physique or not alive at all. By acclimation the activity a part of all seven of the chakras, antithesis can be achieved. This airy activity is accepted as Kundalini energy. In its abeyant state, it can be visualized as a coiled up snake comatose at the abject of your spine, the Muladhara chakra. Since the chakras act as valves or pumps acclimation the breeze of activity through your system, controlled and bent movements such as yoga can be acutely benign in realigning your chakras in a way that can could cause abundant allowances to you in your concrete and affecting wellbeing.