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Yoga is aimed not just at the body, but at the mind and spirit as well. It is widely believed that practicing yoga will unite the body and mind as one, promoting healing and harmony.

Yoga teaches balancing poses that are aimed toward improving posture and core strength. Because of the strenuous balancing poses that you engage in during yoga practice, it forces you to become more aware of your body and its posture at all times. This helps to strengthen your alignment by correcting poor posture and patterns of movement, resulting in many different health and psychological benefits.

Yoga isn't about "feeling the burn". Unlike traditional exercise, yoga focuses on being kind to your body, rather than exercising it until you hit muscle failure. In yoga practice you are told not to push your self into a pose using the force in your muscles. Yoga encourages that you use the grace of your breath to guide you gently into a pose, and to glide from one pose to another gently and softly, rather than push yourself to limit. Yoga practice is climb toward unity of both body and mind, not a sprint to the finish.

Basics

Asanas, or yoga postures are the basics of yoga practice. Mastering each pose individually takes time, practice and patience. Posture sequences are designed to flow together, one on top of the next, using the grace of your breath. The most common asanas for beginners are Sun Salutations.

Sun Salutations are considered the core of Hatha yoga practice. The postures practiced in Sun Salutations were designed to be practiced each day at sunrise in order to warm and energize the body. These poses are great for beginners, and are used widely as an introduction into many types of yoga practice.

Kinds of Yoga

Hatha Yoga is the most common and widely practiced in the west. This type of yoga is designed to purify the body by attaining a union of the mind, body and spirit using postures, breathing and gestures, designed to work in tandem with one another, and ending with relaxing meditation practice.

Raja Yoga is looked upon as the "royal path" to attaining complete unity with your core being. Raja yoga is not for the faint of heart, as this type of practice focuses on mastering the mind before one can master the body. Due to the rigor in this type of practice both physically and mentally, it's best to start with Hatha yoga as a pre-requisite.

Jnana Yoga is known as the yoga of wisdom and is said to be the most difficult to practice. The poses require great physical and mental

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