Don’t get me wrong here. Fast Moving Asana Practices such as varying Power Yogas can be a great cardio workout and also build a warrior type discipline & confidence since when you’re moving fast, there is often not time to align the pose perfectly, you must align quickly to get the most of each pose. It is great and you’ve got some amazing options and teachers here at Kaivalya. I use fast moving asana for these reasons in many, many of my own classes. I am not anti-cardio.
Everyone loves the movement, the flow, and the cardio! But also know that when your teacher takes you into a different mode, there might be something really good for you there too.
Fast Moving Asana (with holds of 10 seconds or less) is great at working muscle.
But Yoga, even from a pure physical point of view, can work more. “Like What?” you might ask, “Muscle stretch, Muscle engage, muscle align… sounds good to me.” Yes, that is good, but there is the issue of the fuzz.
Specifically, your fuzz….
Holding poses for 10 seconds does little to completely melt the fuzz. That fuzz grows every night of your life. If it didn’t, your knuckles would drag on the ground by your 18th birthday. To clean out the fuzz like Gil’s hand in the video, you’ll often need a sustained stretch of at least 15 – 20 seconds, and for the really tough spots (2 weeks, 1 months, or years of fuzz) longer.
Many times a good 20 second pose for each major part of the body will do the trick, but to clear out the thick fuzz that’s turned to chunks of white tissue, it takes sustained holds of longer.
So, by all means, get your cardio in your yoga! But also know that when you’re in a pose for 20 seconds to minute, your teacher is having you hold that long pose for a reason — Stay with it! It is so good for you. Anytime you “rest it” or half-ass the stretch, you are not getting the nice “fuzz melt” seen in the video.
“Fuzz Melt” = Feel REALLY GOOD after yoga class.
If you want to learn some great stuff like this about how to really make your yoga work… you might consider finding out more about our teacher training.
Check out the Teacher Training Website, or check out the FREE Q&A at Kaivalya on Saturday at 5:15pm for more info!
