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The word "Yoga" came from the Sanskrit word "yuj" which means "to unite or integrate." Yoga then is about the union of a person's unity of breath and soul. When a person is doing yoga , the ultimate goal is to reach a unity for the physical, mental and emotional levels within him.
Ancient Yogis had a belief that in order to be in harmony with oneself and environment, mind, body and spirit need to integrate. For these three to be integrated, emotion, action, and intelligence must be in balance. The Yogis formulated a way to achieve and maintain this balance through exercise, breathing, and different forms of meditations.
One of the Five Principles of Yoga is Pranayama (a Breathing Exercise which promotes proper breathing) that is to bring more oxygen into the lungs and brain.
Pranayama comes from Prana - "life force" or "life energy" & Yama - "discipline" or "control" .
Through the practice of Pranayama, the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide is attained.
Benefits of Pranayama:
Reducing the toxins and body wastes from within our body, helping in one's digestion, metabolism gets affected in a positive way.
Pranayama also develops our concentration and focus in addition to fighting away stress and relaxes the body.
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There are different styles of yoga:
- Hatha yoga, is a system of yoga introduced by Yogi Swatmarama, a yogic sage in the 15th century in India. The word "hatha" comes from the Sanskrit terms "ha" meaning "sun" and "tha" meaning "moon". Thus, Hatha Yoga is known as the branch of Yoga that unites pairs of opposites in the system, referring to the positive (sun) and negative (moon). It is the most commonly practiced form of yoga now.
- The other style is called Bikram Yoga, named after Bikram Choudhury. This yoga style is a series of 26 poses performed in a room heated from around 90-100 degrees Farenheit. Being in such a heated area usually allows the body to be more flexible, helps to get rid of toxins and helps in better stretching. Each Yoga Pose is usually performed twice and held for a certain period of time.
- Third style of Yoga is called Ashtanga, it means “eight limbed yoga” due to the belief that a complete purification process is composed of 8 spiritual ways.
- A further style is the power yoga, which is simply a western way of the Indian Ashtanga in which a person works on his flexibility.It usually requires using other yoga poses form other yoga styles such as Bikram and holding the poses for a long time to increase flexibility of the body.
Warm-ups are usually done before a session of Power Yoga to relax and stretch the muscles of the body.
In addition to that, Power Yoga is usually done in a heated room to enable a Yogi to achieve optimum muscle flexibility. This is because the moves involved in it can be very painful to successfully pull off to those who are new to Power Yoga. Overall, power yoga enables the person to improve his concentration and focus as well as maintaining a proper posture.
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Finally, the Baharta Yoga, which is the last style, is mainly works on the proper alignment of the body. Through getting to the deeper layers of the muscles and not only the surface, the maximum benefit is achieved for the body and the real balanced alignment can take place only in that case according to the founder of Baharta.
The founder, Van Leeuwen, developed special handstand benches to develop a quicker access to the deeper muscles and with the help of the bench the body can reach a steady and relaxed position without strain.
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Some places offering Yoga in Egypt:
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