Yoga, Mindfulness and Functional Fitness

Restorative yoga is a restful practice that is all about slowing down and opening your body through passive stretching. If you take a restorative class, you may hardly move at all, doing just a few postures over the course of an hour.   

Yoga Nidra is a Sanskrit term meaning "yogic sleep" and is a deep relaxation technicque.  The body is completely relaxed and awarenss is turned inward  which results in the equivalent to deep sleep that the body is in need of.

Mindfulness is bringing awareness to the present moment.  Through yoga practice or mindful awareness sessions, we are able to live in the moment and not spend our time rehashing the past or rehearsing for the future.

Yin yoga works deeply into our body with passive, longer-held poses.

It targets the deepest tissues of the body, our connective tissues – ligaments, joints, bones, the deep fascia networks of the body and the meridians. This is contrast to a Yang yoga practice such as Vinyasa yoga which targets the muscles.

Energetically, Yin yoga improves the energy flow, enhancing the flow of chi in the organs. To be healthy, we need healthy organs as well as healthy muscles. Yin yoga also offers wonderful emotional and mental health benefits. 

Functional fitness is what each of us need to go about our daily tasks.   Walking, squatting down to retrieve something from the floor, bending over and keeping our balance, standing and stretching on one leg to reach something overhead and sitting down or standing up from a chair or the floor are all critical to our independence as we age. Functional fitness training keeps the body in tune with these tasks.

Chair yoga is a gentle practice in which postures are performed while seated and/or with the aid of a chair. Chair yoga classes typically target those with physical disabilities or aging men and women who find a typical yoga session too challenging. It is also a great form of yoga for beginners or anyone who wants to focus on a gentle practice.

This type of yoga also assists those with balance issues or anyone who has trouble getting down to and up off of the floor.