You Don’t Have To Be Flexible to Take Yoga

Many people in physician offices could benefit from yoga, patients and staff alike. The ideas people have about yoga and themselves can keep us from trying this healing practice.

Myth #1 Yoga is NOT about flexibility. Classical yoga, which we teach at ARMC’s Mind Body Institute, is about the cultivation of awareness. The asanas, or postures, are the part of yoga with which we are most familiar. Their true purpose is to calm the mind and body, to teach concentration and relaxation. Scientific studies demonstrate that awareness practices lead to health and healing. One of the side effects of yoga is flexibility, another is strength, another balance and sure footedness, another energy.

Myth #2 Yoga is NOT a religion. It is a tool box for integrated human development, involving not only mind and body but also the human heart. The most common forms of yoga came to the United States from India. In India, yoga is practiced across all faiths. Yoga itself is not a faith. Yoga predated the religions that utilized it by two thousand years! It is a system to attain health and growth. People of many faiths practice yoga with no pangs of conscience.

Myth #3 You will NOT be asked to overdo it. In the words of our Medical Director, Richard Panico, “If you have pain during practice, you are not practicing yoga.” Yoga focuses on gentle, gradual change, that is powerful and enduring. Yoga respects the individuality of each practitioner. We have several levels of classes that can meet your needs or