Difficult Yoga Pose

(June 30, 2010)

What is the most difficult yoga poses?

Yoga is a gentle and relaxing form of physical fitness and it is actually more of a health regime than a physical fitness routine. Yoga takes a holistic approach to health care and this ancient discipline encompasses all the realms of health, with physical poses or asanas addressing physical fitness, while breath exercises and meditation help with both mental and spiritual health. One of the reasons for the tremendous growth in popularity of yoga in the west would be the fact that it is one of the most flexible disciplines that can be modified and adjusted to meet the specific needs and capabilities of the practitioner. This of course makes it near impossible to identify any specific pose as being the single most difficult yoga pose.

Yoga poses are often classified or graded on the basis of application or which part of the routine they are best suited to such as warm up poses, relaxing poses and so on, or on the basis of their movements such as stretching poses, backbends, inversions and so on. Yoga poses are also classified on the basis of complexity or difficulty to some extent as beginner, intermediate or advanced poses. The advanced poses are quite naturally the most difficult yoga poses of the lot. However, such a classification is to some extent an over simplification of the complexity and all inclusive nature of yoga. The essence of yoga poses is that they can be modified to be practiced by almost anyone, which is why it is used as a therapeutic discipline for various people even if disabled. The discipline of Bikram yoga can also illustrate this as its routines comprise of 26 poses, practiced in a specific sequence. No matter how advanced a student you are or inexperienced the poses remain the same. They are simply modified to be more challenging or simpler depending on your needs. This holds true of almost all yoga poses.

There are at the same time some poses that are not generally recommended or included in the repertoire for beginners as they are quite challenging. Acrobatic poses like the handstand, headstand, shoulderstand, rotation pose, crow pose and scissor pose can be considered to be some of the most difficult yoga poses. Most of these poses have increased difficulty levels because they are performed in an inverted or upside down position and also because they put tremendous pressure on a specific body part. Performing such difficult poses requires skill, experience, and expert guidance, which is why they are not recommended for beginners as there is a higher risk of injury from errors.

Submitted by A on June 30, 2010 at 09:22

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