Yoga is movement

Exercise is any skeletal muscle activity that results in higher energy expenditure than at rest. Movement is physical activity and is caused by contracting or tensing the muscles. The World Health Organization's guidelines on the subject recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week.

Movement is not just running or throwing a ball. Movement is also a facial expression, the articulation of words, or the implementation of plans. Our brain coordinates its senses and creates experiences to cause movement. Movement of the mouth, hands, movement over many kilometers or just a few millimeters. Sometimes we can influence the world by suppressing movement.

The only reason to have a brain is exercise. At first it sounds so banal that you want to scream in outrage. Movement is the most extraordinary thing we living creatures have ever achieved. There is no other reason to have muscles and no other reason to have nerves on those muscles. And probably no other reason to have a brain. Everything that has ever changed human history was only possible because we can move.

"We gain confidence in our abilities through exercise."

Through our bodies and movement we actively engage with our environment, learn to assess ourselves and gain confidence in our abilities. In the first years of life, children learn primarily about perception and movement. Concrete action and the use of all senses are a holistic process. This causes children to grasp their environment, structure it and reconstruct it for themselves. In this way, children gain knowledge that allows them to influence and change the environment. And we adults also learn through movement, express our feelings and interact with our environment.

Hatha yoga is probably the most well-known part of yoga and includes body-oriented yoga practices: asanas, breathing exercises and relaxation techniques. When practicing Hatha Yoga, we carry out certain movements or breathing techniques and repeatedly remain in non-movement, in calm. We track what changes we can notice in the body before and after the movement. Through these targeted movements we get to know ourselves and our abilities better and feel ourselves better. It's not about being perfect. It is important to practice until you reach your own limits. And here another important thing applies: letting go. Free yourself from the thought of being perfect. Because yoga doesn’t mean “I have on the nicest leggings and can pull my foot over my head.” Yoga is about feeling and bringing body, mind and environment together – in peace and in movement.

Text by Maria, former operator of Find Your Yoga (2017-2023)

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