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All Lifestyle Our Community Santosha Offerings Trainings Types Of Yoga
All Lifestyle Our Community Santosha Offerings Trainings Types Of Yoga
Welcome back! Here’s part two of our common styles of yoga breakdown. Whether you’re an experienced yogi or just starting to understand what the culture is all about, this is your introduction and overview of some common styles of yoga. If you haven’t had the opportunity to read part one, you can find the link to the post here! If there are any other styles you see and you’d like to read more about, please feel free to comment below and we’ll make a part three! (Good things come in threes after all!) We’ve also included a list of sources or further reading at the bottom of this blog post for you to continue your own educational yogic journey. The ones we’ve added are not the only materials on these styles – you can find more in podcasts, classes, and further research online! Prenatal Yoga Many pregnant women might find it difficult to find a safe exercise they can commit to throughout any stage of their life. Prenatal Yoga is no exception! While you may need to modify depending on what trimester you are in (just as you would modify if you were injured), this type of yoga is focused on making the class low to the ground, stretchy, and with the added bonus of preparing you for your miracle’s birth – regardless of if that’s why you joined the class or not! Through breathwork, mindfulness, and bodily awareness, you’ll learn similar techniques and tools you’ll need during the end of your pregnancy. Yoga is so much more than just movement, and you will see this philosophy reflected in all of our classes at Santosha Yoga Collective. Meditation (Nidra) Yoga Similar in tone to Prenatal Yoga, Nidra (or “sleep yoga”), is slow, low to the ground, and calm. This style of yoga has little to low movement and is focused on just your breath. While a lot of yoga styles revolve around the breath or use the breath as a background tempo for your practice, here you cannot distract yourself with movement – you are here, breathing, and being. While it does sound scary, your instructors are trained to make this practice beneficial and safe for you at all times. People add little touches of Yoga Nidra throughout their day by doing just that: focusing on the breath for a few moments at a time. Sound Healing Sound Healing is another mode of meditation, but it uses sounds to heal. Pretty explanatory, right? Just joking! Sound Healing has actually been around for generations because of its transformational properties. Students rest in a comfortable position and allow the vibrations and noise from their instructor (or instructing team sometimes) to float through the mind and weave into the body. You may find yourself drifting into an unknown dimension that operates outside of time – classes like these can feel like hours and minutes at the same time. This style of yoga taps into the mind, body, spirit, and soul with little to no movement. We offer this class monthly because of the requests but we also recognize the difference we feel from before the workshop to how we are afterwards! Ashtanga Yoga In Sanskrit “Ashtanga” is translated to mean “eight limbs”. This common style of yoga is focused around physical sequencing and movement within the practice. Ashtanga Yoga classes typically begin with a five rounds of Sun Salutation A: Mountain, Arms Overhead, Forward Fold, Lift Head, High Plank, Low Plank, Up Dog, Downward Dog, Jump Forward, Lift Head, Forward Fold, Stand Arms Overhead, Mountain. You might find this similar! A lot of yoga styles use some version of Sun A to warm up the mind, body, and spirit. Ashtanga’s version, however, is centered to the upper-body and arms as an easy identifier. The rest of the practice is standing postures – structured and then repeated – before melting to the mat for seated poses. Power Yoga Heated, challenging, and building. Power Yoga trains the whole class sequence around one or two particular postures (also referred to as “peak pose”) so that students may practice some version of the pose. An example of “priming” the student’s body for their peak pose, Power Yoga teachers might focus more on twists and eventually a Warrior 3 in order to prepare for Revolved Half Moon (see below). This style of yoga is known for its popularity and might have seen it referred to as “Power Vinyasa''. And for some studios, this class might even be structured into numbered levels to rate difficulty of the sequence or of the peak pose (EX: Level 2 or Level 3). Kundalini Yoga In Sanskrit, “Kundalini” means “coiled snake.” The foundation of this common style of yoga is the intertwined energy going up and down your spine. The use of this style is to uncoil, unknot, and undo any twisted up energy there. Through life, these two coils of energy – masculine and feminine – become tangled and blocked. In Kundalini, we can unblock these paths and allow the energy to flow; leading us to the Divine within all of us. At Santosha Yoga Collective, we offer Kundalini workshops on special topics monthly! Check out our class schedule here. And for more information on Kundalini (the practice and the history), check out our most recent blog post: "What is Kundalini Yoga?" Hot Yoga vs Bikram Hot Yoga is a set sequence (meaning that it is the same poses in the same order every time), which is fantastic if you don’t like surprises. This class was created from the yoga teacher Bikram who brought the style over to North America. Due to standardizing the practice, you could not teach “Bikram'' yoga unless you were certified through his yoga college. Many teachers and studios believe that yoga should not be gatekeeped, therefore pulling away from the Bikram title, methodology, and class atmosphere altogether. What you will commonly find nowadays are Hot Yoga classes centered around ideals of bodily sensation, water breaks, supportive cues, and modifications. Did we miss any class styles? Let us know! We’d love to hear what classes you've found transformative, interesting, and/or fun. (: “Santosha” is a sanskrit word that means contentment. Our Loomis-based Yoga studio brings together decades-long practitioners and new students alike. We believe Yoga is beneficial for every body and will make sure you find the right classes to support your yoga journey. With 24 weekly yoga classes from Vinyasa and Balance, to Chair, Yin, Kundalini, Iyengar, and Restore, our aim is to provide a space of contentment for students and teachers of yoga as we honor movement, holistic wellness, and community as a way of life. We serve the beautiful community of Northern California.
We offer these yoga styles and many more through workshops, our community room, and themed classes. Please reach out on our “Contact Us!” page if you have a yoga theme you’d like to experience in the beautiful Santosha studio. Sources for Further Reading:
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AuthorThis blog is authored in collaboration by registered yoga teachers and guest educators at Santosha Yoga Collective. Archives
November 2024
CategoriesAll Lifestyle Our Community Santosha Offerings Trainings Types Of Yoga |