More and more people seem to be taking advantage of confinement to learn yoga. Why doctor gathered the advice of a certified professor practicing in a large Parisian school.
How to learn yoga while respecting the limits of your body, your age and your state of health? What are the benefits of this multi-millennial practice on body and mind? How can yoga ease the tensions caused by confinement and reduce stress in the home? Can children practice it? Rodrigo Cofreces, yoga teacher for 15 years at the Gérard Arnaud studio in Paris, agreed to answer our questions.
What are the virtues of yoga?
Yoga gives us balance, helps improve breathing and eliminate toxins. We find calm and serenity more easily and quickly. Practiced in a conscious way, it helps to anchor oneself in the present moment and to take a step back from the daily events: one is less in the projection, less anxious, less borrowed from the doubts. We feel it when, for x reason, we stop practicing it for a while.
There are dynamic yogas, very physical, others more creative or softer. What matters, beyond practicing the postures, is to enter into the philosophy of yoga. The most important thing is what awakens in us and not the posture. It is through this emotional and spiritual approach that we can take root. One of the reasons why people love this practice so much is that we can very quickly feel in balance and feel this calm within us. Yoga establishes a connection between the mind, our emotions and our physical body. It helps us to channel our emotions. I have used it in difficult times in my life to get through them better and not get stuck in a negative emotion. It is also a good tool for channeling stress.
Some French people take advantage of confinement to learn yoga. Can this be done at home, especially through online videos?
I know from my students that some were already practicing yoga at home when they arrived at the studio, so why not. I myself did it for the first time 20 years ago, thanks to a book. I sometimes had doubts, especially about the correctness of the postures, but my first approach was not supervised by a teacher. Nevertheless, it is true that being guided by someone who puts us at ease and who accompanies us is more than beneficial. It is important to try to listen to yourself, to be in the acceptance of yourself, the limits of your body and change. Teaching a teacher helps a lot in this.
There are many different yogas, how can they choose which one will suit them best?
It can take time, because you have to experience it. It is a discipline that you have to live, so you have to try several courses. Some yoga are stronger, more invigorating like ashtanga, others softer like vinyasa for example. The feeling with the teacher is also very important: the same type of yoga taught by two different teachers will be experienced and felt differently by the student. If the lesson leaves a pleasant physical and emotional feeling, try again, go some way with this teacher. The beauty of yoga is that anyone, whether old, with pathologies, or having had an accident, can practice it. Yoga is malleable, so the most important thing is to find a good teacher.
How can this discipline alleviate any tensions related to confinement?
Confinement arouses anxiety in some people. Yoga allows you to free yourself from anxiety or nervousness. It allows you to take a step back, to keep calm, to make better choices and to find yourself. Since the president’s announcement, we have had a significant increase in participation in our online courses, which proves that either, people do not want to stop this practice during confinement, or they want to learn. What is needed when practicing it at home is to stay tuned, not to strain your body. Beginners can possibly start with a gentle vinyasa or hatha yoga and if you don’t feel certain postures, you leave.
From what age and in what way can children practice yoga?
In theory, it is said that the child can practice yoga when he has the conscious notion that there is something behind him. In fact, between 5 and 6 years old is a good age in my opinion. We then favor 15-minute lessons, during which we can imagine animal postures (dolphin, cobra, lion …) or small pirouettes. Yoga helps to channel children’s anxiety, to calm them down. Around 6/7 years old, we can make them do simple breathing exercises to learn to calm down, to sleep better, to manage fear, to let go. Unfortunately, yoga for children is not yet very developed in France, as is the case in the United States or England.
What to recommend to confined pregnant women who would like to learn?
Yoga is not practiced at all the same during pregnancy. We must adapt the postures to the body. Some women begin to practice it at 5 months of pregnancy to soothe back pain or to feel better in their body which they see change. However, the approach is different depending on the stage of pregnancy and her experience. It is still recommended to practice postnatal yoga with a teacher who can answer questions. Women are all different and will always have very different feelings. However, they can do deep breathing exercises to calm the mind, which helps them better accept and manage the body.
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