Want to go to a Long Island Yoga class, but you don’t even know what it entails? Read about the history of Yoga and see if it’s right for you.

Yoga is so ancient that it was developed well before even the written word. Carved images of figures in Yoga positions were discovered during archeological digs in the Indus Valley. These carvings date back 5,000 years or more! The common mistake people make is to assume that Yoga came about because of Hinduism; in reality, Hinduism came about much later, though it did incorporate some of the traditions of Yoga into its religious structure.

As Yoga has its roots before the written word, it’s traditional for Yoga teachers to pass their knowledge onto their students through practical application and oral lectures. Because of this Yoga has been enhanced by every teacher to ever pass on its techniques to a student. This has been repeated hundreds upon hundreds of times in its 5,000 year old history.

One of the earliest texts having to do with Yoga was compiled by a scholar named Patanjali, who set down the most prevalent Yoga theories and practices of his time in a book he called Yoga Sutras (“Yoga Aphorisms”) as early as the 1st or 2nd century B.C. or as late as the 5th century A.D. He wrote about a system known as “Asthanga Yoga”, which means “the eight limbs of Yoga”. This is what we refer to when we speak of Classical Yoga today. Most current adherents practice some variation of Patanjali’s system.

There are eight steps to Classical Yoga. These are:

1. yama, meaning “restraint” – refraining from violence, lying, stealing, casual sex, and hoarding.

2. niyama, meaning to observe contentment and tolerance, to remember life’s lessons, and to achieve purity.

3. asana, meaning “physical exercises”.

4. pranayama, meaning “breathing techniques”.

5. pratyahara, which refers to preparing the mind for meditation.

6. dharana, the ability to focus the mind on a particular image or object for a specified time.

7. dhyana, meditation, the ability to focus on one thing (or nothing) indefinitely.

8. samadhi, or absorption. This refers to the realization of the essential nature of yourself.

Steps 3, 4, and 5 are the usual focus of modern western classes.

Yoga has been in the United States since the late 1800s, but it did not gain in popularity until the 1960s. As Yoga’s benefits became more widely known so to did Yoga become more widely accepted as a great method of stress management and health improvement.

Want to try Yoga? Get to your local Yoga studio and get involved! Love to sweat? Give Long Island hot yoga a try, and you won’t be disappointed!

Based in Huntington, Sole Pilates and Yoga provides the greatestNew York yoga classes on Long Island. View their calendar to attend one of their Long Island hot yoga classes today! Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service