(Not) Yoga 101

My latest activity every Saturday morning is doing a Yoga. You know, I put a serious concern in health. Not much to say to discuss the advantage of exercise to your body and mind except it’s a MUST-TO-DO if you want a wellness living. I used to swim and hope I could find a representative female-only swimming pool in Bandung.  Oh I miss my swimming activity… Now, almost every Sunday morning a take a walk (or jogging sometimes) with my family for about an hour around  the house with its fresh green neighborhood. Every Friday morning my office also held an aerobic session, I joined it only for several times :)

Since there’s an opening of a yoga studio near the house, I have signed up to join the class. Only once in a week for 70 minutes exhausting session! Seriously… But I feel it’s truly advantages to my body and mind. The main point of yoga is breathing technique and body stretching. Advantages of yoga : flexibility, strength, muscles mass, pain prevention, breathing circulation, mental peacefulness, stress healing and body awareness. It can also repair your body posture and shape it, balancing, detoxifying and more.

From this page, I found a bit about Yoga :

What is commonly referred to as "yoga" can be more accurately described by the Sanskrit word asana, which refers to the practice of physical postures or poses. Asana is only one of the eight "limbs" of yoga, the majority of which are more concerned with mental and spiritual well-being than physical activity. In the West, however, the words asana and yoga are often used interchangeably.

Many people think that yoga is just stretching. But while stretching is certainly involved, yoga is really about creating balance in the body through developing both strength and flexibility. This is done through the performance of poses or postures, each of which has specific physical benefits. The poses can be done quickly in succession, creating heat in the body through movement (vinyasa-style yoga) or more slowly to increase stamina and perfect the alignment of the pose. The poses are a constant, but the approach to them varies depending on the tradition in which the teacher has trained.

Yoga poses are some easy some difficult to do to me :) but I’m just a beginner with beginner poses so probably I will step-up to advance poses someday. Pict below describes a beginner poses :

Now, essential question : is yoga halal or haram for Muslim? I’ve been doing a little research before joining the class. Yoga is known as a ritual pray of Hindu religion with mantras and sun direction. But the history of yoga itself began before Hindu era (6 BC) then adopted by many Hindu priests in their praying ritual. Islam ulamas said that as long as the purpose of yoga is purely intended for health without any other ritual involved, Muslim may do yoga.