Why Yoga is More Than Exercise
"Yoga is breathing and stretching." "Yoga is a workout!" "Yoga is a form of moving meditation." "Yoga is a spiritual and mental health practice."
I've heard yoga described all of these ways. And yoga can be all of these things! What makes yoga so unique is that, while it can be a very physical practice, yoga is and has always been about more than exercise.
The practices and exercises we know as "yoga" today developed over many centuries on the Indian subcontinent, and kept changing as they moved into Western culture. In some cases, the practices got away from yoga's roots as a set of whole-person, body-mind-spirit practices. There are many different systems and lineages of yoga, but all of them emphasized more than exercise and physical training.
Patanjali's Yoga Sutras is a "how-to" manual of yoga that scholars date back to between 100 and 200 Common Era (CE). While it's not the earliest text on yoga and yoga philosophy, it has strongly influenced many of the yoga practices we see today. The Yoga Sutras (sutra means "thread") outline 8 limbs of yoga, of which exercise or shape-making is just one:
A personal code of ethics about relating to others (yamas) and ourselves (niyamas)
Physical exercises (asana)
Breathing practices (pranayama)
Practicing separating from the stories told by our senses and our minds (pratyahara)
Focused meditation (dharana) and deeper or more expansive meditation (dhyana) techniques
Accessing peace, spiritual connectedness, freedom, or "absorption" (samadhi)
In today's fast-paced world, it makes sense that many of us are drawn to the physical exercise part of yoga. Movement is a tool that can help us connect to our bodies, feel our breath, and become present. You may have felt a sense of mental calm or "aliveness" after a fitness class, or weight-lifting, or a run. What's different about yoga is that feeling - that sense of mind-body-connection, of centeredness, of steady calm, however you want to describe it - is what it's all about. Exercise is just one way to get there.
That's why yoga practices can look so different from each other - they can be powerful and active, or quiet and still. A yoga practice may even be reading or studying, sitting in meditation, or volunteering in your community. We may find ourselves drawn to different ways of practicing on different days, or in different times of life. It's great to explore and find what works for you.
