Complete Yoga Plus: My Yoga Philosophy

Hi Yogis!
Welcome to my Blog: Complete Yoga Plus!

 My philosophy on yoga is that it should be available to everyone around the world no matter their location, fitness level or financial situation. Yoga is a system to change your life and find true happiness that has been passed down for thousands of years for the benefit of everyone!  My ongoing project has been to create a variety of great yoga (& pilates) videos that can be used anytime for FREE.  Now I am adding a Blog to accompany my videos so that together we can learn about yoga and discuss topics related to yoga and health.  I want to bring new yogis into the practice and show them that you dont have to be flexible or strong to START yoga (but you will become that and more!). I want to help experienced yogis to deepen their practice and expand their horizons farther than they ever thought possible!!

The Name "Complete Yoga Plus" represents my approach to yoga. I think that yoga should be practiced as a complete system (not just asana) to bring about true lasting progress & growth. It should address all areas of the body, our emotional state, our mind, our self concept and the way that we interact with the world around us. I see my practice as being eclectic in that I do not follow one school of yoga or the teachings of one guru - I study many types and disciplines to learn what I can from each.  To limit yourself strictly to the teachings of one guru creates a narrow view of what should be an expansive system.

Yoga teaches us to be flexible in our body, our mind, our expectations and in our daily life. I do not take a "purist" approach to the practice for this reason. Some yogis believe that the way yoga is practiced today is an abomination of the "true" practice of yoga developed thousands of years ago. Although I agree that western yoga focuses much too strongly on the Asana practice, I see no place for dogma in teaching and learning yoga.  One of the reasons I fell in love with yoga was because the practice gives something different to each person. Our practice has a way of helping us find exactly what we need at that time. There is no cookie cutter practice that will allow this to happen - it is unique to each of us.  Yoga itself should not be a stagnant system, we need to be open to an evolution of the practice itself for greater effectiveness.

The "Plus" in our name signifies the way that we mix other things in with our traditional yoga practice. This may include pilates, strength training, cardio, dance, massage, acupressure or anything else that can enhance our practice. The traditional system of yoga is very holistic, however because of its origin in ancient India the application in modern society is a bit different. Our way of life has changed drastically and our bodies reflect these changes. By blending other techniques in with yoga we can create a system that is better able to address the needs of the modern day individual.

The world that we live in and the demands that are placed on us create a constant outward pull. It is up to us to discover what we need to do to stay connected to our core self and feel true happiness. It is easy to put off happiness to tomorrow, but we are never given a guarantee that tomorrow will come.  As we dive into the deeper practice of yoga we learn the skill of staying grounded in the present moment to enjoy what there is here and now.  (cultivate gratitude, gratitude, gratitude!!!!)

Join me on this Journey so that we can discover what yoga has to offer together!

Namaste!
-Laura
www.LauraYoga.webs.com



For this Blog I will Organize my posts by Title into these categories:

Yoga Teacher Handouts: These are handouts I give to my students for education or administrative purposes
Save Some Green: These are posts about saving money and saving the environment
Yoga Class Readings: These are quotes, poems or stories that can be used in yoga class
Morning Mantra: these are mantras or meditations that can be used to set an intention for the day 
Yoga Sequence: these are my yoga sequences and yoga sequences that I find or use in class
Meditation: these will have various meditation techniques and styles