Yoga Lanzarote is a plan that has the scope not only to diffuse the practice of the yoga, but also to carry a bit of spiritual philosophy from India and some of that wisdom mixed to compassion that learned from the Buddhist monks.
The concept of compassion meant as desire of the good towards every human being wants to be the main objective, through which we think can be created a better society, in which the man can live in harmony with himself and consequently with people around him, thus developing a “cosmic positive energy”.
Sandra Bozic
Hatha Yoga Theacher
My teachers
One of the masters who surely need to remember is a little man of 103 years old known in Rishikesh as Swami Yogananda . His energy and enthusiasm accompanied by his amusing Yoga are the reasons of his longevity .
This was one of the funniest and most joyful experience that I’ve had in India. His class was just amazing. It was not a very rigorous class focus on alignment or perfection on asanas. Instead he just quickly taught us a pretty long serie of interesting warm up exercises and a few asanas. I guess he was aware that we wouldn’t be able to learn much just in a couple of days so he just wanted to demonstrate as many exercises as possible to give us an idea of what his yoga could offer us.
The warm up exercises were a combination of joints exercises, breathing techniques (Kapalabhati or breath of fire) in different body positions similar to those from kundalini yoga, and different body movements to stimulate energy flows in the body. He also show us agnisara (abdominal movements), bhandas (energy locks) and advanced pranayamas (breathing practices). All very interesting stuff. But the best thing was his energy and enthusiasm. He was having a lot of fun teaching yoga to these westerners, for sure one of his secrets to longevity.
He told us “80% of what you eat is for the doctor, 20% is for you. Drop the 80% and you’ll have a long healthy life”. He show us some mudras (hand gestures) for loosing weight. I asked him “what about gaining weight?” and he shouted “No!, you gain weight you die!”. We all laugh.
