Your best performances are accomplished when you are relaxed and free inside.  Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has done a lot of research on what he calls “the state of flow”.  This “state of flow” is equivalent to an athlete being “in the zone”, or a musician being “in the groove”.  Csikszentmihalyi has defined this state as: “the merging of action and awareness in sustained concentration on the task at hand.”

The ability to fully attune and respond to the changing signals of the environment in a relaxed manner is a quality that is enhanced by both the flow of Yoga postures and the flow of lifting kettlebells for high reps in an allotted period of time.  The State of Flow is a relaxed state of no resistance.  This is the state where you get out of your own way, have fun and see real results.

This is the Turkish Get Up combined with a straight leg Windmill.

If it is not the absolute best exercise, it is at least in the top 20.  This exercise is as timeless as it is effective.  It works the whole body while promoting bulletproof core strength and shoulder stability.  It sure beats any machine – based exercise.

This is a demontration of some very potent breathing and bodyweight exercises that are part of the KetYoga system.  Breathing is the most vital process of the body, but it is frequently overlooked in today’s training protocols.

What is your body worth? After all, your life depends on your body.  Can a monetary value be placed on your flesh and bones? Two years ago a person tried to sell his kidney on e-bay; the starting bid was $25,000. In just eight days, desperate patients drove the price into the millions before the company blocked the sale.

If someone offered you a million dollars to cut off your left hand, would you do it?  The majority of people would answer this question in the negative.  If the average person’s hand or kidney is worth more than a million dollars, how much would the whole body be worth?  The number would easily reach into the billions.  On the other hand, if someone offered you a million dollars for your car, or a billion dollars for your house, would you accept?  It might be hard to find someone who would not accept these offers.  Following this line of thinking, why is it that so many people spend more resources on their houses and cars than they do on their own bodies?  Some people are more concerned with the proper functioning of their car than the proper functioning of their body. Isn’t it even more important to maintain your body than to maintain a house or a car?  Houses and cars are made for the use and comfort of our bodies, but are lives certainly do not depend on them.  Although they are important, they are supremely less important than the health and maintenance of the body itself.

Ancient Yogic philosophy teaches that a human birth is indeed difficult to obtain, and that a human life is extremely valuable.  Yet we receive this great gift for free, without asking, and as a result, we may sometimes take our life and body for granted.

Nature nourishes and sustains us, but over the course of a lifetime, nature also wants to break us down. That is why we build houses, to protect us from the elements.  It is our job to fight nature.  When it is cold, we turn up the heat.  When it is hot, we turn on the AC.  We have umbrellas to protect us from the rain.  Sun Screen to block the sun.  Likewise, training the body is like building a house. It is wise to build a strong, resilient house that can weather even the most severe storms.

Many people today are sick and in pain due to the physical conditioning of their body. Some of these people lead sedentary lives, but many of them spend time at the gym and even have personal trainers!   The problem is that they are not training earnestly and intelligently.  It is easy to become bored with ineffective and inefficient training.  Unsurprisingly, their results were not good.

Whether the cause is a sedentary lifestyle or ineffective training, the result is tightness and weakness of our muscular-skeletal systems.  This condition gives rise to unnatural body mechanics, poor posture and innumerable orthopedic issues that all too frequently lead to surgeries.  Tight muscles, tendons and ligaments prevent our joints from moving thru their full range of motion. This creates physical as well as energetic blockages, which manifest as tension, pain, weakness and a predisposition to injury.

The question naturally becomes, “Which exercises provide the greatest value for promoting the natural health and strength of the human body?” As it turns out, some of the most ”benefit-dense”  exercises are also the oldest.  Kettlebells and yoga are a distillation of the most comprehensive and effective body movements available, providing the practitioner with the quickest route to a strong, flexible and resilient body.

Show your body you care – try some kettlebell and yoga exercises!

Here is a demonstration of the Crane Pose – an excellent exercise for developing strength and balance.  It may seem challenging at first, but it becomes easier with every repetition.

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Patanjali was an Indian physician, sage and scholar. Over 2500 years ago, he collected and systematized all the known knowledge of yoga and organized it into the Yoga Sutras. He is often regarded as the “father of yoga.”

Nearly all distractions and obstacles to Yoga practice listed by Patanjali come under the general heading of sloth or laziness.  Laziness is said to be the inspirer of cowardice, self-pitying grief and trivial hair-splitting doubts. According to Yoga philosophy, sloth is the lowest condition of nature and the human mind. Buddha and Patanjali were in agreement; Buddha pointed out that if there is any sin, it is laziness.

 The magic of Yoga is in the repetition.  The key is regularity and consistency of practice. This means practicing when you do not feel like it – do not give in to laziness. It is better to practice a little and enjoy it than to not practice at all.  The effects of Yoga practice are cumulative; achievement typically comes in small increments over long periods of time. Perseverance is very important in connection to a Yoga practice. Remember, there is no failure as long as we continue to make an effort.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                “Anyone who practices can obtain success in yoga but not one who is lazy.  Constant practice alone is the secret of success.”

-Svatmarama, Hatha Yoga Pradipika

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 The breath is one of the most powerful training tools that we have.  Gaining control over the respiratory system allows for a dramatic increase in physical performance. Breathing is the most vital process of the body.  We start breathing when we are born, and when we stop breathing, we die. The air that we breathe travels through 1500 miles of airways before it animates and sustains the life of every cell in the body. Many people give great consideration to what they eat and drink, but think little about their breath.  A person can live a month or more without food, a week or more without liquids, but deprived of breath – we die in minutes. In light of this, it is astonishing how little attention we normally pay to the impact of breathing correctly.

 On average, human beings breathe 21,600 times per day. Yet most people have forgotten how to breathe correctly.  Shallow breathing through the mouth uses only a small portion of the lung capacity and leaves the thoracic and diaphragmatic muscles tight and weak. Typically, this tendency only worsens as we age, and our breath becomes ever-more shallow.  (Contrast the deep abdominal breathing of a toddler with the shallow breathing of a typical, untrained adult.) Shallow breathing deprives the body of the oxygen that is essential to good health. This results in a lack of vitality and a compromised immune system. Additionally, shallow breathing deprives our internal organs of the movement that is essential to proper functioning.

 Fortunately, our breath can be dramatically improved with proper training. By consciously training, restoring and balancing our breath, we feel full of life. Ket Yoga employs the ground-breaking techniques of Mahaprana Yoga to teach the most effective and efficient ways to strengthen and smooth the flow of our breath. The Prana Sanchalan Kriya develop overall cardiovascular endurance and greatly increase our capacity to breathe through the nose. By forcefully pumping the lungs at a fast pace, these exercises simultaneously strengthen and cleanse the entire respiratory system.

 Developing the capacity to take deep, relaxed breaths through the nose is extremely important. Breathing through the nose provides valuable breath-regulating mechanisms such as warming and filtering the air.  From the yogic point of view breathing through the nose also maximizes the amount of prana that is absorbed, since prana passes through the olfactory organs at the back of the nose to reach the central nervous system and brain. 

 The quality of our breath is extremely important because it reflects our mental state. Yogic philosophy has long-recognized the breath to be the intermediary between the mind and body, and the link between the inner and outer body. When the movement of the breath becomes relaxed, the movement of the mind is calmed.  This relaxed state allows us to realize our potential in athletic performance.

 Western science tells us that although the human brain makes up only 2% of the body’s weight, it consumes 20% of the oxygen that the body uses. Proper breathing enables us to bring more oxygen to the blood and thus to the brain. By increasing the concentration of oxygen in the body, the brains ability to concentrate improves.

 By training the breath with effective techniques, it can become stronger, more balanced and in tune with Nature. Learn to make use of these valuable techniques and get the most out of your training and your breath!

As comprehensive a form of exercise as Yoga is, there are some things that kettlebells do better.  Kettlebell training strengthens the tendons and ligaments, making the connective tissue resilient and the muscles strong. Simultaneously kettlebells challenge the cardiovascular system and strengthen the bones to a high degree.  This creates wiry strength, raw power, explosive agility and a more resilient body than can be attained with Yoga or body-weight exercises alone.  Among other things, training with kettlebells stabilizes the shoulder joints and strengthens the hips and back in uniquely powerful ways.

WHAT IS A KETTLEBELL?

The kettlebell is a traditional Russian strength training and conditioning device.  Its design, a cast iron sphere with a handle, predates virtually every other piece of fitness equipment that you can find.  Kettlebells are low-tech, high concept and can have a huge impact on your fitness level.  Appearing deceptively simple, the kettlebell challenges both the muscular and cardiovascular system with dynamic, total-body movements.

KETTLEBELL LIFTING:

In recent years, many fitness experts have wisely come to reject the “health club” and bodybuilder driven concept of working individual muscles in isolation, in favor of a more functional, whole-body approach.  Kettlebell lifters have embodied this knowledge for centuries.  Rather than isolating a muscle group, it makes far more sense to move a weight using your entire body – thereby training the muscles to work in concert and strengthening the full kinetic chain of movement.

Proper kettlebell lifting requires you to move the hips through their full range of motion in a powerful and dynamic fashion.  Compare this with the health club style machine-based workouts where you are actually sitting down most of the time!  Natural athletes move from the hips. The majority of the body’s ability to generate power comes from the hips.  Everyone has heard about the importance of core strength – a major component of the core is your hips. The strength of the extremities pales in comparison to the strength of the body’s center, which is the hips.

As the saying goes, “use it or lose it.”  Moving from the hips is a fundamental body movement that is necessary for safe, effective  and efficient movement. Unfortunately, many people lose this ability.   If you do not actively train the large muscles of the hips – they become stiff and immobile. As a result, physical performance suffers greatly and the person becomes more apt to move from the limbs – this is when injuries occur.  Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to train powerful, dynamic hip movements.

In addition to being an effective training method, kettlebell lifting is a sport unto itself.  This means that a kettlebell lifter continually practices his or her lifts, not just performs them.  Many people have heard that kettlebells are the most effective and efficient strength training tool around.  However, it is important not overlook the awareness and application of correct technique.  Attaining a working knowledge of the kettlebell on your own can be hit or miss.  It takes a skilled coach to unleash the true potential within the simple kettlebell.

CONCLUSION:

Kettlebells are an extraordinary tool.  Use them correctly and consistently and you will notice a distinct improvement in your all-around fitness.  A favorite tool of the strongmen of old, the kettlebell has enjoyed a revival of late.  These days, military personnel, the Secret Service, professional athletes and Hollywood stars are training with kettlebells. A person could read about the benefits of kettlebells all day, but as a wise man once said, “who feels it, knows it.”  The power of kettlebells will remain hidden until you feel it for yourself.

 Many different interpretations of the word Yoga have been passed down over the centuries. As a result, Yoga is a word that will conjure up different images and meanings for different people. Yoga practices can be amazingly varied, and what is “Yoga” for one person may be unrecognizable to another. 

 Here in the West we mainly associate Yoga with a series of physical postures. The practice of these Yoga postures are perhaps the best form of physical exercise a person can do. Historically, however, Yoga has primarily been concerned with control of the mind and the senses.

 Here are some quotes that relate to Yoga and the Mind:

“There is not a single Yoga posture that is not intended directly or indirectly to quiet the mind.”

– Dr Theos Bernard 

 “This is the beginning of instruction in Yoga.  Yoga is the control of thought waves in the mind. Then man abides in his real nature.” 

-Yoga Sutras

 “Yoga is controlling the senses, will and mind.  The benefit of its study is that we learn to control instead of being controlled. ”

–Swami Vivekananda

 “Steady mastery of the senses; that is Yoga.”

– Katha Upanishad

 “Intense and methodical investigation into one’s mind is Yoga.”

- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

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