exhaling for pleasure

Exhale for Pleasure, Strength and Freedom

  In this short video below I discuss the seven main ways you can exhale and how by understanding and mastering these ways of exhalation you can stimulate the pleasure centres of your brain, improve core strength, save energy, reduce stress, make your spine more mobile and flexible, and massage your internal organs to improve the function of your digestive …

How your yoga practice can make you fat and weak

Bad diet, an unfocused mind, stressful practice, not using your diaphragm, holding postures too long, over-tensing muscles, not being able to properly activate muscles and abdominal over-breathing can all make your yoga practice ineffective and impede your progress for a lifetime. We previously posted an article about the basic tenets of the Yoga Synergy Method, which can make any style …

Holding your breath for increased strength, flexibility, healthier digestion and to eat less food

Although there are many benefits to learning how to use all the muscles of breathing, and to learn to breathe in many ways, in the more advanced stages of yoga it is the art of breathing less than normal (hypoventilation) that gives the most physiological benefits. The less you breathe in and out the more you will build up carbon dioxide …

To Breathe or Not to Breathe!

Breathing less than normal can calm the nervous system, decrease appetite and cause more oxygen to be transported to the brain. Breathing more than normal can have some beneficial effects too, however it also can make you feel dizzy, jittery and hungry. It is also better to keep breathing exercises and physical exercises separate until one is firmly established in the physical exercises. Once one no longer needs to focus on …

Ashtanga Yoga Drishti in Surya Namaskar

According to Sri K Pattabhi Jois, in his classic book ‘Yoga Mala’, during the ‘Salute to the Sun’ sequence (Surya Namaskar), your eyes should gaze upward toward the ‘Third eye centre’ (broomadhya drishti) on each inhalation (all the odd numbered vinyasa) and your eyes should gaze downward toward the tip of the nose (nasagra drishti) on each exhalation (all the …

Yoga Synergy Blog

Is it Correct to ‘Pull the Navel towards the Spine’? Answer: Yes and No!

Many people in the world of yoga, Pilates and fitness tell their clients and students to do something like ‘pull the navel to the spine’. If you google this expression you find articles that give a flurry of controversy on whether on not it is a good idea to ‘pull the navel to the spine’.   In this video, exercise-based physiotherapist …

Essentials of Teacher Training: YOGA FUNDAMENTALS: Yoga Synergy 120 hour Online Course

EDIT: We have renamed our course Advanced Yoga Fundamentals: Essentials for teaching Yoga We are very proud to present our  online course ‘Essentials of Teacher Training: Yoga Fundamentals’. This course is the culmination of 30 years of teaching experience and 45 years of yoga practice. The course is useful on many levels. It gives 28 versions of an accessible but challenging …

Spinal Movements Sequence (Part 16): Vinyasa – balancing forward bending with backward bending

This video is Part 16 of a YogaSynergy Spinal Movements Sequence taught by physiotherapist and Director of Yoga Synergy, Simon Borg-Olivier, which he teaches in person in courses throughout the world as well as Online in courses at RMIT University  and Online in courses at YogaSynergy called Yoga Fundamentals and Applied Anatomy and Physiology of Yoga. Video Transcript: Each extension movement is followed by a flexion movement of the spine. …