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There are an infinite number of poses — this is what makes yoga a living tradition.

Three thousand years ago yoga started with one meditative pose, Easy Lotus. The word asana originally meant “meditative posture.” Then the masters introduced Cobra Pose to keep the spine flexible. In their quest for physical health they developed the eight most important poses to insure the health of the body and glands. From there it grew. Even today dozens of new poses are created each year by true yogis all over the world. There are many different schools, each with their own variations, but basically all yoga comes from the same set of classic asanas. In the 35 years I have been teaching I have developed many poses, but in yoga no one puts his or her name on a pose because in reality I didn’t do anything. I am just a body through which the intuition has passed.

Many of the newer and more popular variations of yoga are geared to getting into a sweat and burning calories. They require a lot of movement and people tend not to worry about concentrating in the pose. The way I learned, you relax and concentrate on the third eye or, if you’re not feeling comfortable, on the point of stress. This calms you down, helps diminish desires, and focuses energy. But here’s the truth: while there’s a different style for every kind of person, all yoga, if practiced properly, achieves the same ends.

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