What Is Hatha Yoga?
Yoga is a vast collection of spiritual techniques and practices aimed at integrating mind, body, and spirit to achieve a state of enlightenment or oneness with the universe.

What is normally thought of as “yoga” in the West is really Hatha Yoga, one of the many paths of yoga. The different paths of yoga emphasize different approaches and techniques but ultimately lead to the same goal of unification and enlightenment.

Hatha Yoga attains the union of mind-body-spirit through a practice of asanas (yoga postures), pranayama (yoga breathing), mudra (body gestures), and shatkarma (internal cleansing). These physical practices are used to purify the body and cultivate prana (life-force energy). Modern Hatha Yoga does not emphasize many of these esoteric practices and instead focuses more on the physical yoga postures.

Regardless of what your goals or intentions are for starting, just the yoga poses themselves is a fantastic form of mental and physical exercise.

Please note that parking on the road can be tight and tricky to come down all the way to number 11 . You can park on Moor Lane or at the top of the road . Please come through the side gate and allow plenty of time to be here around 18:00 to make a start prompt at 18:15.

Emotions and the Body

Both the Indian yogis and the Daoist yogis in China noticed a correlation between particular emotions and certain areas of the body: fear is centred in the kidneys, anger in the liver, worry in the stomach, fright in the heart, and grief in the lungs.
These associations make a lot of intuitive sense, even to us Westerners: when we grieve, our lungs go into spasm (called crying); when we are frightened, suddenly our heart skips a beat (or we suffer a heart attack and become ‘frightened to death!’); when we fret, the rate of ulcers rises; when our liver becomes damaged, we may subject our loved ones to bouts of extreme rage (as most families of alcoholics are only too aware); and when we are afraid, our adrenal glands activate readying to run away or fight that which confronts us.
Fortunately, we are also beneficiaries of positive emotions as well: the home for beauty is in the lungs, joy in the heart, creativity in the stomach, kindness in the liver, and wisdom in the kidneys.

Through the practices of yoga , we can work through various movements with the hips. This ensures the joint stays lubricated, and maintains flexibility in the muscles and tissues surrounding it.

As you practice body awareness through yoga, you become mindful that there isn’t just physical tightness in the hips, but emotional. It’s where we store our emotional vulnerabilities leading to blocked energy.

When you practice a hip opener sequence on a regular basis you notice an improvement in your range of motion, reduction in tightness and that wonderful emotional release. You’ll also see improvement in the rest of your practice, improved circulation and increased energy levels.

Yoga can help us become more consciously aware of our posture. This enables us to stabilise and revitalise our hips by working the correct muscles around the joint to bring us into alignment.

Balancing the two sets of muscles, the abductors and glutes, will help stabilise the thighbone in the hip joint. This is achieved through a strengthening and lengthening practice that keeps the hip secure.

Standing in alignment also works wonders for our mood, giving us a sense of purpose and determination.