About | Tristan Tandberg

What is Yoga?

Yoga is an activity that unites movement, breath, and mindfulness in order to build strength, improve flexibility, nurture the body, calm the mind, and revitalize the spirit. At its core, yoga involves performing postures or poses which are done sitting, lying down, tilting, or standing—with arms and legs bending, reaching, straightening, or hinging. These poses look different than normal everyday life and can be perplexing to onlookers.

It can also be much more than doing poses and looking out of place. Yoga can be a way of living and a tool for increased wellbeing. When you perform a pose, you give more attention to your breath and body which allows you to connect the dimensions of breath, body, and mind and give unity. This unity creates a natural synergy within your being where renovation can occur: breathing gets stronger, blood circulation is improved, and your mind is calmed. In this state, it is easier to detach from parts of the outside world that don’t serve you and repair your inside world.

So, yoga is on a spectrum, you are between doing a pose or you’re creating a bond with your entire self and experiencing a deep spiritual connection. At any rate, it gives you a socially acceptable excuse to wear stretchy pants all day.

Inner Space

When you do yoga, you are concentrating on breathing and poses helping you become more fully present in the moment. This will put your mind in a more calm and spacious state, which will make it easier for you to create more inner space. When more inner space is created, you are more at peace, your thoughts are further apart in that space, making it easier for you to experience the present moment. Inner space is heated to the ideal temperature, is rich with oxygen, and is dust and pest free. You want your inner space to be the size of a mansion, not an apartment.

Once we invent a device that can measure how much inner space yogis can create in their minds during practice, we can make yoga an event in the Olympics. The Athlete who can make the most inner space in thirty seconds gets the gold.

Where to Practice Yoga?

Origin

We don’t have the name of the original founder of yoga. If we did, their name would be on the list of the 100 most influential figures in history, right below Leonardo da Vinci. We do know that the practice originated in India thousands of years ago. It probably was the result of someone having a bad day around 3,000 BCE. Their back was tight from harvesting crops or they were stressed out over the BCE rat race.

The ancient sages of India developed and passed down the practice. They found great benefits from doing yoga as it strengthened their bodies, allowing them to sit and meditate longer. That’s why I like to do yoga. It increases the amount of time I can sit and watch TV. Before doing yoga, I could only watch TV for three hours straight before experiencing discomfort. Now, thanks to my regular practice improving my spinal strength, I can watch Star Trek reruns for eight hours straight with no problem. I am a perfectly unified and well-balanced couch potato.

You can practice yoga anywhere; there is always a place to stand, sit, or lie down. Actually, never mind, that’s not correct, you can only do yoga anywhere that is safe. So no practicing: in the streets during the Running of the Bulls in: Pamplona, Spain, during a storm, or near perilous cliffs. If you are itching to practice yoga in a risky setting consider using a virtual reality headset. Strap it on and experience those hazardous spots in your living room danger-free—under a palm tree without the threat of falling coconuts, on the mouth of an active volcano without 1800 degree lava spits, or next to a pride of lions without the risk of becoming dinner.

Set Up

Here are some pre-practice steps you can take before you get on your mat to ensure a harmonious session:

Wear comfortable clothes, they can be overpriced leggings or knockoffs from Walmart. Barefoot is the default level of footwear.
Try to have very few distractions in front of you. So, cuckoo clocks, your pet hamster’s pen, and your cell phone should be out of sight. Keep tempting food scents away too such a bag of fast food.

The Need for Yoga

We need yoga now more than ever. Our modern world is full of comfy chairs and taxing social media posts that cause us to lose our connection with our body and breath. Not having a fully unified self is like having a sandwich that’s missing the cheese, protein, or sauce; it can still taste good, but it’s not as good as it could be. So, practice yoga to help unify yourself and try to become a complete delicious sandwich. That’s the best state of being. Practice it for ten years and you get sourdough bread. Do it for twenty years and you get to add a second choice of cheese and avocado slices.

What is Yoga Exactly?

Yoga is an absence of thought. The bare space above shows you what an absence of thought looks like.

Why Yoga?

Practicing yoga offers a wide range of benefits. Whether you're aiming to improve your overall well-being or seeking specific outcomes, yoga has the power to transform your life for the better or improve your week.

1. Physical Benefits - It enhances the circulation of your blood, releases stress through sweat, improves flexibility, aids in injury prevention, and strengthens your abdominal muscles, which improves your balance. With your improved flexibility, reaching under the couch to find items is less of a problem and you’ll find lost remotes like a champ.

2. In Touch – Practicing yoga will make you more in touch with your physical body. You will be acquainted with more leg and back muscles and will be able to work your individual muscles more. You can have your hamstrings perform tricks like a dog.

3. Fun – Practicing yoga is fun. Grabbing your toes, putting your feet in the air, and making strange shapes is always a good fun.

4. Confidence – Navigating balance and flexibility challenges in performing yoga poses will help give you confidence. You will also be able to calm the people around you with the reassuring phrase, “Don’t worry I do yoga.”

5. Spirituality - Yoga encourages introspection and mindfulness, guiding you to turn your attention inward. When you are there you will see that everything is connected. (add joke)

6. Social Benefits – Taking classes with a group or being part of a yoga community gives you social benefits. Just make sure when you have neighbors, don’t venture into their lot and be respectful of yoga space property lines.

Sanskrit

Sanskrit words are heard in most yoga classes. Each pose name has a Sanskrit name. For example, Tadasana is the Sanskrit word for Mountain Pose. The first part of that word, “tada” means mountain and the second part “asana” means posture or pose. During class, if you encounter an unfamiliar word ending in “A”, such as Savasana, Utkatasana, or Bitilasana it’s probably a Sanskrit pose name. If it ends in "S" such as hamstrings, quadriceps, or triceps, it's probably a fitness anatomy term. Hearing Sanskrit helps transport you away from your everyday thinking and drops you off in asana land.

Yoga Studios

LEGO Instruction

If your body were a car, yoga studios would be the repair shops. They’ll run a stress test, fine tune your core, increase your circulation, and fix you up. When you’re done, you’ll be road-worthy again—ready to deal with life’s potholes, sudden stops, long miles, energy tolls, getting cut off by a coworker, and detours caused by construction.

Types of Yoga

There are many yoga classes to choose from: hot yoga, relaxing yoga, power yoga, chair yoga, beginner yoga, in-person yoga, outdoor yoga, video recordings, etc. So, if you don’t like one class type you tried, you can pick another one. You can also make it a goal to take every kind of yoga class, like how baseball fans try to visit all the ballparks.

To help people grasp the concept of unity in yoga, I often use LEGOs as a visual aid. The many similarities between yoga and LEGOs make it an accessible and relatable way to learn and understand the practice.

Examples of how yoga is a lot like LEGOs:

You build a pose from the ground up, just as you build a Lego set from the base up.
In yoga you try to not lose control of your breath. In LEGOs, you try not to lose a piece during construction.
Both are easier to replicate if you have instructions.
Stepping on a LEGO set and stepping on a person doing yoga can both cause you to fall over.

TRISTAN TANDBERG