The 4 paths

Why so much anatomy in this blog?! After this post you'll know why eheheh!!! Here i gave you a first definition of yoga and what you'll get practicing! Let's be more traditional now! We agree that yoga is the merging of your individual self with the universal self, let's reformulate in this way: out there there is an infinite source of energy that is all creating, all pervading, all moving, all effecting... you can fill this concept with religious words or philosophical words or scientific words or you can just keep it as a concept... if you consider this concept unexisting

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Connective tissue

Let's spend some words on our connective tissue from a yogic point of view! You already know there are 4 kinds of tissues in our body, connective tissue is one of these. Anatomically talking it is a kind of biological tissue that connects, supports and separates the different types of tissues and organs of the body... it's a big category including bones, blood, fat, cartilage and more. Nervous tissue controls everything, muscular tissue moves everything, epithelial tissue is the external clothing of the body and the internal lining of some organs... all the rest is connective tissue! From our yogic

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Muscular system – Functions and yoga benefits

Muscular system - part I Muscular system - part II Muscular system - part III We described in a basic way the muscular system and how it works... but what are its functions? 1- Movement: this is the most obvious function, you move in space through the contraction of your muscles! 2- Posture: bones and muscles together hold you in the position in which you are right now! 3- Protection: think of your abdominal internal organs... stomach, intestine, pancreas and so on... without the strong barrier of your abdominal muscles it would be very easy to severely injure them! 4-

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Muscular system – III

Muscular system - part I Muscular system - part II We've seen that a (skeletal) muscle has 3 possibilities: 1- To contract - this is the only "active" possibility, there is a generation of force that will lead to some result 2- To relax - this is a releasing of the contracting force, anyway being an act of release we could say it's active as well even if the action is the "un-doing" of a previous contracting action 3- To be stretched - it's normally a passive situation, it happens when the attachments of the muscle are pulled apart so

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Muscular system – II

We gave a basic description of muscles and how they contract (Muscular system - part I) We said that muscles are attached to bones through tendons, those attachment points are called origin and insertion: 1- Origin is the attachment to the bone less movable during the muscle contraction 2- Insertion is the attachment to the bone more movable during the muscle contraction Do you see? The biceps (i like to use them as example eheheh!!) have 2 origins in the bones in the shoulder area and 1 insertion on the radius bone in the forearm. The gastrocnemius (one of your

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Muscular system – I

Let's talk about the muscular system, again i'll try to point only at those facts relating our yoga practice and not to become too encyclopedically boring eheheh! Our muscular system is made of more than 600 muscles, muscles are made of one of the 4 tissues composing our body... muscular tissue (as you know from a previous article, tissues originate (as anatomic definition!) when cells with a similar function organize together to perform that function http://www.alexcanazei.yoga/2013/08/12/biology-and-union/). There are 3 major types of muscles: 1- Striated or skeletal, they can be voluntarily controlled to move the body, perform activities or mantain the

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Class promotion

The usual wednesday's class will be advanced to today 19/8... from tomorrow i'll be off to Italy and the next class will be the 11th of September! It will be focused on strengthening the body and gaining control on our muscles to expand our choice of possible movements. There will be some experimentation to implement new ideas i had from a course i attended in the weekend!!! It will be in Brick Lane area, Heneage Street 16-18, at the Rag Factory, postcode E15LJ, there are yoga mats so don't worry, bring yours only if you like it, class will start

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Cells, prana and apana

We talked about us as the union of trillions of cells, organized together for a common purpose called life! (http://www.alexcanazei.yoga/2013/08/12/biology-and-union/) There are 3 common parts in all our cells: 1- Nucleus: it controls the cellular processes and contains the genetic code 2- Cytoplasm: it's a fluid substance filling the cell, it's the support for the organelles (small cell's internal organs) 3- Plasma membrane: it's the membrane separating the internal from the external environment You have seen some of the trillions of cells constituting your body, i've put more images so you can make an idea, in 2 of them there

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Class promotion

Tomorrow 14th august, i teach the usual class in Brick Lane area (London!). It will be a -not hard- class, focus on strengthening the body, gaining control on muscles to improve the choice of movements. We'll blend some vinyasa with a more traditional Sivananda sequence, as usual we begin with breathing's exercises and finish with long guided relaxation! It will be in Heneage Street 16-18, the Rag Factory, postcode E15LJ, there are yoga mats so don't worry, bring yours only if you like it, class will start at 19 (come some minute before) , 12 pounds for a 2 hours

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Biology and union!

(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-43082761-1', 'yogaeleven.blogspot.com'); ga('send', 'pageview'); Prologue Biology is a natural science concerning the study of life and living organisms and all the related stuff. Anatomy is the study of the body and body parts. Physiology is the study of the functions of living organisms. Can you see the 3 as the same argument, from different points of view? Can you see biology as general container, anatomy and physiology as "blocks" of biology? Or maybe biology as a full study course and anatomy and physiology as 2 of the many exams you need to pass to

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