Embrace Yoga with rhythm of music and dance

by | Apr 21, 2022 | Lifestyle
How can we embrace yoga with the rhythm of music and dance? We all know the benefits of yoga on elasticity, balance, joints and mental well-being. But imagine these, enhanced by soft and influential music, which allows you to perform the typical movements of Indian dance.
Dancing, in Western culture, is a widespread form of entertainment, both for the dancer and the spectator. But in its origins, dancing was also a way to connect with people in the same community and celebrate. Dance can be a manifestation of harmony and peace with the environment, and in this way, it can be easily linked with yoga.

Yoga and its healing power

Yoga is an ancient philosophy that takes us to the state of Union or Integration with ourselves and with everything around us. In the view of Yoga, there is no separation between body, mind and spirit. Through some tools like pranayama (breathing), asanas (physical postures), meditation and others, we can experience presence and awareness from moment to moment. The practice of Yoga takes us to bring the outside look into ourselves, connecting with the present moment and discovering a little more about the limitless nature of our own Being.

Thus, Yoga leads to self-knowledge, making us increasingly skilled in dealing with life and living one day at a time with awareness, tranquility, and balance. Practice does not transform us into something we are not but reveals our true nature that is often hidden by the confusion and distortions of the mind.

Dance has been an ancestral art and expression of humanity since its beginnings. When we dance, we are not just doing something physical but also moving the whole story and emotions stored in our cells. We are letting all this content come to the surface through body movements.

Yoga Dance has its roots in Indian mythology where dance is sacred. When a god dance, everything that exists enters a continuous transformation process. In this tradition, every human being is considered divine in its essence, and dance provides the possibility to access the spiritual potential of the body. In addition to Indian culture, Yoga Dance has influences from tantra, Vedanta, shamanism, cultural dances, and spontaneous movement, thus uniting all ancestral wisdom with contemporary experience.

How are dance and yoga related?

Yoga does not exclusively represent doing postures and meditations, all on the mat. If we take into account that the word yoga itself means union (union with consciousness). It is a great fortune that this ancient science unites with other disciplines to help us experience our spirit. Currently, different philosophies and arts have been integrated into yoga to enrich the experience of all the branches that invite awareness and exploration of being. Among them is dance.

You are probably wondering how dance and yoga could be mixed to create a yoga of dance. Well, this fusion is based on the movements, styles and rhythms of dance integrated with yogic tools such as breathing, focus, mudras and awareness of the energy centers in the body (known as chakras). The result is Shakti Dance or Yoga Dance.

Yoga Dance is defined as “a style of yoga that combines fluid movement with music in a yoga practice.” In it, yogis practice postures to the beat of the music, which can be as simple as drumming or traditional chanting (such as mantras).

As an emerging style, it has many ways to be practiced; instructors who take it for their daily practice do so based on their criteria, tastes, or class needs. Therefore, we can find various fusions—for example, fluid yoga with hints of artistic gymnastics.

Benefits of Yoga Dance

Since the dawn of our culture, dance has strengthened social ties and emerged as one of the most therapeutic and healthy movements. Dancing provides great benefits on a physical level, such as giving us stronger muscles and bones and improving our balance and coordination. Also, on a mental level, dancing gives us energy and improves our mood, reduces stress, and even helps us with memory, reducing the risk of dementia. If we add to this the benefits that yoga brings, it seems that combining both disciplines can bring us quite close to full well-being.

Yoga Dance is a discipline that merges both worlds to bring fluidity and naturalness to movement in search of a deep connection with our interior.

This type of yoga creates a creative, energetic, devotional and spiritual space that connects the practitioner both with their physical body and with the conception they have of it and the free expression of their own language, which makes it yoga that balances the body-mind-spirit to expand consciousness, increase the possibilities of body movement, and promote physical, mental and emotional health.

Yoga Dance includes everything from gentle stretching exercises to dynamic movements, free dance, relaxation and meditation, as well as choreography with mantras to reorganize energy not only individually but also in groups. Its benefits are multiple and very enriching: it invigorates all body systems, increases cardiovascular health, circulation and breathing, improves posture and coordination, increases flexibility and muscle tone, reduces stress and increases vitality, and also increases self-esteem.

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