Personal Development Passion

Physical fitness is one of the most important aspects of life. Of all the other areas of personal development, physical fitness would top the list.

Without physical fitness, can you imagine playing with your child, going for a trek, traveling, performing your office work, or even enjoying sex ? Undoubtedly, to enjoy many simple pleasures of life, you need to be physically fit.

Physical fitness is also important because it has something to do with your overall being. The casing in which "real you" resides right from your birth till death, is undoubtedly your own body. Unlike other inanimate casings of goods, your body is constantly in a state of change.

Unless you regulate this change for the better by achieving physical fitness, your body will shape itself by default which may not necessarily resulted to physical fitness.

The beauty of physical fitness is that once you are physically fit, you also possess a healthy mind. This results into your overall well being.

The Three Ss of Physical Fitness

To achieve overall physical fitness, you need to work on these three areas:

1. Strength

2. Stamina

3. Suppleness

Strength: Strength implies your ability to lift things up. For e. g. lifting a child, a bucket full of water, or lifting a bit heavy luggage and to perform such common tasks with considerable ease. Strength, therefore, has greatly to do with your muscular strength.

For the improving strength and you need to undertake systematic weight training schedule on a regular basis.

Stamina: Your ability to climb the tall building using staircase without much huffing and puffing, your ability to run, jog, swim for a longer time and are indications of having great stamina. Performing these tasks without feeling out of breath, implies stamina. After performing such tasks, your breath should return to normalcy within a short period of time.

Improvement of your stamina is connected with the improvement of the capacity of your lungs to take in more air. Step in a can be improved by undertaking aerobic home of exercises such as cycling, running, aerobic dancing, swimming etc.

Suppleness: How flexible are you? Can you perform sex in various positions with ease? Can you easily bend down to tie or untie your shoelace. Can you bend backwards? Can you easily stretch yourself to take out the book you want to read from a higher place in the shelf above, without feeling any pain.

Your body’s suppleness is flexibility. Flexibility helps you greatly in moving swiftly and in responding to situations with improved reflexes.

Training in yoga, and performing various yoga postures can help greatly improve your suppleness. Yoga will also eventually have an overall positive effect on your life.

To achieve optimal physical fitness you need to balance all the three Ss: strength, stamina and suppleness. You need to undertake certain tasks from each area and to strike a balance.

For achieving maximum physical fitness in all the three areas above, it is a good idea to who refer to various books written by experts on the subjects or to seek guidance from a qualified trainer.

One of the world’s best personal development system in the world is Yoga. Yoga is a holistic system which not only develops, but also overhauls your total being. This helps you achieve Health, Satisfaction, Peace and Happiness in your life. In one of my articles “Achieve Overall Physical Fitness” while emphasizing the importance of suppleness, I mentioned Yoga.

Having realized that such a wonderful personal development system is right here under my nose, I decided to enroll myself in a Yoga class. India being a land of Yoga, there is no dearth of Yoga teachers and Yoga classes. In recent times due to popularity of Yoga many so called “experts” in Yoga have mushroomed. So the first task for me was to find out and ensure that the Yoga class I enroll myself in imparts the best yoga training, and has excellent Yoga teachers. With little search, I found one. The training is completely FREE.

One obstacle, however, stood in my way. The Yoga training classes were to start in the morning at Six AM sharp. The place of Yoga training is Eight Kms away from my home and takes approx Thirty minutes to reach there. This meant that if i was to reach there sharply on time, I should wake up at 5 AM. Tough task hmm..

Finally I gathered all my mental might and made a determination to join Yoga training and to reach the place 10 minutes before the scheduled time. While writing this I feel proud to mention that today was the third day in succession (the course will finish on the last day of this month) that I made it. I actually woke up at 5 AM; performed my morning chores including bathing, and reached the Ashram at 5.50 AM. I pray to Lord to continue to give me such motivation day by day, every day and even beyond that.

The teaching there is doubtlessly wonderful. By now they have taught me Utthit Vivekasana (standing pose in which one performs mental prayer, and also relaxes one’s body), Sharir Sanchalan (bodily movements, which frees your body and prepares you for performance of further Yogasanas), Tadasana (a standing pose in which one stretches one’s body where a slightly so as to make it energetic).

Yoga basically has eight limbs. Therefore Yoga is called as Ashtanga Yoga. And here lies the reason why I call the Yoga is a holistic personal development system. The eight limbs of Yoga are:

Eight Limbs of Yoga

Yamas
Niyamas
Asanas
Pranayama
Pratyahara
Dharana
Dhyana
Samadhi

Yama and Niyama constitute that part of the training which takes care of one’s social well-being. It teaches the individual those principles which helps him improve his social relationships, develop good conduct so as to make them trustworthy in the eyes of people, develop character.

Asanas and Pranayamas constitute that part of you a training which develops one’s physical health, and develops superbly. Asanas are certain bodily movements and postures which are to be performed very consciously and slowly so as to achieve the desired effect. The best part of these is that practice of Asanas and Pranayamas automatically helps and motivates the individual to practice and go for other limbs of Ashtanga Yoga.

Pratyahara and Dharana constitute that part of Yoga training which develops one’s mental and intellectual faculties.

Dhyana and Samadhi at that part of the Yoga system which take care of one’s spiritual needs. In fact, if one achieves Samadhi, then there is no need to go for anything else, for achievement of Samadhi results in gaining a self-knowledge. It helps the individual to achieve union with God.

Western management gurus and leaders have, on and off said that if one is to achieve total success in one’s life, then he needs to master for basic areas of his life. These areas are social, physical, mental and spiritual. Exactly this is what Yoga helps one to achieve. If all the four things fall in place, material prosperity automatically follows. Sometimes it so happens that because of acquisition of divine knowledge through practice of Yoga, the need for slowly and automatically subsides.

This is how one can understand the importance of practice of Yoga in one’s life. As I undergo more trading in Yoga, I will be sharing with you my experiences through these posts.