Using Props in Yoga

Series Summary

The word "yoga" comes from the Sanskrit root yuj meaning "to bind, or join." Yoga is centrally the practice of union, whether you are joining the mind to the body, the human to the divine, or the individual to the infinite. The various styles of yoga that have made it to the West all share a common core: positioning the body into a particular posture while focusing mind and breath leads to physical and spiritual well-being. These arts of positioning the body have been passed on for thousands of years, and encompass one of the oldest cultural traditions known to exist. To practice yoga, then, is also to join with the ancient sages, drawing human history up into yourself and connecting with the past.

This free video series will teach you dozens of step-by-step yoga poses with props to begin or continue your yoga practice. Expert Gina Kennedy will show you many poses, including the camel, the swan, the Hindi squat, cobra, the bridge, sukhasana, and more. She uses her students to demonstrate poses while she offers tips and other insight into a personal practice of Sivananda yoga. You will also learn various triangle and warrior poses, good for balance and stability. Become part of the tradition today!

Video Transcript

"GINA KENNEDY: Whether you're just beginning to practice yoga, or you've been practicing for quite some time, it can really enhance your practice to use yoga props; props such as blocks, straps, blankets and bolsters. When you use props in your yoga practice, it allows you to come in to a much better alignment with the poses. What we're doing yoga for is to be able to direct the energy through our body, and if you're using the blocks and the straps, it allows you to come in to the proper alignment so that the energy can flow freely. Sometimes, this is met with resistance and people feel it's a crutch, but I think if you find that if you just take a few steps back, you can make a giant leap forward in your yoga practice, and come into poses you never thought you would be able to do before. If you don't have any blocks, you can always use a phone book or some sort of big, big dictionary or a big book, or just something else that's in this exact shape, or you could use--for your strap, you could use a belt, a scarf, maybe even a towel to use as your strap, and a couch cushion would work perfect for a bolster, and I'm sure we all have blankets. But I think if you just try to use the blocks, what happens is your body remembers the moves, and then the next couple of times you try that pose, you're able to do it without the use of props and in that way, it can really help you move forward in your yoga practice."