What is the difference between yoga and normal exercise?
Yoga emphasizes reathwork, flexibility, endurance, focus, and meditation. In addition to the aerobic value that yoga offers, it provides mind and body synchronicity that can help to improve the brain and the body.
Much of yoga requires endurance through holding yoga poses, which help to build muscle and center the mind and body.
Traditional exercise is goal oriented. Yoga, by contrast, is a process. The idea is to focus on what you are doing and how you feel as you do it. In exercise, you fail if you miss your goal. In yoga, you succeed by trying. Yoga can give your body much more of a “workout” than if you go to the gym – yoga works/exercises 100% of your body, and you don’t need expensive equipment or a gym membership or years of training. You don’t need to be flexible, graceful, athletic, or have “talent”. Again, all you need is your body, your mind and a bit of curiosity!
