Yoga - The Healthy Warrior

yoga is BY far the healthiest practice known to man. Some would argue tha qi kong and tai qi hold the first place in order, but I disagree. The reason is the anture of health. While there are many definitions to that word, there is only one that I can think of that makes real sense and cover the subject beutifully -

Health is feeling happy, even if carrying pain in the body. The ability to be optimistic and genuenly feel good and be happy, even when times are hard.

We all hurt sometimes, and we all suffer illneses at times. We are all detined to live then die. Thus being sick on the physical level is always scarry. Scarry as it is, it is not the worste thing that can happen to a human being. We can carry sickness and chronic pain for years, and survive. We live with it, and avoid letting it shut off our life. This is why inner happiness is stronger then anything else, and that is why this definition of health is the right one for me.

Understanding that, we can move on to understanding the amazing practice of yoga, and why it holds all of the elements of health together. While qi kong and tai qi are amazing, they only offer one or two sides of health, no more. A qi kong practitioner will not get his body to be flaxible and strong as a Yogis body. The same goes for a Tai Qi master, that may have the best breath control possible by human standarts, will not have the physical abilities a good yogi has.

Yoga holds with in it the practice of breathing that Qi Gong and Tai Qi are based on. Not only in PranaYoga, the breathing yoga, but also in the common practice of asanas one must keep his concious mind on his breath. The skills of breathing in yoga stretch far beyind what it seems, and it is at least as deep as it gets in Qi Gong and Tai Qi. But, yoga also offers other element, which is the streangth and flexibility it gives the practitioner. These elemets are both missing from the chinese practices. Of course, some would argue that Kong fu should be practiced along side one of those, but that is another practice. Yoga has it all built into one, and that is its greatness.