Yoga and Tai Chi

Yoga is gaining popularity in the world in the last 10 years while Tai Chi has been around for thousands of years in China and other Asian countries. I believe there are more people practicing Tai Chi than yoga just for the share size of the Chinese population. You will meet people, especially older generation in China who practice Tai Chi in parks, communities, work places. Every morning, you will see a lot people quietly going about their business of doing Tai Chi. Tai Chi has always been a outdoor activity while in the case Yoga, it's mostly indoors. There are more movements in Tai Chi compared with Yoga. Both require a lot of patience.  Do we ever say "Tai Chi poses"? Probably not. But we use "Yoga Poses" all the time. We use "Tai Chi Movement". That's the difference.

I am not sure about the good sources for Tai Chi books and most of them are in Chinese anyway. But there are lot of good sources for Yoga Books.

Yoga or Meditation

Sometimes I am getting confused by the two terms, yoga and meditation. When I do yoga, some of the poses are still poses meaning that we are not moving much so they look like meditation. In fact, meditation should be part of the yoga just that people call them differently. Meditation helps mental relaxation, concentration and healing while yoga helps with physical movement as well. I believe these two things should be connected but it's hard to find any books or research talking about the connection. Yoga Books are just about yoga and meditation books and research cover only the mental aspect of it.

-Matt

You can still do yoga even when you are traveling!

Recently we made a trip to the east coast. While we were traveling, it's more difficult than usual to find the time and location, most importantly the motivation to still do some exercises like yoga. We had a plan to squeeze some time out of each busy day during the trip and brought some yoga books along with us. We stayed with our plan for the first few days then got lazy for the remainder of the trip when we had a few days to drive and sightseeing. However, as the alternative, we did a lot of walking, hiking instead. In fact, yoga could be really good for you if you are driving a lot. It help you stretch out to relax your muscle stiffness after a long driving.

We wish we had brought someone on the trip to watch our exercise schedule for us. Carrying some yoga books is easy, use them while traveling is another matter.

We had a lot of fun traveling in exchange for yoga exercise so it's not a total "loss" -:)

-Matt

No More Excuse, Just Do It!

Can you really spare 10 or 15 minutes of your busy life to do some simple exercises such Yoga? Many people will tell you that they are too busy to do anything outside their work and kids.

Life is precious, healthy life means quality that is crucial. Life without good health is not worth living. How can you maintain a healthy life? Simple, good eating, getting rid of the bad habits such as smoking and excessive drinking. Best of all, doing some simple exercise everyday such as Yoga.

Yoga is easy as long as you put your mind to it. You can start out from home with some good yoga books. You can find these yoga books just about anywhere. Consistency is the key. It's better to do it routinely for a short period of time each day then doing it a lot on one day then not doing anything for a long time. Your body needs time to tune to the routines and your brain needs the time to "program" what are teaching it. Therefore, 10 to 15 minutes every day will get your body to adopt your routines much faster especially when we are getting older. So don't put up any more excuses, just get up and do it.

In addition to Yoga, walking and swimming are two of the great exercises our older folks can do without much of the joint impact of our body.

-Matt

You Can Do Yoga With Good Yoga Books

Yoga is for everyone these days. Many people choose to go to classes or hire a private instructor. The issue with these choices is that you need to have a very flexible work schedule during the day so you can go to the yoga classes whenever they are offered or you can schedule your own private session whenever you wish. However, most people won't have the luxury to do just that. They either cannot leave work during the day or have a family to run when they go home. They always gaggle among work, kids, house work and so many other stuff so finding time to do yoga and doing it consistently can become very challenging. My wife and I certainly all into that category.

Fortunately, with help of good yoga books, DVDs and Internet, learning yoga with your own time, at your own pace and most importantly at the comfort of your own home has become a reality. 

We started yoga practice about 3 months ago from my home. We bought all the gears, mat, roller, blocks, and most importantly  we bought yoga books. Since we are beginners we wanted to start slow by following some of the  simplest poses in the book. After three months of study and practice at home, we believe we have master the basics of yoga and ready to go on to the next level. At this point, we are deciding whether to go a class. The reason is that it is difficult to do it right with the more advanced movements, then again how do we find time to go to the classes? We may need to stuck with yoga books for awhile.

Matt