Yoga in Sport and Exercise Psychology
“The ancient practice of yoga is thousands of years old. It was first brought to India 3,500 years ago by nomads from central Asia practicing an intellectual discipline they referred to as ‘Yoga’. It was a way of using the mind to restrain the senses and control the body. The main tradition practiced in Western Europe is Hatha Yoga which is based on the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, which is a sort of manual of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. It describes how to train the body, so that it can be used as a means of enlightenment.
The Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the Hatha Yoga Pradipika all form the central concepts of yoga’s philosophy of life. Yoga techniques were summarised for the first time by Patanjali so as to bring a practical form of yoga to the people. 195 sutras were written in short, concise meaningful sentences. As in modern day psychology they are explanations of the nature of the mind, how it works and the obstacles, difficulties and emotional disturbances that can affect its functioning in terms of self-knowledge and reflective action. Patanjali recommended an ‘Eight-Limb Path’ as a way to change the mind positively. He believed that one of the minds fundamental characteristics was its inability and refusal to stay in the ‘here and now’. He described it as a monkey jumping from one branch of thought to another. As you will hear me describe in any of my classes, the mind is always wandering and being rebellious, never focussing on the moment, but instead getting distracted by past events, future plans and all the sensations it has to process in the meantime. As it is the mind’s job to think, it is relentlessly interpreting everything that is seen, perceived and experienced. It is led by thought patterns, habits, doctrines, perceptions and conditioning which have been learned and instilled over the lifetime of the person. These behaviours, thoughts, attitudes have been reinforced through repetition, regardless of whether they are good or bad, right or wrong.”
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