Hatha yoga means movements, positions, breathing, even meditation. The number of schools in the western world is growing. While practices in different schools are more or less the same, some emphasise acrobatic positions, others focus on breathing and some add a meditative touch.

On Manipura courses, the emphasis is twofold: on breathing and on flexibility of the spine. Deep breathing is the key to our wellbeing and a flexible spine makes all moving easier. Yoga taught in the Manipura studio is influenced by two schools of Hatha yoga, those created by Swami Satyananda Saraswati and Vanda Scaravelli.

Swami Satyananda Saraswati founded an ashram in India, Bihar in the 1960s. Swami’s followers have founded yoga centres in Australia, America and Europe (southern Sweden, North Wales). Satyananda yoga uses asanas, pranayama (breathing) and cleansing techniques. One of the main practices is yoga nidra, deep relaxation. For more advanced practitioners, Satyananda yoga offers kriyas, mental cleansing practices.

Vanda Scaravelli began exploring the strict tradition of Hatha yoga using her own, meditative approach. Extreme positions are not a particular focus. For her, most important is undoing everyday repetitive, harmful movements and tensions and making space inside one’s body. Key concepts are breath, gravity, undoing and wave-like body movements. Practising yoga becomes an open, forever-changing process, renewing the practitioner, the teacher, everything. Vanda Scaravelli died in 1999 at the age of 91. One of her closest students, Sandra Sabatini, also from Italy, visits Helsinki once each year or every second year. Her most recent seminar was in 2008.

The primary focus in Manipura yoga is on breathing. All movements are gentle and inspired by the breath. Breathing is also a means of touching and exploring the body’s inner space.

Yoga practice builds awareness. Practitioners progressively activate areas of their bodies previously unknown to them. While stiffness is reduced through practice, advanced students are best recognised not by their flexibility but by their breathing. In Scaravelli yoga, the most important goal is deep, calm breath and the wellbeing of the spine.

This kind of Hatha yoga is suitable for all ages, regardless of physical condition. Yoga works as both a preventative and a method of healing many stress-related conditions such as high blood pressure, headache, sleeplessness, tiredness, burnout and worry. It helps recovery from injuries and diseases and alleviates symptoms in many chromic diseases including asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic back pain and poor balance.

Exploring Manipura yoga only requires curiosity. Each movement and every breath is an opportunity to pause and become aware of your body and its vitality. Every breath also provides the space to become aware of a unique moment.