The Sanskrit word for yoga posture is "Asana", which means to keep comfortable exercise or posture for a period of time. That is to say, through some static actions of twisting, bending and stretching, as well as the pause time between actions, glands are stimulated and internal organs are massaged, which plays the role of relaxing nerves, stretching muscles, strengthening the body and calming the nerves.

Thousands of years ago, the original yoga practitioners created yoga poses. Legend has it that at that time, yogis noticed that animals in nature had superhuman cold resistance and disease resistance, and discovered their instinctive kung fu of self-relaxation, stretching, bending over and sleeping through observation, so they began to imitate some beneficial actions of them, thus creating various postures. It is said that in thousands of years, yogis have created as many as 8,000 postures, including bending, folding, bending, twisting, restraining, bending, stretching, lifting and pressing, and most of them are created with reference to animal bodies and named after animals, such as tiger posture, lion posture, cat posture and snake posture. Some are created by people according to their own characteristics, such as twisted spine and inverted shoulders. There are hundreds of popular postures now, which can give full play to the functions of muscles, digestive organs, glands, nervous system and other organizations, improve physical fitness, improve mental state and balance the coordination ability between body and mind. Yoga postures that are still popular in modern times can be roughly classified as follows:

1, according to the naming and classification of yoga postures.

(1) Animal imitation postures, such as tiger posture and cat stretching posture;

(2) Posture methods named after action efficacy, such as abdominal massage and stretching the spine;

(3) Pose method named after the structural features of posture, such as leg extension and spinal torsion;

(4) Posture method named after action features.

2. According to the functional classification of yoga poses.

(1) comprehensive posture;

(2) posture methods that are beneficial to local limbs;

(3) posture method beneficial to the internal circulation of qi and blood and endocrine system;

(4) Pose method with obvious psychological and spiritual benefits.

3, according to the action form to divide

(1) Relaxation posture: such as baby posture, worship posture, crocodile posture and supine relaxation posture.

(2) Warm-up classes: such as neck exercises, elbow exercises, toe exercises, ankle exercises, knee rotation and bending exercises, semi-lotus knee exercises, shoulder rotation, one-sided balanced summer squats, butterfly exercises, etc.

(3) Flexion: lotus stretching, pedaling, heroic posture, Wei Si Nuo, frog, cobra balance, cow face, squat, salute, duck walk, deflation, garland, can opening and cannonball, boat, leg stretching, swing, half boat, double horns, spine stretching, man. Snake king, plough, decubitus angle, combination of body and leg, semi-lotus back extension, leg back extension, one-leg kneeling extension, provocation, right angle, bucket, ostrich, rabbit, semi-turtle, head and leg, camel, seal, pigeon, hand and foot binding, lotus fish, lotus flower, hero, etc.

(4) Torsion category: leg rotation, lower body shaking, abdominal massage, simple spine rotation, spine rotation, waist rotation, toe rotation, twisting back and legs stretching, side plow, cobra rotation, sage maric I and sage Maric II.

(5) Extension: arm extension, triangle extension, triangle rotation, side angle extension, side angle extension, reinforced side angle extension, bolt, warrior I, warrior II, monkey Ha Numan, front extension, arch back extension, dog extension, back extension, bridge, one-legged bridge, skyscraper.

(6) Balance category: tree style, warrior style, half moon style, bird king style, horse face style, squat balance prayer style, spine style, dancer style, balance head touching knee style, toe style, dancing king style and side leg lifting style.

(7) handstand: shoulder handstand, inverted arrow, unsupported shoulder handstand, head handstand and full lotus shoulder handstand.

(8) Difficult postures: Crane Zen, Side Crow, Kangaroo, Swan, Two-handed Snake, One-handed Snake, Autumn Dry, One-armed Brace, and Arm.

The main points of yoga asana and the details of the completion steps will be introduced in detail in my other book Yoga asana, which is omitted here.

Second, the comprehensive posture of modern special yoga

Special yoga posture refers to yoga posture in special environment or special crowd, including Bikram yoga, middle-aged yoga and pregnant yoga. This kind of yoga posture has some special requirements in action selection, arrangement, completion range and order, so it is listed separately and briefly introduced.

1, Bikram yoga (high temperature yoga) posture method

Bikram yoga practice in high temperature room can make human tissues and ligaments stretch better. It is very helpful for the flexibility of practitioners. It retains the original 26 poses of Hada Yoga, and scientifically arranges the sequence of holding the ragtag according to the characteristics of human muscles, ligaments and tendons. The main postures of Bikram Yoga are:

(