kundalini yoga is an ancient form of yoga that focuses on the spine. practitioners of kundalini yoga believe that youth is determined by the flexibility of the spine, and that a flexible spine is necessary for maintaining a healthy body. hence, the focus of kundalini yoga is on exercises, stretches, and postures that help keep the back muscles and spine flexible and strong. it's become my routine to do a set of kundalini yoga exercises every morning. the exercises make me feel calm, centered, yet energized to face the day's challenges.
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margaret de castro, a niece of mine who is on vacation in the philippines, works for NASA as an operations research analyst and is also a yoga enthusiast. one morning, seeing me do my kundalini yoga moves, she was kind enough to give me instruction on how to improve the movements. here she is telling me to keep my elbows up as i do the basic spinal twist.
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filipinos will easily relate to the spinal flex and the cat-cow exercises. filipinos unknowingly practice kundalini yoga when they do the “otso-otso” dance moves (see illustrations below). in fact, even the "spaghetting pababa, spaghetting pataas" move is similar to the spinal grind exercise of kundalini yoga. no wonder it’s easy for filipinos to keep young and flexible.
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as for margaret, for helping me stretch my spine, i treated her out to dinner, the cost of which was ...mmm... an added stretch on my budget! (joke- hehe!)
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