In this blog post, we sat down once more with our Founder and yoga master, Nora Peneva to address questions about the health benefits of Yoga, and concerns regarding the difficulty of Yoga Llama's upcoming courses.

Could you give us a broader look at the advantages of routine Yoga practice?

I believe that yoga is broadly recognized in society as an experience that has many benefits and positive effects on the human body.

To list a few:

- Yoga helps improve the overall wellbeing

- Yoga protects the joins

- Yoga strengthens muscles

- Yoga enhances the immune system

- Yoga improves flexibility

- Yoga practice aids with deeper sleep

- Yoga improves a person's mood

- Yoga boosts focus and concentration

- Yoga tones the body

- Yoga boosts the metabolism

- Yoga helps improve coordination and balance

- Yoga preserves the mobility of the spine

- Yoga charges the body with “Prana” - vital energy

- Yoga relieves your body of toxins

- Yoga calms the mind and helps better your memory

And this is far from the end of the list.

There is certainly a learning curve with yoga, but does a pose's difficulty directly relate to how beneficial it is for the body?

It is incorrect to assume that poses that focus on improving specific health aspects have to be difficult.  On the contrary, the simplest poses are often the most beneficial ones!

For example, let’s take the pose "Standing Side Bend"- it is easy to execute, accessible to everyone, and has the following positive effects on the body:

- Improves posture

- Increases the lungs' capacity and improves breathing habits.

- Stretches the shoulders and improves upper body strength

- Warms the body up and improves blood circulation.

- Helps open up the chest

- Stretches the lateral line of the body

- It relieves pain in the middle and upper back

- Strengthens the legs and lower back

“Standing Side Bend” is a simple pose, yet its performance already has many benefits!

You've personally curated each of the available courses on Yoga Llama. Did you give yourself any specific criteria to follow?

Yoga Llama is consistent in its selection of poses similar to the aforementioned example- easy but with many perks. They come without the risks of injury, elevated blood pressure, and stress.

The poses picked out for the Yoga Llama application all have the following qualities in common:

1.   They are accessible for everyone.

2.   They are easy to perform.

3.   They are good for the health and well-being of the practitioner.

As such, in our application, there won't be "difficult" poses, but there will undoubtedly be poses that help improve the user's flexibility over time.  Having good flexibility improves mobility and motor coordination while decreasing the pain and stress that can affect the muscles.  Last, but not least, it also helps improve blood circulation and benefits the whole human body.

In Yoga Llama, we have several curated courses that specifically focus on flexibility. We do not want to reveal too much just yet, but “Stretch: Stiff Hips”, “Improve: Joint Health”, and “Improve: Posture” are just a few of our structured yoga practices that focus on flexibility.

Feel free to give them a try and see for yourself when Yoga Llama releases!