WHATS HOT

The Female of the Species

Seema Sondhi has written two pocket sized books for women. YOGA FOR YOUNG MOTHERS provides easy asanas and meditation technques to improve and tone the physique and provide that much need extra energy to look after your newborn.

Aimed at younger females, BEAUTY YOGA FOR GIRLS again provides 30 illustrated asanas to improve memory and combat stress, and increase confidence and independence.

Yoga for Yong Mothers and Beauty Yoga for Girls by Seema Sondhi are priced 4.95 pounds.

by YOGA MIND BODY SPIRIT

THE INDIA TODAY GROUP

PREVENTATION oct 2007
regular 1 | September 26, 2007

Good bye belly fat!

By Seema Sondhi

As a yoga instructor, I am often asked if yoga can really get you a flatter belly. Of course it can! The body’s core—the abdomen—is pivotal in yoga as it creates and distributes the energy through the body. The abdomen also supports the spine and protects all internal organs.

Strong abdominal muscles are the foundation of a steady yoga practice. They ensure proper nourishment and functioning of the organs and also prevents back problems. The abdomen consists of three layers of muscles

The abdomen rectus It runs from the pubic bone to the breast bone.

The obliques The internal and external obliques are located on either side of the torso. These assist in movements such as bending, rotating and moving from side to side.

Transversus These are located horizontally under the rectus and along with the obliques help in flattening the stomach during childbirth and defecation. These muscles also assist in coughing and vomiting.

To build and shape your abdominal muscles, you should gain strength and flexibility in both the abdominal and back muscles. A springy and elastic muscle is a healthy muscle. If you think that doing crunches is the best option, you may want to switch to yoga. Crunches only work on building strength and not flexibility. Yoga gives you both.

There are various asanas that will help you trim your belly. In this feature, I have demonstrated and explained five asanas. A concluding feature in the coming issues of Prevention will include five more.

Caution Check with your doctor before starting with this practice. Pregnant women should avoid these poses.

Kapalbhati (purification of nostrils)

What A traditional internal cleansing technique (kriya) and a breathing exercise. In Sanskrit, kapala means ‘skull’ and bhati means ‘shining’. It purifies the entire system and releases toxins from the body.


How Sit in a comfortable cross-legged position, keeping your spine straight and hands resting on your knees, palms facing up, the thumb and index finger touching gently.

Relax your body and breathe deeply.

Focus on your lower abdomen. Beginners can gently place their hands on the belly button, one on top of the other, to feel the movement of air inside the abdomen.

Inhale deeply through the nostrils expanding your lower abdomen.


Exhale with a forceful contraction of your abdominal muscles, pumping your hands against the lower abdomen, expelling the air out of your lungs.

Inhale again, but passively, allowing your abdominal muscles to expand and inflate the lungs without any force. Passive inhalation and active expulsion of breath in a continuous manner will create a pumping effect. Do 8 to 10 breath expulsions.

Then inhale and exhale deeply for two rounds followed by holding of breath for 20 to 30 seconds. While you hold the breath, squeeze the lower abdominal muscles.

This completes one round. Practise three rounds.

Why The pumping action of this exercise activates the deepest abdominal muscles—the transverses, strengthens your nervous system and tones your digestive organs.

Udhava Prasarita Pad-asana (double leg lifts)

What A powerful lying-down asana



How Lie on your back (Pic A), with legs together and arms by your sides, palms facing the floor. Keep your head straight, with chin tucked in. If you have a weak back, then slide your hands under your hips with palms facing the floor, for added support.

Inhale; lift both the knees towards the chest.

Straighten the legs up at 90 degree towards the ceiling. Hold for a few seconds.

Exhale. Bend the knees, your legs are parallel to the floor and bring the feet back to the floor. Repeat for 10 counts.



Why Excellent for toning and strengthening the abdominal muscles and the lower spine. It also massages the internal organs, especially the reproductive organs.

Paripurna navasana (full boat pose)

What A sitting

How Sit on the floor and stretch the legs straight out in front. If you are unable to sit straight, elevate the base of the spine with a cushion.



Place the palms by the side of the hips, press the fingertips into the floor to help extend the spine, extend up through the crown of the head down through the tailbone.

Keep the legs active; kneecaps pulled up, heels reaching out and the thighbone touching down.

Bend both the knees, and bring them towards the chest.

Keeping the knees together, take the palms and place them behind the knees; lean back slightly.


Inhale and lift the legs parallel to the floor. Lengthen the lower spine and lift the chest up. Keep the knees and ankle together and the shoulders down (Pic A). Hold this for 5 breaths (try not to slacken the upper spine).

Release your hands from behind the knees, straighten the arms along the side of the legs. Hold this pose for five breaths.

Now take yourself into the final pose. Straighten the knees and take the legs towards the ceiling, toes pointed up (Pic B).

Inhale; straighten and lengthen the spine, lifting the chest. Exhale; pull the abdominal muscles. Hold this for 5 to 10 breaths and then release the pose.

Why Strengthens the abdomen, hip flexors and spine. Stimulates the kidneys, thyroid, prostate glands and intestines. Helps relieve stress and improves digestion.

Baddhakon Asana (Butterfly pose)

What This is one of the most beneficial asanas in hatha yoga and works as a tonic for the entire body. It is good for the health of reproductive organs.

How Sit erect and stretch the legs straight out in front. If you are unable to sit straight, elevate the base of the spine with a cushion.


Bend your knees, join the soles of your feet together bringing your heels inwards to your groin.

Hold your feet with your hands and press your knees to the floor. If you can’t hold this pose, flap your knees up and down gently instead.

Inhale; elongate your entire spine.

Exhale; contract your abdominal muscles and bend forward from the hips. If you are menstruating, just do the position A, do not bend forward.

Place your elbows on your inner thighs and keep pressing down, at the same time extending your torso towards the floor. Hold this position for 30 to 60 seconds, breathing deeply. To release the posture, gently lift the head up and relax.

Why This asana increases the flexibility of the hips, inner thighs, pelvis, lower back, knees and ankles. It tones the abdominal muscles, reproductive organs and is also very helpful for correcting menstrual problems.

Utakatasana (Chair pose)

What A strong standing pose which not only works the muscles of the abdomen but also stimulates the diaphragm and heart.

How Stand straight with feet together and toes touching, arms by your side.

Inhale. Stretch your arms up over your head keeping the palms together or separate facing each other.

Exhale and bend your knees. Push the hips outwards, keep the thighs parallel to each other, lean the torso forward over the thighs until the front torso forms a right angle with the thighs.

Firm your shoulder blades against the back. Contract the abdominal muscles inwards and tuck your tailbone down toward the floor. Stay for 30 to 60 seconds.

Inhale and completely straighten and stretch your body.

Exhale and release your arms to your sides and come into the starting position.

Why Strengthens the ankles, thighs, calves and spine. Stretches shoulders and chest. Also stimulates abdominal organs, such as the diaphragm.

It is important to work on the abdominal muscles in order to build core strength. At the same time you have to bear in mind that working these muscles requires patience and dedication. To see the results, start your practice every day with full body awareness, use your breath as a guide to perform these asanas. Substantiate your yoga workout with a healthy diet. Explore your body and develop a trust in the practice.

What A strong standing pose which not only works the muscles of the abdomen but also stimulates the diaphragm
and heart.
 

www.yogamagazine.co.uk

Though yoga the mind can be trained to think
positive by controlling the body and breath

ETERNAL SOLUTIONS 2007


25 Top Yoga Studios Around the World
HANNAH WALLACE,TRAVEL+ LEISURE MAGAZINE( U.S.A)

If you practice yoga, the classes that some hotels offer can be frustratingly easy. But how do you find a challenging class in a foreign city? We did the work for you. Here, 25 top yoga studios in cities around the world. All welcome drop-ins and have English-speaking instructors. Namaste

19. New Delhi
A whole guide could be written about yoga in India, but what if you don't want to attend a destination ashram in Rishikesh or the B.K.S. Iyengar Institute in Pune? The Yoga Studio (www.theyogastudio.info; $7 [300 RS]) in New Delhi's Hauz Khas neighborhood is a great spot for a drop-in class. Instructor Seema Sondhi teaches a 90-minute Ahstanga classes (in English) every day at 8:00 a.m. and then again at 9:30 a.m. There are evening classes, too.

IF YOU ARE STRESS-PRONE, THE FIRST STEP IN IMPROVING WELLBEING IS TO BECOME AWARE OF YOUR BREATHING. HATHA YOGA PRACTITIONER SEEMA SONDHI LINES UP SOME TIPS

196 FEMINA DECEMBER 20,2006

TO WHOMSOEVER IT MAY CONCERN

It gives me pleasure to acknowledge that Ms Seema Sondhi has been writing for over a year a popular Yoga column for the Hindustan Times Next, India’s first youth daily. HT Next is read by students in hundreds of thousands in almost all schools in Delhi and Chandigarh and is available to general subscribers.

The illustrated column is carried everyday from Monday to Friday. For the past couple of months, it is also repeated in HT’s Mumbai edition. As a practitioner of Yoga myself, I like Ms Sondhi’s write ups for their clarity and simplicity. The column describes an asana’s main advantages and explains its method with a model demonstrating the pose.

You can help you build strength and stamina and get the results you wants

By Seema Sondhi

ETERNAL SOLUTIONS 2007

Dear Seema

A note of appreciation to the Yoga workshop for hosting our recent 'Introduction to Yoga' session at the Imperial hotel, New Delhi.

It was fascinating to hear from you about the origins and benefits of Yoga. Your clear and patient instruction enabled our group to quickly try out some of the basic Yoga postures for ourselves, and ensured that an enjoyable and enlightening time was had by all.

Thanks again!

Best wishes
Geoff Painter

December 12, 2006

To Whom It May Concern

I would like to share my experience at the YOGA STUDIO as a yoga practitioner. My experience motivated me to learn yoga and become a teacher.

I stepped in to the Yoga Studio with very little background and lots of fears. My first day was an excellent experience which helped me gain intimate relations.

Seema, Director of the Studio received me with warm welcome. I understood from the first day that she is an intelligent and true person. She explained me about the class and helped me get rid of my fears and adapt myself to such a wonderful path. The class was very professional, dynamic combined with mystic music and with lots of challenges. This studio teaches all the yoga styles under one roof. This day I decided to carry on with the course and expose myself to this path.

The instructors are very experienced and make the class interesting. They are well prepared in advance for every class and teach in a simple way in order to make everybody understand. Seema emphasis on the discipline and consciousness but on the other side she offered different suitable Asanas for different students as per their comfort. All these helped us motivate ourselves to succeed and improve ourselves together and not alone. This also motivated me to proceed on and I decided to take the yoga instructor training course at Yoga Studio.

The course is conducted by Seema and Madhvi, Co-Director. I started to learn the Diploma course for yoga teacher. I found both teachers professional, warm and charming. The course was very professional with lots of inspirations combined with different aspect. The course combined physical aspects and body training, spiritual aspects and Hindu philosophy and intellectual aspects that cover anatomy of the body and yoga therapy. The course is very universal which suits students from different countries and backgrounds. It exposed me to different styles of yoga like Bihar, Atayoga, Shivananda, Ashtanga and Ayenger, which helped us to adapt us to use the best combination in our class. It exposes us to yoga for different personnel bodies.

I was also given the training on how to hold my class and to make it interesting. I also learnt how to learn about different requirements of different personnel and to provide them with best possible remedy and self realization with our smile and silence. They make us believe that the students can be taught without conversations and force implementations. The way to reach to the progressive result of any student is with smile, listening and goodwill.

I would like to end this by mentioning that all this helped me to fulfill my desires and I would like to thank you both as you helped me to change the meaning of yoga and to make it a part of my life. This helped me to attain that wasn't attained before. Now I have made it a part of my diary journey. I thank to both of you for all this and appreciate your efforts.

Love you,

Adi Magen
Embassy of Israel

 

THE ASIANAGE - Date Monday 20TH February 2006

JINDAL LAUNCHES BOOK ON YOGA FOR CORPORATES

just one yoga class can change your life, the way it changed mine 10 years back, ays yoga instructor Seema Sondhi. Contemplating a book on corporates who are always on the move, Seema recently released her twin books YOGA FOR STRENGTH AND STAMONA and YOGA TO FIGHT FATIGUE.

Launched by industrialist and MP Naveen Jindal and hos wife Shalu, the books

give detailed information on various yogic postures that can help one destress, if practised regularly.

Teaching yoga at her Hauz Khas studio for many years, Seema beleives that it

is the best gift to mankind given tby rishies. "yoga and meditation are two doors to the same room. It depends on how you practise it and the method you

beleive in. Yoga requires commiment and that is what people are scared of .But what they don't realise is its potential in bringing harmony, greater level of spiritualism and contentment to one's life. I have taught pregnant mothers how to give birth to calm and content babies," says the author who took a year to pen the two books.

Seema through her yogic postures and meditation techniques has inspired many to take to this craft, including her publisher Shobhit Arya.
 

FEMINA - dated September 1, 2005


Yoga diva: Seema Sondhi has been teaching yoga for the last five years and has been practicing it for at least 10 years. Having trained in four major styles– Ashtanga, Viniyaga, sivananda and Bihar School of Yoga- she now teaches yoga to her students by laying emphasis on all round development of the body and mind. She has also written four books on yoga.

Her style: She practices Raj Yoga, which emphasizes the physical and mental aspects. “I follow the frame work of Ashtanga yoga, as described in the sutras- yoga of the eight limbs – to develop the body and mind. This is the essence of all the styles of yoga. The difference is basically in the style of teaching, such as coordination of the breath and movement of the body,” she explains.

What got her started: “I feel yoga helped me strengthen my body’s ability to improve on its own. It also helped my mind to become clearer and focus on positive thinking. Yoga introduced me to myself, and helped create a balanced approach to life. I want others to benefit from yoga like I did”.

Yoga’s benefits: It gives you a fit, toned body with a beautiful mind. It can be adapted to suit any age and helps stimulate the internal organs, glands and nerves making the body fit, body externally and internally.

It releases stress, steadies emotions and brings calmness of mind. “In fact I would say the only side effect of yoga is a well-sculpted body in an excellent condition,” says Seema.
 

INDIA TODAY - dated July 5, 2004

Stre-e-e-etch. Then bend. Now, gently, slowly, lift your body up. Keep breathing. That is good. See? You can do it” Standing on your head is the most natural thing in the world, if you were to believe yoga instructor Seema Sondhi, 41. Perhaps she has a point. Yoga might just provide practitioners with that much needed “different” perspective in today’s topsy-turvy world. How else can one explain the crowds flocking to learn this ancient art?

Sondhi’s tale is similar. Ten years ago, she was, literally, in a bad shape, with a backache leaving her days suffused in a haze of agony. Someone suggested yoga, she tried it and, lo and behold, three months later, her pain had disappeared. Sondhi was converted. She went to Kerala for a teacher’s training course in the Sivananda style of yoga, them spent time in ashrams in Rishikesh and Uttar Kashi before becoming a yoga instructor in Delhi.

Try explaining that to young people living for today. It is not easy, as a distressed Sondhi, a mother of two teenagers, discovered. The lady, who does not blink an eyelid before adopting the most gravity-defying poses, says her biggest challenge lay in making yoga more interesting to her bored daughters. So, with the help of her interior decorator husband, she set up the Yoga Studio in Hauz Khas. She dressed it up in vivid reds and blues, and with trendy décor to attract the younger generation. She set out to make yoga appear both glamorous and contemporary and succeeded.