Svaroopa® yoga is a unique style of yoga that helps release tension in the deepest layers of the body. Through alignment and support, with ease rather than force, Svaroopa® yoga releases core tensions, beginning with the tailbone and carrying the changes through the entire spine, as well as through the pelvis, hips, rib cage, neck and shoulders.
Why begin with the tailbone? The importance of the tailbone (coccyx) is often overlooked. The tailbone is the attachment site for many of the muscles of the lower pelvis. These muscles form the pelvic floor. Tendons and ligaments also attach to the tailbone. The tailbone also provides support and stability when you sit, and affects how you stand. Tension and misalignment in the tailbone affect your whole body, including the entire spine, your nervous system, bowels, bladder, sexual organs and more.
“You have the energy of the sun in you, but you keep knotting it up at the base of the spine”
—Rumi
As the spinal tension releases from the tailbone and up, the beneficial effects radiate throughout your entire body. Your body becomes supple and feels more alive. You feel a sense of ease, relief, inner strength and peace. You feel more like you — the real you! In yogic terms, you experience your svaroopa. Svaroopa is Sanskrit for “your own true form” or your “Self.”
Knowing your Self is the purpose of yoga, as defined by the great sage Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras.
What’s Special About Svaroopa® Yoga
Svaroopa® yoga works for every body1Svaroopa® yoga strengthens your immune system. Therefore, if you have an organ transplant or are on immuno-suppressants, you should not do Svaroopa® yoga. Svaroopa® yoga is more than just an exercise for the musculoskeletal system. It also affects organs and glands.. You do not have to be like the slim, loose-limbed models that typically adorn magazine articles about yoga. You can be yourself.
With the use of props such as chairs, blocks, and blankets, your teacher customizes the yoga poses (asanas) to fit the unique needs of each student in the class. You are not forced to copy what the teacher is doing. Instead, you are encouraged to accept where you are and start from there. Everyone — every body — is different.
Students who attend The Centered Place Svaroopa® yoga classes are taught many poses including the Magic 4, which consists of four simple yoga poses that you can practice easily at home.
Home practice gives you the opportunity to take care of yourself between classes. Home practice also extends the benefits of the classes through the week and prepares you for deeper results in the next class you attend.
The Magic 4 and the many other poses taught in Svaroopa® yoga classes bring profound changes to the body and mind.
More than just exercise
Svaroopa® yoga is a consciousness-oriented yoga that also produces healing and transformation for personal and spiritual growth. The emphasis of Svaroopa® yoga is your inner experience — your inner opening. This inner opening is what brings you greater fitness and health. As stated in an article in Yoga International magazine (now the Yoga & Joyful Living magazine), Svaroopa® yoga dissolves “the tensions that inhibit your body’s natural functioning and inherent healing capacity. The release of the inner blocks allows you to live in an inner ease, in your body and in your self, that is your birthright.”
“My doctor recommended yoga for my back pain, and now, three years later, I am still pain free practicing yoga.”
— Will Contino, North Brookfield
Svaroopa® yoga gives you all the benefits of aerobics and much more. Release of tension significantly improves circulation, and this improves the health of your heart. Physical release facilitates easier, deeper breathing. This and the slower, deeper breathing practice learned in classes, help increase oxygen intake. Thus, yoga is truly aerobic (“involving, utilizing, or increasing oxygen consumption for metabolic processes in the body,” as the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines aerobic). However, unlike aerobics, yoga practice increases your energy rather than depleting it.
Most important, yoga improves concentration while quieting your mind. When your mind becomes quiet, you can get beyond the incessant worry and anxiety produced by the mind and experience a deeper sense of peace and even bliss. Peace and bliss are qualities of your essential nature, your own Self. What better physical fitness is there than that which also brings mental fitness and reconnection with your true Self?
For information about the creator of Svaroopa® yoga, Sadguru Swami Nirmalananda, click on this link: Swami Nirmalananda Bio
View testimonials from our students.