What is Bench Yoga?

Bench Yoga is a practice that generally takes place on a Yoga Meditation Bench, although you can also use an Ottoman, low bench, or the edge of your futon.

Here's what you need to know:

  • Bench Yoga is as easy as Chair Yoga, but it doesn't limit you to sitting in a chair forever.
  • Although it is easy, it is also effective. It can accelerate your Yoga practice, and help you get to advanced sitting positions like "Pretzel Pose" (Lotus) that much sooner.
  • It is designed to build the specific combination of strength and flexibility you need to sit upright, with fantastic posture!
  • That posture lets you sit for meditation longer--and more comfortably.
  • In short, the Bench Yoga practice enables longer, deeper meditations.
  • In addition, the breathing practices that are part of the system lead directly to meditative states.
  • Perhaps best of all, you sit and meditate when you need a break between yoga poses, rather than curling up into a ball in "Child Pose".

But wait! There's more!

 

  • The Bench Yoga exercises and asanas are specifically designed to promote internal energy flows.
  • In the Orient, that's known as raising "chi". In India, it's known as augmenting "prana".
  • At the same time that energy flows are promoted, the breathing practices 
    that are part of the system create short, instant meditations--meditations that can easily extend themselves into longer, total-absorption meditations.
  • So the entire practice is designed to lead you to meditative state where you are mindfully aware of internal energy flows!

That's lot, huh? It sure is. Hence the difficulty of encapsulating it all in a single sentence! But the same way "yoga" has come to mean a whole host of things, from spirituality to exercise, I'm sure that "Bench Yoga" will eventually come to be synonymous with all of the above!

Learn more by reading the Bench Yoga book.