Asana – yoga postures or poses
The Sanskrit word “Asana” is mostly translated as pose or posture. In my opinion, this definition doesn’t take justice to the term because it does not contemplate the thinking and conscience that should follow each movement and asana, not going further into the intrinsic relationship and connection of the body, breath and mind. In reality, the final posture is achieved when we obtain the correct alignment of the body along with the breath, with full conscience and intelligence. Presently, some say there are 84.000 known asanas, of these 84 are the most significant, 32 crucial and 7 basic into the yoga practice. The majority of postures are associated with or connected to nature, symbols or animals. We can see how long we came when we look back into the ancient book Hatha Yoga Pradipika (the oldest Hatha yoga text written), that only contemplated and discussed 16 poses in detail, where 6 of these were sitting poses in order to prepare the body to meditation. Traditionally,