Preferring natural stiffness to natural flexibility

Ruusu Hulmi is a 31 year old photographer and a mother of two children, who has recently turned her life around for the pursuit of becoming a certified teacher of Iyengar yoga.

Ruusu distinguishes Iyengar yoga as 'engineer yoga' due to its detailed approach to understanding the human anatomy. Studying to be an Iyengar yoga teacher is a thorough process and takes at least five years. Finland is still lacking senior Iyengar yoga teachers and therefore all the teacher training instructors come from abroad.

Ruusu Hulmi

 

Ruusu appears very down to Earth about her relationship to yoga 'Yoga is fun and makes me feel good, that's about it'. Against common belief, Ruusu highlights that flexibility of the body is not a goal in itself in yoga. Ruusu's body has always been naturally very stiff and for a long time she used to consider this as a weakness. But once she got deeper into yoga, she found that in fact it is one of her strengths, making her body more sensitive to signals from within. 'For beginners in particular, it can be good to first have a stiff body, letting your flexbility augment in the same pace along with your strength and technique'.

 

There were many things that made Ruusu fall in love with Iyengar yoga after having been an Ashtanga practitioner for years. By Reading Ruusu's story you will see that whether you are flexible or not does not make any difference, everybory finds their way to yoga! Ruusu also reveals to us other fascinating benefits of trying out Iyengar yoga.

 

Tiina & Sofia

 

Yoga to increase happiness

In our second interview we met Timo Kurvi - a professional actor, singer, dancer and now also yoga teacher. Once again we were greatly inspired by Timo sharing his personal yoga story!

Today Timo has recently opened up his own yoga practice in Acro and Iyengar yoga, but in the beginning he came into yoga seeking help for a medical condition that had become quite severe. We were fascinated to hear that Timo gives yoga all the credit for him being able to live a normal life, no longer restrained by his genetically inhereted condition.

"Yoga started out as a purely physical exercise for me, but then turned out to be so much more", Timo says. Today Timo's philosophy regarding yoga can be captured in one sentence: Reducing suffering and increasing happiness.

See more at
www.timokurviyoga.com

For Timo it was important to find a yoga practice that would help him to balance his body, which he found in Iyengar yoga. Later he ventured into Acro yoga which seems to appeal to the performance artist in Timo. Listening to Timo's story, we realise that finding the right kind of yoga, one that suits you personally, can make a very big difference to your experience...

Tiina & Sofia