I start Yoga when I was 15. I studied for a year before coming back to the states. I continue practicing the yoga I had learn, because I just liked it. I think it was helpful in not getting injured in sports and when I was injured I recover fast. I also found it helpful in my first MA. When I started studying Kung Fu , My Yoga real seem to fit together with Kung Fu. A lot of the principles were the same just used a different way. Example: Standing in horse stance for a long period. The breathing was the same. Being able to focus and not feel the pain of being in the horse stance. There is a lot of knowledge on this website. What is your opinion on a relationship between Kung Fu and Yoga?
As a Yoga instructor used to tell me, "Yoga is a word from Sanskrit that has several defintions. While the most common is "to unite" another definition is discipline". Maybe they're related in that way.
Somewhat. Some Kung fu people do incorporate yoga with their training and teaching, yoga generally fits most martial arts as it generally covers one of the health factors you need. that being good posture and range of motion and flexibility.
though yoga may or not have ancient roots, much of yoga as practised in the west, is a 20th century invention that bears little resemblance to ancient practises, that makes a connection between yoga and king fu, also a 20th century invention, geographically unlikely. other than both tend to misslead on their history to suggest they are " ancient"
The 13 Tai Bao standing postures were trained during the ancient time to enhance certain MA techniques.
I know a few yogic postures are very similar to karate ones, I've seen forward stance, back stance, horse stance all in yoga. I've incorporated a bit of yoga stuff alongside karate and found it very beneficial! Helped to sort out a few imbalances. Didn't answer the question at all I realise haha, but it seems there is some slight relation... and it may depend on the school/lineage as to how deeply they go into the postures as they do in yoga, and what they emphasise.
as both karate and yoga arrived in the west at much the same time, there may be some copying going on, but more likely its an example of convergent evolution, they both developed the same poses as those poses are effective
I look at Yoga and Kung Fu as complimentary and not so much related. However the question is, how do you define Yoga and how are you defining Kung Fu?
I like your answer best. In the Yoga I was taught to focus your mind. That your mind was like a wild horse that need to be train. The first metal exercise was to focus on a candle flame. Then close our eyes and see the flame. Try to see the flame as long as possible When your mind would become distracted slow bring your mind back to the flame. The second exercise was to focus on relaxing one toe at time and move up the body. Kung Fu, When standing in a horse stance humming. I could focus my mind on breathing and the humming, not on the pain in my legs. Was the horse stance just for strengthening my legs or was it to improve my ability to endure pain and focus on keeping the right posture.? The Yoga training help focus my mind to hold postures for long periods. So I guess Yoga complimented the Kung Fu.
The postures in the picture are similar but not the same as we perform. Example we perform figure H, with our arm in with one above the other hands flat.
If you are interested in a connection between gong fu and yoga I'd suggest reading up on Boddhidharma, an Indian prince who travelled to China in the 6th century ending up at the Shaolin temple where he's credited with introducing Chan buddhism. Story goes he planted seeds of gong fu through a series of movements and exercises he taught the monks to improve their meditation. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAfegQIChAB&usg=AOvVaw0jSG4bN3V0zLCZmfDDgbrx
Bodhidharma inventing gongfu/wushu/Shaolin boxing is a myth invented during the late Ming dynasty era of syncretism by influence of Daoism. Instead, the monks originally revered Bodhisattva Vajrapani both as the origin of their martial arts (i.e. cane fighting) as well as the protector deity of their temple.
