Connect your Mind, Body and Soul with Yoga at the Nairobi Garage

Yoga is an exercise that creates a balance between the body, mind and soul. As a result of this practice our mental, physical and spiritual imbalances become balanced. As an entrepreneur all these three aspects in you need to be insync for you to be productive.

Anamaria Guerra Forero, a yoga instructor who offers yoga classes to Nairobi Garage members in Westlands and Ngong Road branches speaks to us about why Yoga should be your exercise of choice and the benefits it can bring you in relation to your  productivity and creativity.

Why yoga?

The meaning of yoga is union. The union between body and mind. So personally, I find yoga very powerful as a holistic way to exercise your body but also to train your mind to live in the present. Often we are living in our thoughts, worrying about life, about what has not happened, living in the future or in the past, in our own created stories, and not living life in the present.  

Yoga helps you connect with it. To be more mindfulness in every moment of life, that is the goal, transcend from the practice on the mat, to a daily, moment to moment, yoga / connection.

What type of yoga do you teach?

Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga. It is a type of yoga that stands for leadership, community, service, possibility and transformation…on and off the mat.

“In 1940, Walt Baptiste and his son Baron founded Baptiste Yoga. The asana or physical parts of the practice are inspired by the teachings of Krishnamacharya and his students Iyengar and Desikachar, whom Baron Baptiste studied with personally from a young age. Baron took what he learned from these great eastern teachers and created a style of yoga that worked to empower, strengthen, and stretch the bodies and minds of modern westerners.

Baptiste Power Yoga has three main elements; asana, the physical practice of yoga postures; meditation, the practice of focusing the mind; and inquiry, the practice of self-transformation. These three elements encourage students to step into their full potential by discovering their passions, creativity, and developing the confidence to step into new and big possibilities in their lives.”

How would you say yoga contributes to the success of an individual in business on a daily basis?

Yoga helps train your mind. With yoga you are able to balance out your worries and your stress. This is because when working out, your main attention is getting your body to stretch to levels that are expected during the session. Through meditation, you are able to channel and train all your thoughts to make better decisions.

So yes, yoga can certainly give your mind clarity as well as help you focus on the now! Through yoga, you’re able to control your emotions. I highly recommend meditation for any professional because it gives you clarity and mindfulness.

Would you say yoga is an individual or communal exercise?

It can be both. First, it is a personal journey because you exercise on your own, connecting with your body, movements, breath and mind. But I say it can be both because as much as you’re exercising alone, there are people with you during the exercise and in our class. We make sure that people do a few poses together as opposed to just working out on their own.

Additionally, as you further connect with yourself, and embark on this journey with others, a shared sense of community develops. With time, this shared process generates strong links that conduce from personal growth to communal transformation. This is incredibly powerful for team building.

As an entrepreneur, you need to be creative! How would you say yoga helps in this?

Yoga helps a lot in the balancing of your mind, and well, balance and clarity leads to fresh ideas. An entrepreneur needs endurance, connection, focus, mindfulness, stretching out of your comfort zone, challenging yourself, understanding you and your process better, and overall, having fun. All of this happens when you practice yoga. Yoga can be an amazing inner lab for entrepreneurs.

Ideal outfit for yoga?

Wear what you are comfortable with, preferably something loose. Yoga entails a lot of stretching, jumping and sweating. You need clothes that help you easily do these exercises.

Patience is a must have virtue for all business people. Can you confidently say yoga enhances one’s patience?

Yeah! Absolutely! Yoga like I said before is a process. You start at some point and you have to train your body to stick to certain poses for a matter of minutes. This doesn’t happen overnight, you have to have at least practice the poses and stretches more than once for your body to finally adapt.

With yoga, your body responds very fast to the poses once you make it a habit. Each pose requires patience. Honor the process and honor your body!

Lastly, how often would you recommend a yoga session to a businessperson?

Personally, I do it daily but it really depends on the time you have. Exercise of the body and mind are necessary to help you in your daily routine.

It would be great if you could do it daily but 2 or 3 times a week could work as well. The most important is to start, and to keep the process. Little goes a long way. (smiles).

Are you interested in joining our community and want to know more about our member benefits? We offer Yoga at our Westlands space on Mondays and Wednesday from 17:30 to 18:30 and on Tuesdays and Thursdays at our Ngong Road branch from 17:30 to 18:30.