Introduction

There are these special moments where everything seems easy, when movements are fluid and solutions come without thinking, when we are dancing almost effortlessly on the wall. This is flowing following your intuitions. This is Yoga.

Martina Cufar

The fusion of Yoga and climbing is natural. Climbing, as

Yoga, shows you who you really are, allows you to find yourself. Both disciplines reveal your fears and show you how to overcome them. On the wall as well as in life.

Christian Core

That’s what’s so amazing about climbing – it’s not just a sport. It’s a lifestyle, it’s a way of being creative, of connecting with yourself and with nature.

Chris Sharma

In the previous edition, the first chapter started with the following remarks: «What is the reason to write a book connecting Yoga and climbing? What do these two disciplines have in common, which might look quite different in terms of objectives and context? This might be the reaction of many people, may they be climbers or Yoga practitioners, while reading this handbook, maybe with some hesitation. However, Yoga and climbing have more in common than we might believe, as long as we go through them with the right spirit and with the right mental and cultural attitude».

Actually, when I started writing this book in 2010, Yoga was not so popular as it is now and even less in the climbing context, where reactions were essentially two: repulsion or deep interest towards the inner approach, without excluding someone who practiced it only as a tool to increase flexibility, breathing skills and concentration... These reactions both came from the idea that Yoga is not simple physical training, but it is a discipline with a significant spiritual and meditative component. As such, either it was hated disdainfully (maybe due to fear) for its introspective nature, or it involved deeply. However, during the past five years, there has been a wide diffusion both in the practice of Yoga and climbing: media played a major role, in a world more and more influenced by social media and the cult of shallowness and appearance. This boom has introduced a certain simplification of their meanings in both disciplines. Plenty of Yoga courses of many different kinds appeared everywhere, often led by teachers trained in intensive courses of one month, or even less. Ideas have been even more messed up by social media, where “yogic rockstars” have spread: young people with an excellent physical preparation (often coming from previous sport activities) presenting themselves in extremely complex positions, thus becoming points of reference. However, reading their posts is enough to realize that their knowledge of the discipline is definitely restricted, limiting themselves to the citation of a few aphorisms or pseudo-spiritual remarks of bewildering simplicity. The problem is that they often raise thousands of followers, strengthening even more the misunderstanding that Yoga is only an athletic exercise aiming at performance and that physical preparation is enough to be a teacher.

In a few years Yoga has passed from being considered as a vague form of Eastern discipline mixing body exercise with spiritual and meditative practices, to be seen mainly as a form of advanced gymnastics aiming at performance.