1 FIRST A LITTLE FOREPLAY Sex, as we all know, is more than just the act of having sex. It's about a whole experience that begins with an exciting warm-up called foreplay. With foreplay, you begin to build excitement as blood starts to rush throughout your body and tingle every nook and cranny of your sexual being. As you start to kiss and touch and gently explore your partner's sensual areas, your pleasure zones start to kick into high gear. Ultimately, foreplay helps to set the mood for the lovemaking that's soon to come. Why Yoga? Like foreplay, we'd like to set the mood for Better Sex Through Yoga by explaining how our program got off the ground. As you probably realize, the basis for Better Sex Through Yoga is of course yoga. We start with yoga because so many of its principles simply and readily apply to sex. Over our years of teaching and practicing yoga, we've found that it is incredibly suited for waking up your body, mind, and spirit to help you achieve a better sex life. Yoga has been around for thousands of years (clearly not as long as people have been having sex but well before we started teaching Better Sex Through Yoga ). Over time, yoga has evolved into an amazing practice that promotes not only physical development but mental, emotional, and spiritual development as well. Although there are many different styles and forms of yoga, all these different forms have in common some basic yoga principles. We've chosen ten of these powerful yoga principles to incorporate into our Better Sex Through Yoga program. Here's how: 1. Compassion The yoga principle of compassion is often referred to as nonviolence. But we take it to mean something more than just not hurting-or killing-another person. Compassion, for us, is about your ability to love and be loved. Loving not just yourself but everyone around you. Most important, from this yoga principle, you want to cultivate your compassion-and love-at many different levels. The compassion developed by practicing yoga leads to better sex. Can you have great sex without love and compassion? Yes, you might end up with a quickie or night or two of passionate lovemaking, but for sustained better sex, first you'll need to cultivate compassion and love for others. 2. Body of Knowledge Through yoga, you'll gain intimate knowledge of your own body while getting an amazing workout. You'll learn to understand what feels good and what doesn't and how to tweak a pose for better results or when to cool it and rest. This understanding of your own body and your energy of that day will make you a better yogi-yoga practitioner-and a better lover. One teacher had a favorite expression: "A new body everyday." Get to know your body and check in each day. Discovering that you may have more sexual desire and looser hips will make for a very romantic evening. 3. Movement Yoga is about moving your body gracefully and really understanding how moving can affect all aspects of your life. Many of the seemingly small, subtle movements that you practice in yoga, such as tilting your pelvis and breathing into certain body parts, can be very useful-and pleasurable-for lovemaking. 4. Grace under Pressure The breath and linking your breath to movement is one of the main principles of yoga. As you practice the different Better Sex Through Yoga poses, you'll learn how to breathe freely and deeply while your body is under physical stress. Most of the time, sex is a great release of tension-sexual, physical, and emotional-but sometimes sex itself can be stressful. Are you trying too hard to achieve orgasm? When stresses and pressures arise in the bedroom, let your breath release those tensions to help you focus on the pleasure of sex itself. 5. Flex it Up If you've ever stopped working out, the first thing you probably noticed is that your body stiffened and tightened up. The natural process of aging also does this to your body. You might have even felt pain in opening your legs or bending backward when your lover is going down on you. The physical movements of yoga help to free your body and become more flexible where it really counts: in the bedroom. 6. Strength Practicing yoga brings strength to your entire body. When you're weak and tired, your body feels heavy and sluggish. It's like dragging around a heavy weight that you can't get rid of. As you build strength through yoga, your body will start to feel as if it's lifting off the ground. That sensation of lightness will transform all of your everyday experiences-most important, sex. Not only will you be able to last longer, but you might be able to literally sweep your partner off his feet. Being physically strong will allow you to move yourself and your lover around with ease and will take your lovemaking to a whole new level. 7. Awareness Awareness is about being present in what you're doing now; it means focusing on the moment and not letting your mind wander off, which can happen during both sex and exercise. With Better Sex Through Yoga , we stress that you stay present and focus on the yoga pose at hand. The same holds true for the bedroom; stay in the moment. 8. Inner True Happiness Okay, we're not saying that great sex can't make you happy. But just as yoga teaches that true happiness comes from within, eventually you'll want to move beyond the immediate gratification of a terrific orgasm. Once you've mastered the techniques of Better Sex Through Yoga , you'll find that great sex is just the beginning of a more fulfilling life. 9. Fake It Till You Make It If you've ever felt overwhelmed, awkward, or simply unmotivated by the thought of exercising or making love, just do it. More often than not, once you begin, your body's natural desire and motivation will kick into high gear. Likewise, if a position-either on the mat or between the sheets-seems too daunting, just give a try. You'll end up loving it. Remember, instant perfection isn't the goal here; feeling good and increasing your sexual satisfaction is. 10. Burning Enthusiasm This yoga principle is all about the disciplined use of energy, which literally translates as fire and heat. We want you to bring a renewed sense of passion and conviction to having sex, not just to go through the motions and lie there like a log as your partner gets off. Ignite your fire and bring passion to your sex life! Better Sex Through Yoga poses will add that spark-your job is just to keep the flame alive. Why Sex Through Yoga Is Better Now you know how the basic yoga principles are a good starting point for you to improve your sex life. But we wanted to take yoga poses a step further to really help you focus on having better sex. To that end, we've combined the poses in this book with some other types of exercise and movement programs. We've carefully considered the benefits that many different types of mind/body techniques, practices, and postures have on your body-and your sex life-and have come up with this new equation for better sex: Yoga + Pilates + Chakra Balancing + Dance = Your Ticket to a New Sex Life! Yoga Yoga is the foundation of the Better Sex Through Yoga practice, offering strength, stamina, flow, proper breathing, and sexual core control. Pilates With an emphasis on your core abdominal muscles (abs), Better Sex Through Yoga expands on Pilates techniques with a deeper waking up, strengthening, and relaxing of your sexual core. Pilates is a system of original exercises developed by Joseph Pilates for strengthening your core in a safe way. Some of the exercises are done on the floor (mat work) while others are done on special Pilates exercise equipment. An intelligent style of movement, Pilates is now used preventively by dancers, athletes, and others to help stave off injuries. Dancers are perhaps more aware than most people that a strong core is critical for grace, strength, and stamina-all important for great sex too. Chakra Balancing Like acupressure points, chakras are energy centers located throughout your body that transmit and receive energy called chi (more about this in Chapter 3). When you are sick or perhaps just don't feel like having sex, your chakras might be out of balance-meaning that energy-including sexual energy-can't flow properly. Yoga helps to realign the chakras and stimulate energy flow throughout your entire body for optimum pleasure. Dance Better Sex Through Yoga routines are influenced by the style and fluidity that dance pioneers are known for. We've mixed a bit of ballet and hip-hop into our routines to keep them playful, sexy, and graceful. Extension and precision of movement, done while looking perfectly at ease, are essential for the dancer . . . and the yogi alike. Better Sex Through Yoga is unique in that we embrace the sexual benefits of yoga. Most yoga practices offer mind and body balance; Better Sex Through Yoga , however, focuses on mind and body pleasure. We combine the concept of better sex and yoga through simple and nontraditional instruction with actual how-to sex positions that you can practice while in bed, in the tub, or in the car. And we use actual yoga positions! Better Sex Through Yoga offers you actual sex positions that mimic yoga positions found in our routine. Our Bump Bump Bump move (page 86), for example, sends gentle shock waves through your pelvis while giving you killer inner thighs. How does that sound? Once you've mastered this move on the mat, we encourage you to try it in the bedroom. So why try Better Sex Through Yoga ? Yes, you want a better sex life, but we can give you twelve other reasons to keep coming back. Here are some of the other great benefits you can expect after practicing Better Sex Through Yoga : 1. A "yoga hottie body" with a sexy yoga butt, firm abs, yummy tummy, toned thighs, posture like a dancer, and a traffic-stopping, totally erotic glow 2. More energy, less stress, and an overall "natural high" 3. The ability to discover the power of your sexual core 4. Enhanced range of motion in your hips and waist 5. Improved coordination and balance for any yoga or sex position 6. Better circulation, especially in the genital area 7. Deeper, longer, better breathing patterns that offer fresh oxygen to the sexual region and heighten sensitivity 8. A rush of endorphins (the feel-good chemicals released throughout the body) after any yoga-or lovemaking-session 9. Greater flexibility and stamina, which leads to more staying power in the bedroom 10. Greater control of your sexual organs in relation to the rest of your body 11. Deeper, more powerful and intense orgasms 12. A sexier, more confident you in the bedroom-and beyond. Enough foreplay. You see why we're so excited for you to get started. Next we'll test your sexual fitness and see how you measure up. Excerpted from Better Sex Through Yoga: Easy Routines to Boost Your Sex Drive, Enhance Physical Pleasure, and Spice up your Bedroom Life by Jacquie Noel Greaux, Jennifer Langheld All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
