Lesson 1 · Original 2024 edition
Redefining Yoga
Original book · printed p. 2 onward ↗AI Yoga Masters · The original recording
Redefining Yoga Song
Listen to the original song, then explore the lesson directly from the book below.
Open the original song on YouTube ↗About this edition
The teaching below preserves the original book’s wording, with page footers and layout whitespace removed. The AI practice and reflection are new adaptations.
The hotel-worker study is described broadly in the original. Its outcomes and limits need an evidence review before this account is presented as a current research summary.
Historical and scientific claims in the source have not yet undergone a complete evidence review.
Source teaching · Alex Julian, 2024
The original lesson
Yoga is not about handstands and splits. It isn’t about yoga pants either. Yoga is actually about mindfulness and focus. It is about clarity and living in the present moment. Unfortunately, modern-day yoga is inverted in many ways. The priorities are out of wack. For example, when most people hear about yoga, they think of stretching. Physicality is indeed part of yoga, however, it is a very small part. It is supposed to be preparation for the real yoga — the yoga of the mind. We need to go back to basics and recover the lost teachings of yoga.
Yoga is primarily a mental practice. Not only that, but the principles and practices are more relevant and important than ever. They will help you get the most out of AI, the most out of technology as a whole, and the most out of life itself. A mentor once told me that when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. I am asking you to change how you look at yoga. When you do this, you may realize you have already been practicing, but you never thought of yoga in this way.
I want to share something profound with you. Have you ever heard of the Harvard Mindful Exercise Study? This famous experiment by the Harvard University psychology department demonstrated how powerful perception can be. I recommend you check this out for yourself. This study involved hotel maids.
About half of the maids were educated on how their daily work was actually exercise. The other maids weren’t told anything. It is important to understand that this is the only variable that was changed. Everything else remained the same. All the hotel maids did the same thing they did every day. However, something incredible happened with the maids that changed their perception and how they looked at their work. Despite doing the same thing they always did, the maids that now viewed their daily activities as exercise too got healthier on all levels. Truly, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
I’m excited to have you here at AI Yoga Masters! I hope to change the way you look at yoga, and in doing so, change the way you use AI.
© 2024 Alex Julian Yoga. All rights reserved.
New contemporary AI application
Try it in your next AI session.
Choose one meaningful task for your next AI session. Write down what you want to accomplish before prompting.
Reflect afterward
What changed when you treated the session as a practice of attention?
Bring this teaching to the Practice Studio →Developed with AI assistance for this digital edition. Reflect privately; nothing needs to be submitted or shared.