Yoga For Men is dedicated to helping anyone who wants to feel better and mover better.
Women already know that yoga is a powerful practice for stretching and toning muscles, building balance, and reducing stress, but all the spandex and candles have given yoga a wussy image in the West. Though most men could get a lot out of adding yoga to their routines, there are two things stopping them from giving it a try:
- Yoga's girly stigma
- The fact that most yoga classes and courses are designed for women
That's where we come in - three guys with backgrounds in various martial arts and other sports who have discovered that yoga can kick some serious ass. Prasara Yoga will not only improve your mobility, but build real strength and power. Even better, practicing Prasara will improve your ability to improvise new movements gracefully (when playing sports or doing any other physical activity) with less risk of injury.
And it's perfect for women too - if they're tough enough.
Who We Are
Ryan Hurst
Ryan Hurst began practicing yoga in college, and it's been a daily practice for him ever since. His background as a competitor in gymnastics and multiple martial arts has given him a unique perspective on human movement, which he brings to his yoga with a focus on smooth transitions that defy the notion of a static, boring yoga.
As a Faculty Coach for RMAX international, Ryan taught and certified instructors around the world in the Circular Strength Training system and was responsible for developing the discipline of Prasara Yoga (see below) before leaving RMAX to focus on Gold Medal Bodies.
Most importantly, Ryan is a father and husband and sees his health as a responsibility to his family. Through this website, Ryan is dedicated to helping other men meet their own health and fitness challenges.
Jarlo Ilano
Jarlo Ilano has been involved in health and wellness for most of his life, beginning with training in martial arts and in his career as a physical therapist since 1998. His yoga training started in 2004 exploring Prasara Yoga with Ryan. He has also engaged in daily practice of Ashtanga yoga with Cathy Louise Broda in Honolulu, where he learned the fine art of adjusting students in yoga postures.
He currently resides in Seattle, working as a therapist and teaching a variety of martial arts and fitness classes.
Andy Fossett
Andy Fossett is a lifelong martial artist. Though he played with yoga from an early age, he wrote it off as just a bunch of weird stretches. In fact, it was only after meeting Ryan and Jarlo that Andy began to see the applications of a practice like Prasara beyond developing flexibility.
Since then, he has applied yoga in his teaching as a way to help students understand the mechanics of various martial art techniques while building their ability to transition from one attack to the next with fluidity, speed, and power.
What is Prasara Yoga?
So what is Prasara Yoga all about? What makes it different from all the other yoga out there, and what exactly can it do for you?
All yoga classes and programs out there say that they will improve your flexibility and strength, relieve stress, and improve your health in a hundred different ways. And if you practice regularly, they will probably do all those things. The benefits of yoga in general are numerous; they include improved posture, weight loss, increased energy, and muscles more resistant to injury. These are all results of engaging in solid, regular yoga practice. Now add on to that some specific and progressive yoga moves for particular activities, and you’ve got what our system is all about.
Simply put, the yoga we teach (Prasara Yoga) is designed to improve your athletic ability and get your muscles strong, flexible, and resilient.
So what is it specifically about Prasara yoga that will improve your athletic ability and readiness for sport? One obvious difference that you’ll see when you watch the videos, is that our yoga is about smooth and controlled movement. Most yoga out there is about holding a pose for a long period of time, and this absolutely has its place in an exercise program. However, with Prasara, we want to pretty much keep moving and work on making ourselves go from point to point as smoothly as possible.
The result is that, not only do you improve your general flexibility, you improve the quality (fluidity, grace, ease, and power) of your movement, which translates to better performance and more fun.
Ready to Get Started?
The videos on this site offer an introduction to Prasara Yoga and how you can put it to work in your life. We've tried to demonstrate a variety of movements, but many of those demonstrations show advanced skills that will be difficult for beginners, or even experienced athletes.
Since everything is easier to learn if you take a gradual approach, we created the Prasara Yoga Primer, which is a complete course consisting of videos, ebooks, and several training programs designed to help you get the most out of yoga practice for whatever your particular goals happen to be. If you're ready to learn more about Prasara and take the next step for you health, check it out today.
