Whether you’re stretching out your quads after a steep downhill on a hike or practicing your balance in Tree Pose to get ready for walking on uneven trails, you’ve probably heard that yoga is good for hikers. I’ve been teaching yoga for 15 years and hiking for longer and generally, I agree – but not just because of the physical aspects of yoga.
Stretching is great and you can call it yoga if you like, but ancient yoga philosophy also offers some great tools for the modern hiker. Take the Kleshas, for example. Meaning “poison” in Sanskrit, the Kleshas are negative mental states that are at the root of all human suffering, according to the two-thousand-year-old text the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
