Question by Devin S: Has anyone heard of combining Yoga asanas with martial arts kata?

Best answer:

Answer by Desk3Bound
It has already been done 600 years ago at the Shaolin Temple.

Bodhiharma crossed the Himalayas from India barefoot and arrived at the Buddhist Shaolin Temple and noticing the monks were kinda flabby, devised a series of yoga exercises, both static and dynamic, which he taught to the monks. Essentially yoga exercises combined with kung fu kata, and thus Shaolin kung fu was born.

Also, if you look at the katas of Okinawan karate, which was derived from a style of kung fu, there are yoga-like elements within them. Even Okinawan San-Chin breathing exercises are strongly drawn from various yoga breath practices (such as found in Kudalini Yoga).

So the Asian martial arts have been influenced by Yoga for the past 600-800 years.

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