Yoga

[Serenity*Now]

1st Some words of wisdom learned from my past yogis and yoginis:
Don't be concerned at all with progress of 'higher, stronger, faster'. That benchmark varies wildly between people, between classes, between studios...Also you'll learn 2 things: 1) there is NO ultimate expression of a pose-you can always improve it 2) It's not a linear progression-there are days when you'll feel like it's your first Trikonasana. 10 years from now, you'll STILL have those days. Yoga is humbling. It's not a competition either with others or yourself!! <-huge thing for me to learn.

"It's hard to explain." Just say that. You don't need to convince anyone or prove anything to anyone. It just is.
Some people do it purely for physical benefits, others for mental or spiritual, or all of the above. Yoga is SO many things.
"It's just something that is working for me on all levels and I get great enjoyment from it." If they ask more..maybe I'll tell them about the mental clarity side or if it's someone looking to get more healthy or "clean" in their diet, I'll explain how it just seems to have naturally helped me with that. Or maybe it's someone that has lower back issues and as someone with degenerative disc disease myself, I'll explain that for me, this helped.
I will say this though, total trial 'n error process FOR EVERYONE. There are many styles to yoga and you might jive with one more than another. I will tell people to try different yoga classes at an actual yoga place vs. a gym. Not that there aren't some stellar teachers @ gyms out there, but 95% of the time, you'll get a better class and better experience at an actual studio.
HTH!!!

 

[eu-pt]

How is everyone doing?

I'm not making progress, concerning "higher, stronger, faster", which is doing me good because I started concentrating more on "getting into" the poses I already know. It's weird, sometimes it feels like I'm doing trikonasana for the first time (one of the easiest asanas for me)

I told a collegue I came straight from yoga one day, and she said, oh that's why you're glowing...! Bless her

She told me she wanted to try it, too

I have difficulties telling peope WHY I do yoga. It's just what I feel like doing. But people expect me to tell them how it does me good, but it's not that exactly.

What do you answer, if people ask you?

Hi northernsky,

I'm fine and still practising yoga after a short summer break.

Yoga wasn't like a decision I made, it just kind of happened. I'll explain...

Since I can remember, I have always had some kind of physical activity either it was gymnastic, jogging, swimming on coached classes or hydro-gymnastics. But for this or that reason I had to stop doing it i.e. knee injure or bad sinusitis due to the chloride concentration in the covered pools.

Anyway, not doing anything wasn't an option for me and yoga came up as a natural solution.

When I started practising yoga I suffered from neck and lower back pains. They didn't went way immediately but the truth is that they went away slowly but surely.

Also have to say that when I started practising yoga, I thought it was going to be a lot of breathing and some very soft exercises/positions, sooooo, when I began practising some of the most unsuspected asanas and found myself sweating and willing to through myself on the floor, almost asking for the teacher to put me out of my misery as you can imagine it came as a total surprise it could be so demanding.

Another big surprise was realising that to me the most difficult asana was the shavasana, the one where we lay down and do nothing.
I used to freak out, I wasn't prepared to do nothing, and used to get very agitated. Now, after persevering a lot, it became to be a very relaxing asana and I learnt it's ok not to do anything, learnt it's ok to relax body and mind both at the same time.

This is what I tend to enthusiastically explain to whoever asks me about yoga.

 

[Teja]

Could someone post a video (from You Tube or something) or suggest a good dvd workout/book about yoga? I've started doing P90X yoga but it's a bit too long to do it everyday (90 mins).

 

[tayloryepp]

I just signed up for yoga classes. They were kinda expensive I think (5 classes/$50 dollars) but I'm going to start going once a week. An instructor came to one of my gym classes and taught us some poses. I really enjoyed it. I also felt more relaxed afterward.

Anyone else a teenager and starting yoga?

 

[northernsky]

Anyone else a teenager and starting yoga?

No, but I wish I started when I was a teenager :-) How where your lessons?

eu-pt: so true about Shavasana sometimes being the most difficult position

I still have difficulties with the warrior poses, which is making me nervous as they are taught almost from the beginning. They are the poses I'm really not able to feel like you 'feel' a pose when you are really getting into it

 

[tayloryepp]

@northernsky First class is tomorrow night

This is probably a stupid question, but yoga does make you more flexible right? I started stretching and for the first time since I can remember, I'm finally about to sit Indian Style , but for some reason, I was not flexible enough to sit that way and now I am. Shocking huh?

 

[northernsky]

This is probably a stupid question, but yoga does make you more flexible right? I started stretching and for the first time since I can remember, I'm finally about to sit Indian Style , but for some reason, I was not flexible enough to sit that way and now I am. Shocking huh?

Well, it's supposed to. Stretching is a big part of yoga. Lots of professional athletes do yoga to keep or improve their flexibility, and my flexibility has improved a lot since I started yoga.

 

[missbluejean]

I just enrolled for pilates at my gym today but we had yoga for the first session. It was my first time and naturally not flexible enough for most of the positions but didn't really feel that much pain during the session. The teacher kept asking me if I had any pains and I said none. After the class, I told him that my back felt so much better and he said it was great to hear. Now, my head and inner thighs hurt (surprisingly my wrists are fine). Despite that, I'm really looking forward to my next class which incorporates yoga & pilates. Does anyone have any experience with this?

 

[LADCchick]

I took a "yogalates" class for a few years, and I absolutely loved it. It was the best of both worlds, and my instructor incorporates poses from both seamlessly. She was like your instructor; asking new people if they were doing OK, suggesting modifications, etc. I liked the mix because, while I adore Pilates a bit more than yoga, sometimes some of the Pilates moves can cause a bit of strain on the neck (as you're crunched up doing this ab exercise or that ab exercise), and it was great to have a yoga stretch after certain Pilates moves.

 

[missbluejean]

I took a "yogalates" class for a few years, and I absolutely loved it. It was the best of both worlds, and my instructor incorporates poses from both seamlessly. She was like your instructor; asking new people if they were doing OK, suggesting modifications, etc. I liked the mix because, while I adore Pilates a bit more than yoga, sometimes some of the Pilates moves can cause a bit of strain on the neck (as you're crunched up doing this ab exercise or that ab exercise), and it was great to have a yoga stretch after certain Pilates moves.

We did mostly wall yoga in my past 2 sessions, and last night (my 3rd) we had the exercise tube routines and crunches...so intense, I was sweating bullets the first 10mins - that span of time felt more strenuous on the arms and shoulders than free weights. I appreciated the 'child pose' more.

 

[LADCchick]

We did mostly wall yoga in my past 2 sessions, and last night (my 3rd) we had the exercise tube routines and crunches...so intense, I was sweating bullets the first 10mins - that span of time felt more strenuous on the arms and shoulders than free weights. I appreciated the 'child pose' more.

I won't lie; I love child's pose! When it gets too intense, I stretch back into child's pose for a couple of breaths (depending on the pose we're in, of course) then rejoin the class. The sweating is good. Sometimes people act like yoga (and Pilates) are these slow moving classes, but there are definitely moves that get the heart rate up just as much as a workout on the treadmill or elliptical will do.

 

[missbluejean]

^ We did power yoga in my last session and it was the biggest mistake to attend that class on an empty stomach

 

[northernsky]

^ We did power yoga in my last session and it was the biggest mistake to attend that class on an empty stomach

Full stomach would've been probably worse

 

[missbluejean]

Full stomach would've been probably worse

yes of course... my class is at 7:30pm and I feel the need to have a meal beforehand because I still jog afterwards and I don't want to have dinner too late. This journal (http://yoga.livejournal.com) has been very informative for me

 

[StrawberrySpring]

do you guys recommend some good youtube videos? i looked at Tara Stiles' videos but didn't know which should i choose...

 

[ckgirlbr]

I have some DVDs with Rainbeau Mars, she's pretty good, she's quite known so I think you can find some nice vids on youtube.

 

[heelscatchfire]

do you guys recommend some good youtube videos? i looked at Tara Stiles' videos but didn't know which should i choose...

I've tried Tara Stiles once before, her videos were okay, I did like some of them but I couldnt stick with it. I do like Sadie Nardini, her videos are usually good for me. I enjoy hers a lot more then Taras.

 

[Fewormany]

I've got my first class this week. I'm really looking forward to it.

 

[lostgirl]

do you guys recommend some good youtube videos? i looked at Tara Stiles' videos but didn't know which should i choose...

I can't always get to a real yoga class and I get bored with the repetitiveness of DVDs so I've explored yoga on youtube quite a bit. Here are my suggestions.

If you're new to yoga, check out Yoga Zone. They're pretty good about breaking down each pose so they you do it correctly and start from a solid, safe foundation. They also talk you through the exercise so that you don't have to come out of the pose to look at the screen to see what comes next. You can find several videos on this channel.

Yoga Today has a mix of different levels and different types of workouts. You can do a quick ten minute practice or an hour long workout. For newbies I'd suggest Yoga For the New Beginner and Yoga For the Novice If you want something that gets you moving a bit more check out The Ashtanga Primary Series, A Positive Perspective, or Introduction to Kundalini Yoga.

Kathleen Holm has a channel, HolmTV, also has some nice workouts. They range from a Beginner practice, to some more challenging stuff.

Do Yoga With Me has some workouts that range from Power Yoga, to some gentle twisting and stretching.

Ester Ekhart has a channel called Yogatic that has some nice targeted videos. Like if you want a flow avoiding down dog and chaturanga due to arm/shoulder injuries, or if you've had a bad day, and want to shake that icky feeling. or for anxiety. They're shorter for the most part (though she does have a couple longer ones) and if you browse through them, there are a lot of nice pose guides as well. Plus I find her voice very soothing.

YogaJournal has several home practices. Most are quickies (about 20 minutes) but they also have some pose guides.

I like Sadie Nardini a lot but she can go fast and doesn't always break down the poses so I wouldn't recommend her if you've never done yoga before.

Tara Stiles is also good but I'd start elsewhere because she also has a tendency to go fast. But she does have a beginners playlist. Most of her videos are quickie workouts.

 

[newprincesita]

Bumping this one! Anyone following Tara Stiles yoga videos? So cool!