My Yoga Journey

As my yoga journey is coming to an end I realize that while yoga ma be for many people, it is not for me. I can not wrap my head around around it and the movements. However, I did fall in love with meditation. I looked back on my posts and found the one where I really began to love it.... "So here we are again doing the thing I love to do, meditate! I posted a few weeks ago how this really helped me stay calm in a crazy time in my life. Meditation is definitely a huge part of my yoga practice. Once I got over my perceptions of it and realized how helpful and life saving it was, I try to practice it as much as I can. In class today we had someone come in a help us do a meditation practice. I fell asleep. BUT before that I felt so calm. I really enjoyed what he spoke about before the meditation also and use it in my everyday life. He said something along the lines of the more you avoid suffering, the more prominent it becomes and instead you need to face it head on. That really st...

In my class this week we learned how to breathe and control it. The instructor went step by step and walked us through it which I liked because I had no idea what I was doing. She started out having us either sit crossed legged or lay down flat. Next, she had us put one hand on our rib cage and the other on or stomach. We then were told to focus on our breathe and really listen to it. How when we took a deep breathe in our stomach hugged our rib cage. The we brought our hand to our collar bone and felt our chest life with every breathe. We repeated this several times and with each time we tried to take less breathes and hold it in for longer. At first this was a struggle for me because I was running late and couldn't catch my breathe as is. But, after a while I saw the point in it. I felt totally in control of my body. I realized that through my yoga journey the classes where we focused on our breathing were the ones I took the most from.

As more and more doctors are recommending yoga for a variety of health conditions, the physically therapeutic benefits have become indisputable. However, Yoga Therapy can also be approached from a spiritual rather than physical standpoint, addressing holistic needs in mind and soul as well as body. Through the spiritual approach, the entire science of yoga as written about in the Yoga Sutras is employed, not just the physically restorative postures.  If we have an injury or suffer from chronic pain, the body must be addressed. Similar to physical therapy, yoga movements can significantly decrease pain and suffering, and help regain vital energy. According to the Yoga Sutras, the final aspect of Yoga Therapy is the true point of it all - The exploration of our spiritual nature. Classical sacred texts from many traditions acknowledge that human beings have a Divine energy within. The Yoga Sutras declare it is because of our ignorance of this truth that most of our problems in life o...

So here we are again doing the thing I love to do, meditate! I posted a few weeks ago how this really helped me stay calm in a crazy time in my life. Meditation is definitely a huge part of my yoga practice. Once I got over my perceptions of it and realized how helpful and life saving it was, I try to practice it as much as I can. In class today we had someone come in a help us do a meditation practice. I fell asleep. BUT before that I felt so calm. I really enjoyed what he spoke about before the meditation also and use it in my everyday life. He said something along the lines of the more you avoid suffering, the more prominent it becomes and instead you need to face it head on. That really stuck with me. My life has been a crazy one and Ive been through a lot for someone my age. A few years ago I was diagnosed with skin cancer, Melanoma. My life since then has been different because I have to be so careful everyday the sun touches my body. I am covered in not the prettiest of scars an...

What is yoga? To me yoga is a way to release and let go of everything in my life. In the yoga sutras it lays out 8 limbs of yoga which lead to the release which is a state of yoga. This state is defined in the sutras in chapter 1 verse 3 "then the seer abides itself, resting in its own true nature, which is called self realization." (Yoga sutras 1.3). This is also known as enlightenment where the mind is almost completely still and no longer have any remaining thoughts. Yoga is when you become the master of your thoughts and they no longer control you. I think this plays a role in every day life as well. People go through tough times in their life and it can be hard to get a handle on it and stop thinking about it constantly. Yoga helps with that I've found. Yoga can be a way out and save people. This is why it is so addictive. It has healing powers that people are just drawn to.

If you ask me yoga is 100% a lifestyle and culture. I actually think it can be even cult like in certain types of yoga. We watched a lot of videos in class about how yoga changed from what it used to be which was a male dominated practice to how in the west it is now more female dominated with added sex appeal. Today, all yoga propaganda is, is videos of hot women wearing Lulu Lemon. That is not what yoga used to be so why did it change? I don't really know the answer to that, but I agree. In my own life I have seen how yoga can be taken as more of a "chick thing." When I talk to my guy friends about taking a class with me they tend to laugh in my face and try to touch their toes. I try to tell them how many athletes do yoga and how great it can be for them especially when it comes to stretching. I think that mor men should try to do yoga because of the many benefits it has. I was pretty against it at first to, but I may regret saying this but I think I might be turning i...

My next yoga class I decided to try a gentle yoga class again at Root Yoga located in Manalapan, NJ. I have a friend who regularly practices yoga and she talks nonstop about this type of yoga so I thought why not! When I walked in to the classroom, I really liked how the teacher had such calming music playing. I could have taken a nap right then and there! I like when the teacher has this type of music playing because it puts me in the proper head space and I believe it relaxes my body and makes me more flexible; which I desperately need. During this class we worked on poses such as downward dog, cobra and seal. I liked these poses because it pushed me just enough without going over the edge. I am still very new at this so I do not want to push myself too hard and get discouraged. One thing I really liked about this class was the breathing. To get started we did these breathing exersize that calmed me down. We started by taking big deep breathes and counting down from 10 and releasing ...

So this post might be a little personal, but i think that is kind of the point. Lately I have had a lot going on in my personal life. My grandmother ended up back in the hospital with another stroke, my dad is getting eye surgery, and my uncle passed away. With all of this going on it is safe to say that I was a little crazy. However, I decided to go to a meditation class today because I felt myself having a mental breakdown. I have a lot of friends who never stop talking to me about how great their meditation class is so I decided this was a better week than any to go. To my surprise it was the first time in days I felt okay. I was able to control my breathing and feel like the world wasn't going to end tomorrow. The teacher made me feel very comfortable and spoke so softly. Im not sure if this is embarrassing or not, but I may have let out a tear or two during it. After that practice you can bet on seeing me in a meditation class again. I loved the atmosphere of the room and the ...

This week in class we practiced Ashtanga Yoga and it would have to be my favorite practice so far! I really liked how the teacher showed us all of the moves before we did them. Since I am still very much a beginner I always like to visually see how the poses are supposed to look so that I can mirror it and not hurt myself. She did a really good job or not making me feel like I was such a newby because she showed the entire class how to do it. I also liked how she came around the room and lightly tapped you to help get you in the proper position. The postures were definitely a challenge for my body, but I liked it. I like that by doing these practices I am pushing myself to get a little outside of my comfort zone. I would definitely practice this type again because it was easy enough for my to do, but hard enough that it wasn't boring.

Today in class we tried Iyengar yoga and to be honest I was not a fan of it. As I have been practicing I like it where there is a flow to it. I found it really hard for me to hold the positions for 10 minutes. I kept falling out of position and having to reposition myself. I also did not like how slow pace it was. Considering how active and hyper i normally am, standing still in a position was not for me. The props also were hard for me to get used to using.  I did like the instructor however, because she was always walking around the room to help if we needed it. She was able to make the room feel calm even without the music playing. I also liked how she showed us what to do first and then helped us get into the postures.

This in class we had someone come in a teach a Bikram class for us. Before this class I only had so many yoga classes under my belt, but I was excited to see how I liked it. This style of yoga is known to have a cult like style following and I can see why. I really enjoyed it! I felt that the asanahs we were doing were challenging, but I liked it. I like pushing myself to do thing I think I can't. I wish that we were able to be in a really hot room because I feel like that would really add to the whole experience of it. I am a runner so I enjoyed the slow but steady postures because as weird as it sounds, it felt good on my joints. This is definitely a style I can see myself doing more often.

As we talked a lot about in class, yoga is known to be very beneficial in terms of health and healing. In one of the movies we watched, one of the men talked about how he was so sick for months and could barely move. He said his legs were so damaged from standing up for years. Then by practicing yoga he was able to heal them completely with the help of his guru. I found this to have some truth to it. In my class my instructor talked about how she had breast cancer for about 2 years. She started practicing yoga around that time and she said she believes it helped her beat it. It put her in a more calm state of mind to where she was able to focus on healing and not what it was physically doing to her body. I think that goes along with the mid over matter mind set. Yoga also does improve your physical body as well. It helps you develop a strong core and back and of course a nice butt.

For this weeks class I wanted to focus on how the room and atmosphere added to the practice. Many people while practicing yoga focus on how the environment is around them. Wether it needs to be completely quite or if they have soft music playing in the background. The room I was in was very much what I would consider to be a ritual space. The lights were so dim almost off, the music playing was very soft and relaxing (almost put me to sleep). The instructor spoke in a very soft tone to where it was very hard to even here him. There were also candle lit along the sides and an insense burning the smelt like grass. I wasn't too fond of that. I felt very connected to my body though, as strange as that sounds, the surrounding really did make a difference. I felt calm and in tune with every movement I was doing.

I participated in my first ever Yoga class at Root Yoga in Manalapan, NJ.  Upon entering the building, I was immediately overcome by a sense of peace and relaxation, simply because of the quiet environment and feng shui of the entire room. However, although I did feel very relaxed when entering the room, I was very nervous because I never really practiced yoga before and was a little embarrassed.Class was surprisingly difficult for me. I was the only one in the room who lacked experience in Yoga and that was a bit intimidating at first. However, the instructor was fantastic and really made it easy for me to adapt to such a new environment. He spoke in a very calming manner and described how each pose or stretch was to be done from start to finish, which was very beneficial to me as a newcomer. I found particular poses to be much more challenging than others, particularly the ones involving folding in half to touch your toes.Despite being an athlete my whole life and participating ...