Monday, March 27, 2017
Sivananda Yoga
After practicing Sivananda yoga this week, I have come to really enjoy this type of yoga class for a couple of reasons. First, I like how slow paced and repetitive this class is. Many of the poses we practiced involved a lot of positions that required at least some degree of flexibility. However, at the same time while holding each of the poses, it is important that for each pose the concentration of the four counts of breathe are not lost. This particularly made me enjoy this class because as I was holding each pose, I would really try to think about each body part and how it felt while holding it. Whether it would be a severe stretching sensation or a relaxing meditation feeling, I seemed to really understand which parts of my body were fully integrated. Additionally, many of the 12 poses executed required a great deal of strength, coordination, patience, and almost invited a challenge. For example, the crow pose is a position that will require patience, time, and diligence to learn. Because I love a challenge, this particular pose made me want to master it because it entails much more than what meets the eye. Sivananda yoga, like many other yogas, I feel as though requires an eye-body coordination technique. Because I have been doing gymnastics for such as long time, I feel as though I can relate to this type of practice for that reason. I had originally thought that Bikram yoga would have been my favorite and that nothing would top it, but I really feel as though Sivananda yoga has become my top favorite yoga practice.
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Yoga as a Lifestyle and Culture
Yoga is becoming more popular throughout the West.
Personally, I see more and more people talking about how they have heard so
many good things about yoga and that they really want to try it out for themselves.
Everywhere you go there are flyers and advertisements about new yoga studios
opening up in the community. My own mother for instance, recently just brought
it up to me about how she would like to try it out. This was surprising to me
because she out of all the people in the world would be the last person who I would
expect to do yoga. To begin with, traditional yoga, unlike western yoga, doesn’t
have the “pop” sounding names to them. For example, if you were a middle aged
woman in America, which yoga title class sounds more appealing to you; Viniyoga
and Ashtanga or yoga slim and hot yoga?
I believe yoga in the west became so popularized because of the way it is
advertised to draw people in through the use of “pop” culture. As a “pop” culture in the West, it seems as
though yoga is portrayed by young, slim women who drink fit tea and who wear
tight colorful workout clothes. I believe it is important to understand where
yoga comes from, the history of it and the purpose of it before an individual
decides to dedicate some of their time to it so that way they can get the full
benefit of what yoga truly has to offer.
Although I believe that it is a good thing that yoga has
become so mainstream, I also believe it is important that Westerners do not dilute
the traditional uses and process of yoga. Everyone has their own individual
outlook on yoga, but the effect of yoga in the west can become tainted. Many
people may become so obsessed with the physical practice of yoga that if it somehow
became a burden to do it, it would most likely bring us grief when we aren’t able
to do it anymore. Our attachment to yoga, I believe, is much more different
then how traditional yoga has meant it to be. Yoga is meant to change our perspectives, our
bodies, and our minds through the use of calming, connecting, and understanding
the deepest part of ourselves. That being said, when people firmly and only
establish yoga as a pop culture, the latter statement becomes irrelevant to
western practitioners. The purpose of yoga for them isn’t based off of
traditional beliefs anymore, but rather a more dismantled shaping of what westerns
belief yoga is.
Saturday, March 4, 2017
Yoga as Healing (medicine)
Yoga is seen as a healing practice in my practice space through many ways. First, it all depends all on whether or
not you are practicing as a group or individually. Additionally, I feel as yoga
can be seen as a healing practice for me both mentally and physically. Personally,
yoga provides me with these physical healing abilities by being able to push
myself in poses and holding them for some period of time. By doing this
continuously week after week, my body is able to adapt to these positions which
therefore allows me to improve my flexibility and work on any limitations that I
have previously had. For example, although I practice at once a week with a
teacher who is certified I also try to do yoga every morning as a part of my daily
routine because I noticed a couple a different things. After exercising vigorously
the day before, yoga helps me cool down my muscles and helps them stretch out
more so that way I am not as sore afterwards. For someone like me who always
has a racing mind and is always stressed about the next step, yoga provides me
with a mentally healing ability by allowing me to become in tune with my mind,
body, and soul all at once in order to help me forget about any worldly
problems for about an hour. Yoga allows me to take every racing thought I have, and slow it down so that way I can analyze each problem out. It is hard to explain, but I believe yoga has a calming reaction on the brain. I am able to tune into each pose while tuning out
everything around me which gives me a sense of healing in the mind. To add onto
the physically aspects of healing that yoga has an impact on, I have actually
noticed a drastic difference in muscle tension over the course of the weeks
since I have been practicing. I am on my computer for about eight to nine hours
a day doing homework. You could imagine what this does to the upper back;
putting a great strain on the muscles between your shoulder blades. I have also
had problems with this. My muscles would hurt so bad that I would often ask
people to jab their elbow into my back. However, after practicing yoga I
noticed that this pain had vanished. Not even a slight pain. And the more I do
yoga (every day versus once a week) the more relaxed my back muscles feel.
Because I rarely do yoga at an
actually studio, but rather on Stockton’s campus I do not feel that this is communicated in a class session, but
rather it is something that you the individual must try to find and analyze
yourself. I believe that I am able to understand that yoga can be used as a
medicine by the way my mindset is before entering class. For example, if my
intention is to try to revitalize energy throughout my entire body while
clearing my mind of all that is negative, I can do this because I, as an individual,
have the power to do this. I believe yoga is what you make it out to be.
According to Novotney (2009) article on Yoga as a practice tool she
explained that yoga can improve not only your overall physical fitness, but
your lung capacity as well. For someone
who used to smoke, after reading this I always try to go into practice with a positive
mindset that yoga can and will help me over come addiction to nicotine. So far
it has had a great impact. When I am practicing, I mostly try to concentrate on
my lungs and see how much capacity and control I have over them. After weeks of
practicing, I can say that I have seen an improvement on how much more air my
lungs can hold and the duration of how long I can hold it for as well.
Nine out of ten times, yoga almost
always makes my well-being feel so much better. I have become so interested in
what yoga has to over that I typically go outside each morning (depending if it's warm or cold outside) and practice what I have learned from class.
Throughout the day, I generally feel a decrease in stress, worry, tightness,
anxiety, irritability, and an increase in positivity, flexibility, creativity,
relaxation, and surprisingly an increase in concentration.
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