My body is not bendable at all!!!

" My body is not bendable at all!!", this is a quote from someone who saw a video of Wai Lana performing the camel pose!  Click on this link to see the video, if you are interested.  Wai Lana Camel Pose.

I feel sad when I hear people say things like this about yoga.  Media images of people showing off on how bendable their bodies are via yoga, is a huge influence on one of the reasons why people refuse to give yoga a chance.

Have you noticed that not one body is similar to another body?  That also means that some bodies just cannot do certain poses!  Some bodies cannot flex in a certain position because their bodies are not made to do so!   Take for example, the camel pose, you don't have to do it perfectly like Wai Lana does in her video. There are variations for those of us who cannot attain that pose.  There are props that we can use such as blocks or belts, or cushions, or walls.  There are beginner variations of poses that we can look up or ask our yoga instructor about, that are just as beneficial to the body as the "actual pose".

Just because you cannot do a certain pose, doesn't make you a "failure" in yoga.  In fact, just trying makes you a winner, just trying gives you the same benefits of doing the "real" pose.

It takes time to do certain poses.  After three years of using props (belts, blocks, pillows, etc), or beginner variations of the Camel Pose, I can now get into the Camel.  Not for long mind you, but I can do it.  And that's three years of practicing 3-4 times a week.  One of the beautiful benefits of yoga, is patience and learning when to take it easy on your body.  You learn a lot of patience, and you learn to treat your body with respect.

So if you see someone in an unbend-able position, don't fret, there are other ways to attain the same benefits, and with patience, one day you may be able to do that pose that you thought impossible.

Namaste ~~

"I'm Too Fat To Do Yoga"

I'm Too Fat To Do Yoga!

"I'm too fat to do yoga."  Sadly, many images on the internet, in magazines, and on television of people doing yoga are strong, skinny, and in very good physical shape.  This turns a lot of us bigger men and women away from practicing yoga!  Also, has anyone reading this who is larger than a size 12 gone shopping for yoga clothes?  They don't exist!!

I've spoken to many friends, encouraging them to give a yoga class a chance.  They tell me that they are ashamed because they're heavy and are embarrassed to be seen in a class struggling.  I must say, after a year of attending hard core yoga classes, I have seen the fittest of students struggle the most out of all the students during a session.        

The image above is of myself taken a few months ago.  I was climbing down the "steps of doom" as I like to call them to get to a beautiful northern Californian beach!  I weighed 200 pounds in this photo, I am medically considered obese.  

My point in showing you this photo is that  I don't feel that the chart of "if you're five foot four you should weigh between 125 to 145 pounds" is correct.  What about someone like me, or you, who are just big.  Big boned, and a lot of muscle.  I have many friends whom I work with in a very physically demanding job,  who by medical standards would be considered obese, but honestly look perfectly strong, and healthy.  

There are plenty of yoga instructors out there who are "obese" who do teach classes.  Google them and you'll find them.  They are beautiful, they look healthy, they look radiant, and most of all they look deeply and truly at peace with their body size.  One thing yoga has taught me is to love and appreciate the strength of my body.  It has taught me that despite my "obesity" I can do yoga moves that some of the fittest people in my surroundings cannot begin to do.  And that makes me proud.  

If you're overweight, and you want to give a yoga class a chance then please go for it.  Don't be embarrassed, just go and enjoy it.  If you're too shy then buy beginners yoga DVD's and work your way up (again, I suggest Wai Lana DVD's as they go from beginners, to intermediate, to more advanced levels).  

Be okay with your size and please don't let your heaviness take you away from trying yoga.  Yoga will give you such a positive outlook on your self image.  Don't fall into the media trap of "if I'm not skinny I'm not beautiful".  I guarantee you that yoga will help you to realize that your body is beautiful, and strong, and flexible.

I have to say as a Registered Nurse that if you are obese please talk with your health care provider about starting yoga.  Also, there are certain yoga poses that shouldn't be practiced if you have issues associated with obesity such as the shoulder stand.  Do a lot of research about yoga and learn about your body as you practice.  If any pose intuitively or physically feels wrong, come out of it, or use props to get into the pose.  

Namaste~~

Yoga Has Aged Me Well!

Yoga Has Aged Me Well!!

Just like a fine wine ages well if it sits long enough, yoga has aged me well!  After almost three years of practicing yoga, I have seen spiritual, emotional, and physical benefits that I never in my wildest dreams thought was possible at the age of 37!!

I started the three years with a lot of grit and determination.  I practiced and practiced beginners yoga, and built up my practice, until eventually I could go to a class that I consider extremely hard even for those who are in excellent shape and don't practice yoga often.  My point here, is that it takes patience, and determination before you see benefits of practicing yoga.  There are of course, immediate benefits, such as feeling more relaxed, feeling like your muscles have been stretched and revitalized, increasing the range of motion in your joints, increasing your metabolism, increasing your mood, increasing your sense of self esteem.  

After I could master the asana's physically, I found myself able to focus on my inner self.  If, for example, I was in child pose (Balasana), and I felt suffocated or emotional, I realized that the pose was opening up something in my past between my mother and myself that I did not release.  When ever we go through experiences that are traumatic, we store that experience in certain parts of the body.  Yoga helps to open up those parts of the body, and thus those emotions are released.  So it's not uncommon for people to cry or feel sad during certain poses.  Some poses teach us how to "let go" such as the Pigeon Pose.  Some poses teach us how to look at life from a different angle, such as The Camel, or the Headstand.

My point in this blog, is to show you that yoga has benefits that are not just physical.  That yoga is an art that can be utilized as a healing tool for past emotional trauma that you stuffed down and therefore placed into your body.  In a future blog, I will talk about how my crippling anxiety was virtually cured due to yoga.  

Namaste

A Bit About Myself.....

A Bit About Myself

 A little bit about myself and my history with yoga.  I'm 37 years old.  When I was a young child I used to do gymnastics and Karate, and not to brag, I was really good at those sports.  I also, would enjoy stretching my body, and often my parents would find me on my back balancing a chair on my feet!  I enjoyed the concentration and the fact that it took my mind off my worries (I worried a lot as a child, and had a lot of anxiety, my first panic attack being at the age of five!!).
  I did not hear of yoga until I was in college, and one of my friends gave a speech about yoga and showed us a few moves.  From that day I was hooked.  So I bought books and flashcards on yoga asana's (yoga positions), and went to a few yoga courses.
Life took over, and yoga was put on hold, I started practicing again in my early thirties, not seriously, but once a week or so.  
  Two years ago I started to get into yoga seriously.  I watched youtube videos of people practicing yoga and watched their technique.  I also bought a plethora of Wai Lana DVD's and started to practice with her as my instructor.  Once I felt my strength building and my technique improving, I started to take yoga classes.  I was so scared during my first yoga class, as I felt I wasn't "good enough", but I made it through, my instructor was kind, and I now go to her as often as I can.
  On Facebook,  I am a "liker" of several yoga pages, and at times I'm frustrated by those pages.  They show people in very difficult asana's (poses, or yoga positions), and I wonder to myself "how many people look at these photos and think there is no way in hell I can contort myself into that position, or I have no strength to do that!".  I believe that those photos really do put a lot of people on the defensive about yoga, which is a huge shame.
  It has taken me 3  years to get into a moderately advance practice of yoga.  I'm finally learning to do headstands, which is something I never imagined in my wildest dreams I could accomplish.  Three years of faithful practice, by faithful, I'm talking about practicing about 6-8 hours of yoga a week.  I'm fortunate in that I can practice that many hours, as I know many in this crazy and complicated world cannot.
  I am also a big girl, and that is something else I will be talking about in my blogs.  
  This is my first blog ever, and am going to talk about how I built up to being mid advanced, how I realized that getting to the point where I am at took a lot of effort and time, and that how yoga has benefited and healed me in many aspects of my life, and many more things about yoga that you may find interesting.
  My message in this blog is this: If you want to practice yoga, please don't be intimidated.  If you are painfully shy or have no access to a yoga class, then I suggest buying DVD's, and the best ones I can recommend are Wai Lana DVD's the Beginner's Set.  You can buy them through her website (google her), or on Amazon, it's a three DVD set, each DVD about half an hour long.  Practice as many times as you can until you have mastered those moves, then go onto her next DVD set.  If you're fortunate to be able to attend yoga classes, choose an instructor that you are not intimidated by (trust me most beginner yoga teachers are far from intimidating), and go from there.  You'll make so many good friends, and you'll realize thatpeople who practice yoga are very accepting and kind and encouraging.

Thankyou for reading this blog and I hope you will continue to read more of my future blogs :)
Namaste