How To Practice Yoga At Home

How To Practice Yoga At Home

  Practicing yoga at home is very peaceful, it helps me to look inward and to challenge my body at my pace without distractions.  Don't get me wrong, I love my yoga classes!  Classes are inspiring, and I always walk away learning something new.  Also, practicing with a group of people is a very positive and uplifting experience.  

  For many reasons, it may not be possible to attend yoga classes.  Developing a yoga routine, which takes a lot of self commitment, is a profound tool for deepening your relationship with yoga.  Some general tools I use to strengthen my home practice are: 

 1)  DVD's!  I personally recommend Wai Lana (click here for a link to her workout DVD selection).  She has developed four sets of DVD's which go from beginners all the way to very challenging.  The great thing about her DVD's is that if you master the beginners, you are ready for the intermediate (which if you master, you're ready to move into the more advanced poses).  She also has a 1/2 hour show on PBS if you're lucky to receive that particular television channel.  I have all four sets of her DVD's, and I always rotate those DVD's so that each week I'm using different muscles and utilizing extremely different poses.  If buying new DVD's is something you cannot afford, thrift stores and garage sales are places where you may be lucky enough to find Yoga DVD's.  Always watch the DVD's several times before practicing however, so that you get to know the routine and you have an idea of how the poses look.  If you are very new to yoga, please only get beginner DVD's or invest in beginner classes so that you don't injure yourself!

 2)  Require a minimum time of practice everyday!  Even 15 minutes of time set aside to practice yoga is beneficial and good for your home practice.  Before I go to bed every-night, I usually write down on my calender the amount of time I want to set aside for yoga practice, and if necessary what time of day to practice.  So for example I may write down "wake up--30 minutes of yoga, at 1pm--1 hour of yoga, before bedtime--20 minutes of yoga."  This is a contract to myself that I will follow and agree to, and it's a way that I know I will stick to my practice.  

 3)  Make sure to have an area in your living space dedicated to practicing yoga.  Follow a routine prior to your allotted yoga time.  For example, I always light some incense, roll my mat out, get some water, sit for a few minutes in quite contemplation, and then begin my yoga session.  This is a way for me to remind my body and prepare my mind that I'm about to practice yoga, it calms me down and opens my spirit up.  I also turn off the computer, TV, and phone so that I am not disturbed.

 4)  Go in for that tune up class every so often, it's a good way to make sure that your technique and your positioning is correct.

 5)  If you do not want to use yoga DVD's, you should form a sequence.  I have a few general tips for sequences when I practice yoga without a DVD.

a) get in touch with your breath, sit in a seated pose, or in child's pose for several minutes.

b) warm up the spine and legs by doing seated spinal twists, the cat/cow, or rocking back and forth on your back.

c) perform several sun salutations, try some variances in your sun salutations, this will get your heart pumping.

d) try some standing/balancing poses such as the tree or the triangle pose.

e) focus on core strength such as the plank/side plank/boat pose.

f) try some back bends such as camel/bridge/or easy bow.

g) end with an inversion of some type such as legs up the wall/shoulder stand

h) Savasana--lie on your back in a comfortable position, this is the "dead man's pose" where you completely relax all the muscles in your body, this is also the pose where you allow your body to integrate all the work you have just completed.

i) sit and meditate, and give thanks.

Namaste........

Children and Yoga

Children and Yoga

Lately, in some of my yoga classes, mothers are bringing their children into class with them.  Both times, they were girls and both appeared under the age of ten.  Now mind you I don't have children of my own, but when I first saw one of the children in class my immediate reaction was "oh great, I hope she behaves herself!".  How rude of me to think that way!!

I was also quite fascinated by it all.  I kept my eye on the children while they were doing the poses, and I thought "wow look how easily they can do these poses, I'm so envious!".  It got me to thinking that at that age I probably could do the same poses, as at that time I was into gymnastics.  It made me think about how as we age, our bodies stiffen, our joints aren't as loose, we become less flexible, minor injuries all add up making it harder for us "older" people to get into poses that children basically yawn at!  

However, I did notice one common similarity with both children.  They both got extremely bored, extremely quickly.  One even rolled her mat up and left the class to go play outside.  The other, although bored, stayed in and ended up doing her own poses which I found cute, and amusing!  

So in observing these children I got to thinking, that if yoga is so easy for them physically, it's obviously more difficult for them to concentrate, and to keep their focus on maintaining the poses, as well as following the instructors directions.  One of the benefits of yoga for children is that it helps to develop self-discipline (it takes a lot of discipline to do exactly what the yoga teacher is telling you to do when all you want to do is roll your mat up and go outside).  Yoga helps children by helping them to master their own behaviour, and by learning to control themselves, which in this society, nowadays, is difficult for young children.  I was reading an article about children with challenges such as autism and learnt that yoga also helps autistic kids by teaching them techniques that help to control emotional outbursts.  Those are just two out of hundreds of benefits of yoga for children.

So although I am envious at how some kids find what I feel are difficult poses, easy for them.  Children in yoga have different things to learn, such as patience and self discipline.  For me as an adult, I find patience and self discipline easier in yoga, but then again, I've swam all of my life and still do (and studies show that swimmers have more discipline, patience, etc).  I also learned not to be so judgmental when I see a little person in class, it helped me to realize that I shouldn't put all children into the category of "oh my those kids are going to misbehave and ruin this class for me".  

Yoga...it is more than just the physical....it's the emotional and spiritual learning that benefits us yogi's.

Namaste~~  

Missing Yoga!!

Missing Yoga!

Well, it has been more than a month since my last blog!  And I've been feeling very guilty about not updating my blog every six days as planned.  I do have a bit of an obsession when I set goals, and when I don't meet those goals of not writing a blog every six days, I feel very badly about myself!

The same feeling comes with yoga.  I try to practice every day, at least for an hour, at most for an hour and 40 minutes a day!  I wake up, drink some tea, and do some yoga.  Then I do my chores, go for a swim, come home, do more chores and do yoga.  Before I go to bed, I do more yoga!  Lately that's not been happening.

Other things in my life have come up that makes it impossible to follow my usual yoga/chore routine.  And in the process I'm extremely hard on myself if I can't get my yoga in my day!  I feel even worse if I can't get my chores along with work and yoga in on my day.  

Then I got to thinking....how does the practice of yoga teach me about being gentle with myself?  

Over the last three years of me faithfully putting in hours of yoga a week into my routine, I've learnt to be extremely gentle with my body. If I feel a muscle has been worked too much, or that my ankle is a bit tweaked, I work around those issues, and I become gentle with my body.  I have learnt to listen to my body, I've learnt that pain is not good when it comes to yoga, I've learned to love my body by backing off if something doesn't feel right, or if a pose feels too sore or pushes my body past my limit.  

The physical gentleness that I've learnt from yoga, has turned into an even better gentleness with my tendency to be obsessive compulsive with my life.  So, if I can't get those 100 minutes of yoga in a day (along with my mile swim), I have learnt to trust my body, to trust my mind and go with the flow.  I used to be very hard on myself, and I would feel very guilty if I didn't wake up and be active from sun-up to sun-down (with chores, work, yoga, swimming, more chores etc).  Now, I'm more gentle, realizing that if my mind and body needs a break from all of the activity, that I need that break.  In fact, if I've not practiced yoga for four days or so, I find that when I get back into my practice, I'm a lot stronger and a lot more "with it" during my yoga sessions.

My whole point in this blog is this:  Listen to your body, listen to your mind....respect your body and respect your mind.  If either your mind or body says to you to take a break, then do so......respect your mind and your emotions just as much as you would respect that injured muscle, or injured ankle or knee or hip!  

Yoga in my humble opinion, is about learning to know your body and your mind and your spirit, and learning to respect it when it says "no not today please".

Namaste

Give Yoga A Chance!

Give Yoga A Chance!

Why should you practice yoga?  What are some of the benefits of yoga?  Read on, and maybe this blog will help you to understand why you could love yoga as much as I do!

Yoga can seem like an ancient, mysterious, and exotic art form (or form of exercise).  It's impressive, yet intimidating.  With all of my experience with yoga, after hundreds of hours on the mat, I finally realized that yoga simply  makes me feel good.  It's relaxing, energizing and strengthening.  It has changed my perspective in life.  I feel physically strong, my hormones are more balanced, and my stamina has increased.  It's made me more spiritually aware of my body, and it has helped me be more empathic.

Yoga is an acquired preference.  When I was a child, I did not like to brush my teeth (who really did!), my parents pushed and prompted, at times cajoled and now as an adult I'm faithful about brushing my teeth.  So now I brush everyday to keep my teeth healthy, and because I like the feel of my teeth being clean and healthy!  A somewhat similar concept occurs with yoga, at first, it took me a lot of strict discipline, and a huge amount of effort for me to establish a daily practice.  After 3 years of faithfully practicing yoga, I now practice because I feel good during and after. I feel calm, strong, and flexible in mind and body.

Yoga helps with flexibility.  When our bodies age, we get stiff and our muscles tighten up.  Our range of motion in our joints diminish, and you may not feel as alive as you once were.  As this happens, your body becomes less efficient, and you are more prone to disease.  Yoga can retard, and at times reverse this tendency to stiffen as you age.  The benefits of being more flexible from yoga can be felt after your very first yoga class or session!!

Yoga helps with balance.  We all favor one side of our body over the other, most of us are asymmetrical, and this state of not being in balance creates stress on your body.  This stress can lead to falls, or injuries.  Yoga creates symmetry throughout your entire body.

Yoga will improve your strength and tone all sorts of muscles in your body!  The weaker you are, the heavier you will feel.  The stronger you are, the lighter you will feel!  When your tone of your body increases you'll have an easier time moving your body, your metabolism will increase and you'll be far less prone to injury.  

I have only very lightly touched on the few benefits of yoga in this blog.  Let me give you some more benefits of yoga that you may find interesting:

-improved sleep

-increased overall energy

-lowering of your blood pressure

-improving your skin complexion

-body detoxification

-decreased feelings of anxiety or depression

-improved gastrointestinal functions

-lowering of blood sugar levels

-decreased incident of osteoporosis

-reduction of asthma symptoms

I could go on and on with this list, but I'm sure you get the gist!  Yoga is good, yoga is good for your body, your mind, and your spirit.  Don't let those pretzel type postures that you see in commercials scare you away from yoga.  Yoga is for everyone, the young, the old, the fat, the skinny, the sick, the healthy.  Give yoga a chance :)

Dead Body Pose

Dead Body Pose

  Dead body pose, also called Savasana is physically one of the easiest poses in Yoga.  But in other ways, Savasana is the toughest of all poses!  In fact, a yoga instructor once told me that he felt that Savasana was the most difficult pose of all!  I was at a yoga class the other week, and at the end of a brutal 60 minute yoga workout, it was time for Savasana (click here for a photo of Savasana, along with benefits and instructions).  As I was getting ready to lie down and relax, I noticed quite a few people quickly getting off the floor, rolling their mats up and promptly leaving.  This got me to thinking, why do some, if not most, practitioners of yoga have such issues with this pose? 

  I remember reading an article a while back, and the only thing I got out of it was how a client of a yoga instructor would always refuse to do Savasana.  When asked why, he responded with "it makes me feel like I'm dead, so I refuse to do it!".  Okay, his choice, but lets look at some of the many the benefits of this pose:

--it decreases your heart and breathing rate.

--it decreases blood pressure.

--helps to reduce frequency of panic attacks, or feelings of anxiety.

--increases confidence.

--increases your energy.  

  In many ways people view this pose as "meditation", and there's a lot of stigma attached to meditation making it seem almost impossible to do.  When I'm in Savasana I like to focus on my breathing, and relaxing all of my body from my toes up to my head.  I make it sound easy, but for all of us, this is extremely difficult.  Many of our minds are racing a mile a minute, such as "what should I make for dinner to-nite", "how am I going to handle this situation at work I've been having problems with", "I wish the person next to me would stop moving around", "the music playing in the background is really irritating!".  Then you get an itch and you really need to scratch it, then that bead of sweat is rolling down your forehead and you have to wipe it away.  The pose can then get very frustrating, and you want to come out of it so you can carry on with your day!  Can you see why this is difficult?

At least, if you're doing a challenging pose, like Tree you are concentrating on keeping your balance, maintaining your breathing, stretching your spine up and keeping your shoulders down.  In Savasana you're only focusing on the inner self, the mind, the brain so to speak.  My point in this short blog is this, try even if for only a minute, to stay in Savasana.  Try to watch your breath and when you start to think of other things, be okay with that, then move back into watching your breath.  After a minute, go for two, then go for more and more time, but don't be so concerned with time (see how confusing this pose can be?)

Be gentle with yourself in this pose.  Give it a try, it's very invigorating, and it helps you to assimilate all the benefits of the yoga you have just done.  Be aware, but don't think.  Be relaxed, but don't fall asleep.  It's not so easy when you think about it, or not think about it!

  

  

Is Yoga Supposed To Hurt?

Is Yoga Supposed To Hurt?

No!!!  Yoga is not supposed to hurt!  There are reasons why you have modifications for poses, and that props (such as belts or blocks) are used to support you so that you don't injure yourself.

You have to know your boundaries.  You have to learn how to listen to your body at all times, check in with yourself and be aware during your entire practice of what your body is feeling.  Do you notice how your yoga instructor (either in real life, or on DVD) keeps reminding you to breath, to relax your shoulders, to soften your face?  They're not doing that to annoy you, or to make you look pretty, they're reminding you to check in with your body.  

This also includes emotional pain!  Poses that cause us emotional pain (see my last blog), can stop us from breathing correctly, or cause us to have an expression of pain on our faces.  Again, check in with yourself and ask if this is physical or emotional.  Emotional pain is just as painful and important as physical pain, so again it's alright to use props, or get into a modification of a pose.  

It's really important that you communicate with your yoga instructor about modifications.  In my opinion, a good yoga instructor should always ask new comers if they have any old or new injuries.  If your yoga instructor doesn't ask, please go and tell them.  

On the other hand, in my personal practice, yoga has healed an old injury.  About twice a year, sometimes more, I would sprain my left ankle to the point where I would be on crutches for a month at a time.   I was told by a doctor, the last time I sprained it, that I would eventually require surgery.  I don't like surgery (who does!), so I decided to use yoga as a way to mend and strengthen the muscles in that ankle (something I don't recommend you do unless you speak to a professional first).  Now mind you, I was very afraid to do any pose or activity that would challenge that ankle.  So for 6 months, I wore an Ace Wrap around that ankle during yoga practice to give it more strength while doing certain poses such as Tree Pose (click here for a photo of tree pose, and it's benefits).  Modifications and props were my best friends during that time!  This strengthened my ankle to the point where I don't have to wear an Ace and I've not had a sprain in over two years!

I remember looking on Facebook years ago, and a friend who is an avid yogi was teased by one of her friends that yoga can cause severe injuries by placing a link to an article to "prove his point".  Sometimes yoga injuries are just plain freakish (I knew of a woman who broke her nose while falling out of crow pose), and some are due to people pushing their yoga limits way past what they should be doing.  The point is that you should not do a yoga pose by yourself, that could have the potential to injure, unless you absolutely know what you're doing.  

If a yoga instructor is going around class forcing people into certain poses (such as pushing you down so that you can stretch further), I would suggest staying away from that instructor.  I'm okay with an instructor correcting my pose, and with a very gentle touch correcting my posture.   I'm not okay with an instructor who uses force to "help" you get deeper into the pose.  If you find yourself in a class with an instructor who uses force, it's okay to ask them to please not touch you when you see them coming your way.  

Remember, be aware, be safe, don't force it, listen to your gut, use modifications, use props, find a good yoga instructor, and have fun with it!  Yoga should not hurt, and yoga should not cause injuries.   

          

Why am I feeling so emotional in this yoga pose?

Why am I feeling so emotional in this yoga pose?

 The first time I tried a simple back bend, I felt panicky and suffocated.  I ignored that feeling because I didn't understand at that time what it meant.  Then, the first time I was in Camel Pose (click here for a photo of what Camel Pose looks like) I couldn't hold the position for very long because I felt as though I was going to have a panic attack, so I gently came out of the position, and went into child's pose.  It baffled me, why was I feeling this way?

 I then got to thinking about trauma and how the body tries to protect the mind.  Keep in mind (no pun intended there!), that the body and the mind and the spirit are all one.  The body will try to protect your spirit and mind by taking some of the blow of a traumatic or emotional situation.  So, lets say for example, that something happened to you that made you shut down your heart, when you do back bends, you're opening up your chest very wide, you're also opening up your heart along with your heart chakra.  

Chakra's, simply put, are energy centers in your body that spin according to how open or closed that chakra is.  If your heart has been broken, or if anything happened that affected your heart chakra, chances are that the heart chakra is closed down, or clogged, or dirty and needs to be "repaired".  Click here for a chart of our seven chakras.  We have seven chakras, each of them related to a glandular section of the body, each chakra has a spiritual, and physical purpose.  If one or more chakras are "broken down", then our entire aura, and thus spiritual body is affected, this in turns affects our minds, and body!

This is the beauty of yoga.  Yoga is for the mind, body and spirit.  So how do you get into poses that are difficult and make you feel like you're going to have a panic attack, or cry, or feel depressed, or feel any "negative emotion"?  In my example of Camel Pose, I would get into the pose, and breath very deeply.  I would allow myself to feel the panic, and if it became too much, I would go back into child's pose.  Also,  while in Camel, I would imagine my chest and my heart chakra opening up.  I imagined green light (green is the color of the heart chakra), entering and cleaning out my heart chakra.  Be gentle with yourself, be patient, and don't force any pose if it starts to feel overwhelming to you in any way.

Yoga gives us a mind/body/spirit communication.  The key with this communication is to stay present, and to be open to receive the messages your body is trying to tell you.  Expect nothing, your body will not speak if it's being watched like a hawk, or forced to produce a result.  If you need to seek support please do so.  You are worth to being listened to at every level of your being.