Wife Mother Runner Child Pose Archives

Yoga Class Week 3

March 7, 2016

Life has been pretty busy lately. But I always have my hour and 15 minutes of truthful, mindfulness time to myself at my Monday night yoga class, and I really look forward to it. Our instructor, Margaret Dunn gave us some information sheets to take home today with helpful tips on how to be still and quiet at home for a period of time to prepare yourself for meditation or even just to learn how to sit silently. I had been trying to do this with the kids and even just myself with an app called Calm from the iTunes store.

She reviewed for us the importance of yoga and why we do it. One is to be non harming, truthful and unattached. Each week she has mentioned a word and this week’s word was unattached. It didn’t mean to be physically attached to something; but to detach yourself from anxiety from the past or regret, or from worries of the future and stress of things coming up during the week. It is about being in the present and yoga is important to help you be present in your breathing and in the poses that you keep. You have to be present to think about the position you need to be in and keeping your balance, so it is important to not be attached with the clutter and chit that goes on in your brain. She also shared the 50 health conditions that are benefited by yoga.

Before today’s class I was having an emotional challenge and I was afraid my heart wasn’t going to be in the class. But I also knew that I always feel more grounded and at peace after class. I would never skip a class; but I was afraid that the clutter in my head was going to get in the way. Her brief talk with us prior to class is a great way to prepare us for success.

Today we worked on poses we had done the previous two weeks and added in a few new ones or variations of other poses. Below are some images that demonstrate what we have done in the past 3 weeks. These photos are from the yogatoday.com site. This is a great site if you want to learn more about yoga and to see how the poses are done. We start with warming up our body with fluid movements of arm swings and rotation of our upper body to get the blood flowing and to open up our posture. Then we begin our poses. These are just a few of the poses that we have learned so far. Another great resource for yoga information is from the Positive Health Wellness site, which also offers a lot of great information about yoga, wellness, recipes, and nutrition.

Chair Pose

Warrior Pose

Tree Pose

Child Pose

Locust Pose

Cat and Cowl Pose

Forward Bend Pose

Bridge Pose

Mountain Pose

We always end our class in the corpse pose and then fetal position to have a quiet time of reflection and thanking ourselves for giving this treat to our bodies for the past hour.

Corpse Pose

This has been a great recommendation from my chiropractor Dr. Pat of Modern Chiropractic and an awesome addition to his services that his practice offers. I already signed up for the next session and a friend of mine has also joined!

Yoga Class Week 2

March 1, 2016

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I am starting to dislike Mondays because the fun of the weekend comes to an end, and I am getting Spring fever when we have nice weather on the weekend. But what is helping me get through, is looking forward to my Monday night yoga class. I went to my second week of Yoga class this Monday and it was fantastic! It was even better than the first time! The instructor, Margaret, is very good. I really like her style of teaching and attention to the students. We have a small class of 6 people and tonight there were only 3 of us, so it is a nice intimate size.

This week she incorporated some Yin yoga into our poses. Yin is a practice designed to have you hold a pose for an extended or fixed period of time. This helps you to meditate and stretch the connective tissues around your joints. The typical hold position is for 3 to 5 minutes. For us, since it was our first time doing such a practice, we held our positions for about 90 seconds.

For the beginning we started off sitting and did some neck rolls and warmed up our shoulders, then we stood and did some airplane poses which were great for the shoulders and the arms. I felt the burning in my muscles. After that we moved to the floor to do a Sphinx pose in the Yin style. Then we did some Cat/Cowl with a twist and then a Child pose to open up the spine. Then we did more floor work lying down and opening up the hips and doing hip bridges and spinal twists.

After working on the floor we stood up and did shoulder rolls, crossing the arms in front and back to loosen them up. Then we did more shoulder rolls with our hands touching the tops of our shoulders. Then we did side bends to stretch our sides and backs. We put our hands on our lower backs and did pelvic circles. It was a lot of fluid movements to wake up the body in certain areas, especially when we sit most of the day.

Then we worked on our balance. We stood on one foot and kicked our legs to the front, then swung our legs to the side for the hip abductors. We did this on each leg to ensure balance on both sides. Then we did ankle circles for both feet and moved back down to the floor, put our legs out in front of us and pointed our toes to the ceiling to stretch out our lower body. This is called the Dandasana pose

To wrap up the class, we laid on the floor in what is called the Savasana pose (the corpse pose). This puts the body back into a neutral position. We began with our knees bend, then lowered them to the floor, feet hip width apart, then we pointed our toes together and then apart to release the tension in our body. It is important to be comfortable in this position because we were going to remain there for several minutes. While quieting the body physically the instructor also spoke to us to have us be aware of every part of our body that she calls out. It is important to soften the root of the tongue, the space between your eyes. Let the eyes sink into the back of your head, release the brain to the back of the head. It’s all about being still and quiet and ending the class by thanking your body for what it has done for you during the day. Giving it quiet time to rest and recover and rejuvenate. It is one of my favorite parts of class and I hate to have to get back up again to go home!

I really enjoy Yoga and want to do it every day; but in reality, I will only do it in a classroom environment. I have the dedication to my running routine; but for a class that has more structure, such as yoga, I need someone directing me what to do, which order to do it in. The shoulder roll exercises and the airplane stretch exercises are something I’d like to do a few time a week to work on my arm muscles and opening up my shoulders from hunching them over a computer all day.

I am also going to work with my kids to help them unwind at the end of the day. When I got home from my class last night I had them do a few stretches with me, until their attention span wore off! My daughter is very interested in it. My son can’t sit still for more than 6 or 7 minutes. But getting them engaged and trying new things with me is part of the fun.

Tag: Child Pose

Yoga Class Week 3

Yoga Class Week 2