Skip to main content

Yoga Week 8

This week’s yoga practice was led by Jenn Kretzer from The Yoga Hive. We practiced Shivananda yoga for over an hour which was very relaxing but also felt like a workout. Jen was very good at explaining how to do the poses and corrected us when needed. I did not realize it until we started the practice, but I have done Sivananda many times before. I just did not know it was called that. When I attended Rutgers University during my freshman year I joined a yoga club. The instructor always had us go through the same poses and we finished with three oms. It was nice knowing the yoga prior to the practice because I did not have to look back to my screen multiple times since I knew what I was doing. 

After researching this yoga I found that it is one of the only yoga practices that has not been modified from its original form. I find this very fascinating because everyone always feels the need to change things up nowadays to keep people interested. There is also a special feeling of getting to practice this yoga because it is so traditional. Here in the west, everything is turned into pop culture so we do not see deeply traditional things. I feel as if the more culture we know, the better grounded and diverse we are. 


It was nice to do the practice this week. It is hard to find the time to destress and take your mind off of things when you are stressed. With the election going on, daylight savings, and much more school-related stress, this yoga practice felt like it was well needed. I hope to make yoga and other physical activities a daily thing because it has so many positive effects on me, but prioritizing the time for it has been hard. Hopefully, with only five more weeks left of class, I will be able to organize my days to make time for these activities.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 12

This week's practice was Vipassana Meditation led by Marcello Spinella. I enjoyed how he taught us some science of the brain. I am a science major so it made meditation make more sense to me. Neuroscience is a hard topic to learn, but the way Marcello Spinella explained it made it easy to follow. When meditation is explained scientifically it makes so much sense and also made me want to do it even more. Yoga can be seen as a form of meditation in my practice space. This is because yoga is a way to focus on my thoughts and bring myself to a state of calmness and relaxation. I learned that meditation is not a way to clear your mind completely, but instead to calm your mind and try to bring your thoughts on what the instructor is talking about.  Meditation is practiced for many reasons, relaxation, to calm down, and much more. Meditation can be practiced at a yoga studio or even from your chair at school. First, you have to try to focus on your breathing and be conscious of your surro...
Post a Comment
Read more

Yoga Week 3

This week’s practice was done in class with a guest yoga instructor, Diane Polli. She was a very sweet lady with 50 years of experience. The type of yoga done was called Bikram which is a healing yoga. It was the longest practice I think I have ever done. It lasted about an hour and a half. My muscles are very tired and I will probably be sore. The poses were interesting, but holding each pose for ten or more seconds is what made the yoga challenging. I enjoyed the more difficult yoga because I felt as if I am advancing with my yoga skills. My favorite part was the end. Her chants felt very special. I really liked how they were for safeness/protection, healing and enlightenment. Yoga is definitely more than just exercise. It can be many things like a stress relief method, a way to connect your mind and body, a way to feel more balanced, etc. Different people use it for different reasons. This is why there are so many different types of yoga and yoga classes. Like bikram yoga is done fo...
1 comment
Read more

Yoga Week 4

This week I practiced laughter yoga followed by meditation. The laughter yoga video was instructed by Bianca Spears, unlike the typical mellow yoga teacher she was very cheerful and excited. She led the class very well and made the laughing for 20 minutes enjoyable. We also clapped because it served as pressure points and took deep breaths. It is said there are many benefits to laughter yoga which is why I wanted to try it after a very complicated week. It did make me laugh because I felt silly doing it.  I also tried meditation for the first time in over six months. The guide was named Sara Raymond. She was very calm and had a soothing voice. The meditation was mainly for mindfulness and being present. This was a very big change of scene from the fu laughter yoga to a very relaxing and calm meditation. I did enjoy the contrast and felt the benefits of both. As we discussed in class, everything the instructors were saying could not be true, but the power of the mind made me believe...
Post a Comment
Read more