Discovering Yoga!

            In my opinion, yoga is not taught as a spiritual practice. Though it does absolutely encourage the person doing the yogato dig deeper within, I believe non spiritual people would be able to do a practice and not feel as though they are missing something. Yoga does not preach, it only encourages. I say that because often the sentences during meditation time do not start with “you should” or commands, they are often suggestions. This makes a difference than commands because it allows the person performing to not feel as though they are doing something wrong. IF they don't want to do the action, that is also perfectly fine.  There are spiritual aspects to the process of learning yoga, however. It's training the body as well as the mind. It took me about halfway through the semester before I REALLY learned how to calm my mind enough to focus on the postures only. It took me the entire semester to train my body well enough to be able to handle some of the more intense po

       The body is a vehicle for any accomplishment in life, without a doubt. I mean… it is the only way one can do things. Without a body, there is no way anything can get done in a literal sense. A body is seen as a vehicle in a mental way, in my belief, because it is the part doing the action. It is doding the “carrying out” of whatever needs to be done. The role of the body is to be there. Yes, I mean literally to be there… for the mind, that is. The body does the carrying out. The mind wants to run? The body better be ready. The mind wants to sleep, the body better also get ready to sit still. The body is the actual mechanics behind the thoughts.       Similarly, one can look at this in a yoga sense. If the mind wants to reach the divine then it must train the body of the necessary actons to do such things. The body needs to be approached fragily. I dont mean treat it like a china plate, but understand that there are indeed limitations to what the body can do. As much as the mind

  Yoga has been defined in many ways in my practice space because I am practicing virtually through many methods. I have not had one solid definition of what it means overtime to the instructor, but I have seen a common attribute many of the yogis carry through each practice. The idea is that when practicing yoga, one is to be present at the moment. This something I like very much to be reminded of. I feel as though in this day and age we, as humans, are always too focused on the past and the present so much that we entirely forget to focus on what is happening in the now. Yoga has taught me that one can only worry about the decisions they make in the now. I also love this idea because it seems to be the only one that has carried over the practice after practice.  Through this I have gotten to see what decisions I can make in the now which will make me worry less about the past when it comes to it, I think that is so cool. I have not been able to make any connections within this yoga c

Before starting my journey in the yoga world, I understood yoga was used for healing purposes. In previous journal entries I communictaed yoga has a form of healing for both the body and the mind. Yoga is good for the body because it pushes the muscles to stretch further than they would during regular activities. It is also goo for hte mind because it forces relaxation. Yoga takes on the form of a hollistic approach of medicine to many problems, both mental and physical. In some of my health classes we discuss other, non- medical, hollistic approaches to medicine and among those is yoga, specifically when meditation takes place at the end. I feel as though yoga is not expressed as a healing form until typically the last 20 or so minutes of the practice. This is usually when the instructor has the group sit still and think about the past and present but in a whole way. They typically do it in such a way that it does no make otu anxious for what is to come, rather to reflect and guide yo

     Yoga has become widely popularized in the past years, largely based around the idea of white women who shop at lululemon and don't have jobs. Yoga is quite the opposite than that idea and it was not until I took this class that I began to understand this idea. Yoga is largely based around the idea of worship all to reach the greater self without even considering the thought of doing it for anyone but yourself. In recent years, this idea of yoga has transitioned from a ritual practice for the soul to doing it for the appearance of being considered a “yogi.”       Yoga in america has formed a stigma around who is and who is not fit to practice, when in reality it is for anyone who is looking to reach a place in their body they have never found. The stigma has deterred people away from the practice, all because they believe they are not fit when in reality they have no idea. I mentioned it to my mom last week that she should consider sitting in on some of my practices and her res

            This week was good to practice yoga. I felt particularly stressed in terms of school. It seems like none of the professors are empathizing with the fact that we are all stuck at home doing immense amounts of school work. In fact, it seems like they are actually giving MORE work just because we are at home. Well, I was happy for one of those assignments to be yoga. It gives me time for myself and only myself, not time to do something to satisfy another person.  This week I did a meditative style of yoga. The beginning was focused on sitting still and getting into a quite mode of stillness. The practice soon moved into light stretches. The series of stretches helped to emphasize on the importance of stillness rather than pushing the body. I enoyed the calmness as well as the light music in the background. The duration of the video was 60 minutes and I felt ebery minute of it.  Overall, Im happy I had the opportunity to practice this week at my own pace. I am glad I did no