Posts Tagged ‘yoga’

Yoga Revolution

Saturday, February 21st, 2009

I recently joined the 45-day Yoga Revolution at the Yoga and Healing Center in Scotch Plains, NJ.  The idea is to focus on these 45-days and include as much yoga as you can. Each participant chooses their own goal for how many classes they would like to attend on a weekly basis and more importantly, a dedication.  The dedication can be anything that you wish, and you will dedicate each practice to whatever it is that you choose.  I’ve chosen transformation.  I chose Transformation because with the coming spring I feel it is time to grow and move toward our higher goals.  Soon, all of nature will be awakening in the Northeast United States.  We are connected to this cycle and should honor it with our choices.  For this reason, I’m keeping the idea of transformation as rebirth and growth toward my goals.

Those that know me know that my main passion is Hung Ga, a style of Gung Fu.  Before finding Hung Ga, I was frequently attending Ashtanga yoga classes at the Yoga and Healing Center.  This was almost 2 years ago now.  I truly enjoyed the practice of Ashtanga at that time, but found even more enjoyment in gung fu.  My wife has continued her yoga practice all through these past two years.  She has developed greatly in terms of her own practice as well as a member of the community at the studio.  She has attained her 200 hour yoga training certification from the Yoga Alliance and will often teach classes when a substitute is needed.  I am impressed and inspired to see her maintaining her dedication to all the positive things that come through Yoga.  So when I heard of the 45 day Yoga Revolution, I knew I had to join.

I joined the yoga revolution for several reasons.  The first reason being that I think its vitally important to share a mutual interest and love in marriage.  There’s something about practicing yoga together that is much more fulfilling that going through it on your own.  It’s not something that I can easily put into words, but its there.  I think that when we leave, we both feel reconnected in a positive way. I want to maintain and strengthen this bond.  This is the primary and most important reason that I’ve joined the yoga revolution.

Another reason that I’ve joined is because I understand that yoga is extremely beneficial to the body in many ways.  It is known to regulate the body in terms of blood pressure and stress, and also for flexibility.  I’m sure that the movement, stretching, compression, twisting, and inversion all promote a healthy circulation and flow of lymph.  All these benefits are gifts that I am striving to give to my body.

Kitty would likely continue her practice in these 45 days whether or not I decided to pick up the practice again, but the stars aligned in such a way that I will be able to attend at least 2 classes with her each week.  I’ve already attended the first two, and will attend my third tomorrow morning.  I’m already looking forward to it.

Return to Ashtanga

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

Our June 9th I returned to my ashtanga practice.  I went back to the studio where my wife has been going with great commitment for the past year.  It was a sentimental moment as I thought back on all the good memories we had of going to classes together while my train was approaching the station.  Yoga presents a lot of challenges, and for me, brought some of my mind patterns to the fore front.  It was not just a physical challenge, but an opportunity for introspection and growth.

I was sore for the whole week following June 9th.  I will likely be sore for the week after tonight, which is only my second class in my return to Ashtanga.  However it will soon pass, and I believe I will find myself stronger, more flexible, and less sore after getting back into it.

For the uninitiated I would like to say that yoga is like baskin robins.  There’s 32 flavors or more.  Some styles are slow, others are fast, some hold positions longer, some focus on movement, other on stillness.  There’s a great variety, so dont be surprised when someone tells you that their yoga class was challenging or exhausting.  I find ashtanga to be a very challenging workout.  I usually leave drenched in sweat, even in the cold winter months.

During my time away from ashtanga, I focused more on Hung Ga.  Hung Ga has many aspects, and its root is horse stance.  There is a strong emphasis on building the foundation, which is most notably horse stance.  I have no great experience in this martial art, but I can say that my legs are much stronger than they used to be.  I have found this training to have really improved some aspects of my yoga practice.  I felt myself sinking further  into Warrior 1 and other postures that focused on bending the knee to support nearly the full body weight.  Some of my training brothers may cringe to hear it, but I find that the two methods of training, though they are very different, compliment each other nicely.  Today I had a landmark realization in my vinyasas.  I realized that I could nearly swing my body between my arms from sitting by clenching my abdomen as if i was being kicked in the stomach.   That sudden contraction while lifting my body with my arms would cause my legs to swing backward.  I felt more momentum in this vinyasa transition that ever before, and it felt good.  I could really see it developing into real yoga someday.  Another bit of fun was finally being able to transiton from insect (or firefly) into crow. I never understood how this was humanly possible, until I watched my wife do it  next to me tonight.  I thought I would give it a try, and though my feet touched the floor a bit as I moved them from front to back, I was able to do it!  Twice!  I was never able to do this before tonight, so I’m quite pleased.  It’s so encouraging to be able to understand new transitions and movements.