I love yoga. This morning I was feeling kinda down. So I decided to take a whole hour and do an entire yoga class. I picked a restorative class. The hardest pose was downward facing dog. Most of it was done lying down. Exactly what I needed: it helped stretch out my aching back muscles and helped me be happier.
I practice yoga nearly every morning. I’ll wake up, read my scriptures and then spend a half hour, usually completly by myself, to do yoga. I often split hour long classes into two mornings because I feel a half hour is just enough. I’ve actually been doing yoga pretty consistently since I graduated from college. It’s my favorite from of exercise and by the far the one I’ve stuck with through everything.
Yoga is supposed to make you more flexible. It does. But it has also taken me five years to be to the point where I can touch my toes regularly. I’m far from flexible in many areas of my body. I think flexibility takes more time than any other aspect of fitness. The one thing that I like about yoga is it is very non-comptetive. You don’t push past the pain. So sometimes it takes a little longer to increase in fitness level than other methods. But I’m also hardly ever more than minorly sore, which is very nice and one reason I’ve stuck with it.
Yoga really is for anyone. Some poses are hard, but I’ve learned over the year the value of modifying a pose to fit your skill level. Forcing into any pose often just makes the whole practice worthless. Learning to back off and work on proper alignment and breath is far more important. Gradually, you get better too. Although I still can’t do most arm balances, a headstand, handstand, or anything that is crazy. But I can do poses pretty easily that I at one time found strenuous.
I love doing yoga through pregnancy too. It’s easy to modify things with a growing belly and still get a decent workout in. But mostly now, I focus on more restorative practices. Nothing hard, just work on releasing on the muscles that get all tight due to a huge tummy.
I have taken one yoga class, two years ago in college. But mostly I like doing it home and stream videos offline. There is tons out there. Yoga Today was one of the first sites I found, and I still love all the teachers. I usually do the free class there every week. You Tube has a lot, including some shorter practices from Yoga Today, and lots of other teachers. This teacher is great for getting a good sweat. I’ve done some videos off of Yoga Journal too. There is also a series on BYU TV I visit. (That’s where my class today came from. They have pregnant ladies on there too, which is nice when you are pregnant.) Hulu actually has quite a few as well and you get commericial breaks which can be a nice thing.
Peter sometimes joins me if he’s up early. Mostly this means I don’t get as good a practice in, but he can do a great downward facing dog. And he loves getting out his own mat.
