My New-Found Realization…

by jacquelynaharvey: 1/19/11

This past month – I will unfortunately admit – I did not find myself having a strong yoga practice. Between my travels I either did not have the exercise equipment (eg. clothes/yoga mat) or I did not have the space to practice. It made me realize how appreciative I am of having this space while living in Raleigh. Back in Wisconsin there are no yoga studios within 45 minutes of home and I have no room to practice at my house. Literally. But thankfully, I have space here. And having that time away from yoga has really helped me to realize how important it is in my life. I found myself struggling both emotionally and physically throughout the past month. I had not struggled emotionally to that extent since before my time as a regular yogi. People always say that sometimes you need to lose something to realize what it meant to you. Now, I am not saying that I ‘lost yoga’ or anything like that. But not having it as part of my weekly routine had a pretty decent impact on my well-being in a number of different ways. I am actually kind of happy I had this experience because I came to realize how necessary yoga is for me and how appreciative I am of what it does for me as a human being. Yoga really does help the mind, body, and spirit, and now I am all the more excited to share its benefits with others.

My Own Yama

by jacquelynaharvey: 2/19/11

If I were to develop my own Yama it would deal with the concept of committing oneself to engaging in what I would call ‘Complete Communication.’ Often, we do not fully communicate with others and it results in confusion, things being misunderstood, and people’s feelings getting hurt or disregarded. Openly explaining oneself to others is essential in fully conveying the meaning of a message you send to others. For example, if I gave a student a ‘bad grade’ or chastised them for doing something wrong, they would expect me to explain why. I cannot give a student a ‘D’ or an ‘F’ on a paper and then offer no comments or constructive criticism as to what they did wrong. Yet we do this so often with the people we communicate with. We give them our opinions on things but then fail to explain why we feel the way we do. Researchers estimate that 80 percent of our arguments with the individuals close to us are over a lack of communication. Take our yoga classes for example, if we failed to do something correctly, it would be most beneficial for us to know what we did wrong so we could correct it in the future. We would need that communication from others to know what it is we needed to work on. So for my own Yama, I would want everyone to engage in ‘complete communication’ with others. I believe it would result in less confusion and it would help others understand the full meaning behind the words we speak.

My Own Niyama

by jacquelynaharvey: 2/20/11

Focus would be the theme I would choose to develop or work on if I were to create my own Niyama. Too often our focus is on things that do not matter, things that cause us anxiety, or things that make us forget how good life really is. I also feel that people are more productive when they are focused. They do not waste the time they are given but instead put it to good use.

Correlating with the idea of focus, an extremely high percentage of children and adults today have been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. I feel that rather than prescribing them medication there are other ways to work on improving focus – such as getting rid of so much television. The television use of young children has been correlated to attention deficit disorder in a number of research studies.  If we stop watching so much television our brains will not have to process the millions of images and signals it receives. We can better focus if we do not have so many distractions present in our lives.

For me, to improve my focus, I would commit to meditating every single day – even if for only 10 minutes. It would be a start. I would also commit to limiting my time around televisions and/or the internet as there are so many distracting elements to both of these.

Home practice

From Scribe:

One of my new year goals is to try and establish a home yoga practice. it’s hard. I did 35 minutes today. I’m trying the warm up/core exercises we talked about at our Dec. retreat and then sun salutations. I think it’ll help me most if I don’t put any internal pressure to “get it” right away. I need to just work up to having a home practice I feel I can do comfortably even if it’s super basic.

Here’s the little routine I did. If anyone thinks there might be something helpful to add onto this please let me know. For now I’m just working on getting up to 5 sets of sun salutations. Yikes.

Leg lifts for 10breaths each leg

Bicycle Leg rotations for 10 breaths each leg

Side Leg lifts for 10 breaths each leg

Side leg lifts with bending knees for 10 breaths each leg

Bridge pose for 20 breaths with a 3breath rest in between

Sun Salutation #5- two sets each leg.

And I was TIRED after only that!

HELP!

 

effort less

11/30/10 by intoyoga53

We can all learn from the whales. If you look at this photo this large mammal is not creating any splash in the water. They gracefully, without any extra effort, move. I am sure they are breathing in perfect rythym as well. And look at the healthy arch in the spine. Nature has this figured out — they do not over think it like we do.

Dr Oz

12/06/10 by intoyoga53

It is amazing to me how “mainstream” yoga is becoming. In the sunday Parade magazine there is an article from Dr. Oz says that says he never  misses his daily routine- even if it is only 7 minutes-

Some great quotes- He says, “ Yoga gives me more energy that coffee. It helps burns calories. It sets me up for a good day”

This seemed like some great anecdotes to share if teaching a new group-

Gayatri Mantra

I have reserached the Mantra to better understand the meaning.

Here is a brief translation from eaglespace.com

Oh God, the protector, the basis of all life, who is self existent, who is free from all pains and whose contact frees the soul from all troubles, who pervades the universe and sustains all, the creator and energizer of the whole universe and and the giver of happiness, who is worthy of acceptance, the most excellent, who is pure and the purifier of all, let us embrace that very God so that he may direct our mental faculties in the right direction.

Hope this is helpful to you as you continue your studies this month.

Reflections on Immersion Week 1
Wow- What an emotional weekend—I moved from anxious and nervous to feeling really good about my decision to take this course.
I expect that sections of the materials and experience will be more challenging than others, but overall I am excited to continue the journey-  Anonymous

Week 2-I find myself more aware of my breath and state of calmness and the same in others. Have been reading eastern body western mind and observing people quite a bit while on vacation.-Anonymous