Advice for Future Yogis

As I culminate my senior project I decided it would be a good idea to write a little advice for people who want to follow in my yoga project-y footsteps. Here are some tips and also a plan for implementing your senior project, yoga style.
1) START EARLY! This is perhaps the most important thing. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR PROJECT FOR THE LAST MINUTE! Especially if it is yoga. Although I have no time in my life I have been sporadically practicing yoga since November.
2) Research before going to classes! Yoga teachers will often tell you to do the downward dog pose or chaturanga and also allude to the yoga philosophy. Having done your research on the history, types, and practice of yoga beforehand will leave you extremely less confused. A really good book is The Science of Yoga by William Broad (I think). It is actually interesting!
3) Determine which type of yoga you want to practice. There are so many types and all have different benefits and intensities. For me I felt that the traditional vinyasa yoga would be best for me (there is no way I wanted to do hot yoga [Bikram yoga])
4) Do at least one home video workout. This is a little bit like research. You will better understand the poses in an actual yoga class if you have some experience under your belt.
5) Don't only do yoga at home. I did this for the majority of my project and it really made me hate yoga. I also never knew if I was doing the poses right.
6) Have fun and clear your mind!
NAMASTE

Why I hate P90X

After months of suffering through that workout out video I have come to the conclusion I really hate it. Here is why.
1) The instructor's, Tony, voice is not soothing at all like the yoga teachers at actual classes. The result of this is that it does not calm you down at all, which is something you do want for yoga.
2) By doing yoga at home you never know if you are doing something right. I am not lucky enough to have my own personal yoga studio at home so I do not have a mirror to see how I am doing. It also makes you way more prone to injuries. I always over  extend my shoulder during those open chest poses and it's really starting to hurt. I hate not getting feedback from the instructor.
3) Yoga X is way too extreme, it doesn't really have the kind of spiritual side thing to it as the classes do. Their main purpose is to make you sweat so you don't really get the effect of mental cleansing as well.
4) Practicing yoga at home provides for far too many distractions and temptations. For example today my mother tried to talk to me about donating my old glasses while I was in the middle of a sun salutation vinyasa and it was really distracting.
5) Doing Yoga at a studio with other people makes me want to try harder because I sort of make competition with them inside my head. Where as at home, I am all by myself and easily just give up when I want to.
Basically I hate Yoga X very, very much and I am so glad I am almost done with my project. Yoga is hard and I am not sure if I would continue it in college. But maybe I will find a class that I really love and change my mind?

Yoga of the mind?

When I first started my senior project I had a memorable conversation with a coworker. He cleaned a yoga studio in order to take free classes there and I was asking him about his yoga experiences. "Yeah, I've pretty much mastered yoga of the body, now I'm working on yoga of the mind," he said. I had no idea what this meant but just enthusiastically smiled and commented on how cool that was. Unfortunately he was fired not long after that conversation so I never really got know what yoga of the mind is.
So this past week I have been slowly reading this website (it's not long, but I keep getting busy) which is trying to explain yoga of the mind. It is one of the more confusing things I have read lately. http://www.teosofia.com/Mumbai/7408yoga.html
Anyways I think I need to know more about the history of yoga in order to understand. "Soul and mind have to be firmly united on one plane, under the afflatus of the overbrooding Divine Parent, Atma-Buddhi."  All I am getting from this is that in order to achieve yoga of the mind you have to put your soul ahead of your desires, passions, feelings, and emotions. Also that self-purification should always precede meditation. Yoga of the mind does not seem like an easy task at all and certainly appears to be something I would never get around to accomplishing.
In other news I went to one more class at the gym with my friend and it was just the same, but I felt really sick so just ended up sitting around. It seems like all yoga instructors have a really calming voice. I have also been doing P90X Yoga and hate it so much. Maybe I will write a blog post about why P90X Yoga is terrible. I have also been reading an interesting book, the Science of Yoga. I will write more about that later though.

Finally!

Today I finally attended a yoga class! It was my first time practicing yoga not at home and I was really nervous about it, even more so because my friend was going to sneak me into her gym to do it. However once I got over how cool this gym was (LA Fitness) I looked around at all the types of people getting ready for the class and realized I had nothing to worry about. One of my favorite things about yoga is that people of all skill levels can participate together. 

The class started out slow, we did simple stretches as the teacher talked about exhaling the staleness of our mind and growing into the earth. Truthfully, I found it hard not to laugh at this point because I was so used to my P90X yoga which involved none of this, for lack of a better word, "sacredness" aspect. Towards the middle of the hour long class we started doing some poses which got me sweating and shaking. One I remember in particular was the Chair pose. 

However most of the poses and session were just stretches. Okay I shouldn't say just stretches, because boy did they hurt! But it was a lot calmer than my P90X, and I was very happy for that. The instructor had a nice soothing voice and it was a very nice atmosphere, quiet too. We spent the last five minutes just lying in the corpse pose which was such a wonderful moment. My whole body was so relaxed and my mind was clear. I never really got the "clearing your mind" thing of yoga but during that session I really didn't have anything on my mind except my breathing! Awesome! 

I felt so stretched and well after my yoga session, like I do after physical therapy. I just don't feel that way after my video yoga so I think it will be hard to not come back to classes! I will probably think of other things to say as soon as I post this- but I will save that for another blog post. Namaste! (OH! The person said Namaste at the end which was really exciting!) And another thing! I am becoming more and more interested in the cultural phenomenon that is yoga and intend to look into that during my vacation in Florida.

Yoga-X

I did 15 minutes of yoga this morning...because I am really slow at getting ready and that's all I have time for. But it was kind of nice! I noticed I'm getting a little better at some of the things. But there are still a lot of cons to using at home videos. I have no idea what some things are, but the yoga instructors expect that I do. I also never have any idea if I'm doing something right. I am liking this habit of doing yoga every morning. Hopefully it will stick! I need to read more about yoga and get really into my senior project! But it's happening so soon!

Starting

As a second semester senior I only have five classes during the day so I am using my extra time for my senior project seeing as I am quite behind my timeline. So this morning I decide to wake up early and do some yoga, a grand way to start out my day, I thought. Well I couldn't get out of bed and by the time I finally started the yoga I only had 10 minutes! So I found a beginners video and clicked on it, all ready to wake up and be all excercisey. The video started out nice, Child's Pose and Downward Dog. I can do those, no problem. Then the lady started moving so fast and not describing what she was doing, I got so lost. "Do the Chdhjkaf pose and then the Vialsjdfkl" she said over and over. So I got about four minutes in and gave up and just did some abs instead. I really need to make it to an actual class, but I am scared! I would love to start out my day with yoga though, think about how lovely that would feel!

The Culture Of Yoga

As my mind wandered off during yoga today, I started thinking; Why is yoga so popular? I also recently read Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" which talks about why trends become trends. So I am wondering when, why and how did yoga tip? Why do people want to suffer so much and wear incredibly tight clothes? I plan on researching this and maybe even making it part of my senior project, because it really does interest me.