My Yoga Experience

My yoga experience...it has been interesting, to say the least. I was actually really looking foward to taking this class. I was not disappointed. I had no prior knowledge of yoga or many of the things that we had learned about this semester. When beginning my practice I really thought I was going to have a lot of trouble with the postures, but that wasn't the case for the most part. The exception being the head and shoulder stands for the most part, as well as a few others. 
We talked about yoga and ritual. Ritual in nature itself and how the space we practiced in could also be ritualized. To me, I feel that yes yoga is a ritual, or it can be depending on the person. Obviously, this would not pertain very much to those who use it as a physical fitness routine. For those that use it as a spiritual means or as part of a spiritual practice, it would definitely be considered a ritual. The space you practice in could be ritual in nature as well. Yet again not if it looks like a fancy gym for those classes that focus on the physical fitness aspect. For places that use it in a spiritual sense the way they decorate, or the music they could pick would give a ritual feel. For example, the Hindu Temple that I spoke about going to in one of my previous journal entries. 
The physical culture of yoga is very much alive. Especially here in the U.S., It has been turned into a way to make money more than anything. That can easily be seen in the multitude of clothing brands that focus solely on yoga attire. The various props that you can buy that have become highly over priced. Also, the amount of videos and books that a person can buy is crazy. 
Throughout the semester we had a chance to try out various styles of yoga, as well as a meditation technique. I enjoyed getting to try each of them. Although if I had to pick I think that in class Iyengar was probably my favorite. The props were really helpful. Especially for me because I'm not very flexible. Overall though I would have to say my favorite was Yin Yoga. Which is the style that Stevee taught us in her class on Tuesday nights on campus at the Lodge. I liked that the most because it seemed to incorporate various poses from all the different styles that we had tried in class. I also liked that it is less strenouos than some of the other styles. For me, as a beginner, I think it made me feel more comfortable starting out with that style as opposed to say something like Bikram or Ashtanga. 
Yoga as a community is an easy thing to see. Everyone wants to feel as though they are a part of something. When it comes to yoga its the same. The large classes where everyone seems to know each other make it even easier to spot. When people develop a sense of community it makes them want to continue doing yoga so they can spend time with their community. 
We also talked about yoga as a medicine and as a treatment for addictions and mental illness. As an actual medicine that can treat an illness or cure a disease I just can't believe. Even though some of the texts we read this semester said that it was possible to cure all illnesses with yoga I don't beleive it. As far as using it as a treatment for addictions and mental illnesses I beleive it could be implemented. Not as a sole treatment though, and not in all cases. I believe it could be used as part of a balanced treatment program that incorporates other things such as medicines and therapy. 
The last thing that we tried was a meditation practice. I did find it interesting. Although, I have a hard time not fidgeting and get easily distracted. Meditation for me just didn't really seem like a relaxing thing. Mostly because I was too worried about trying to stay focused on the actual meditation. As far as using yoga as a form of meditation. I think this could be done. Especially if it's one of the various breath work practices. 
Overall, I think taking this class was really fun and informative. I think that yoga has many uses that range from spiritual to physical. I also think that it has become somewhat of an overly commercilized cash cow. At the end of the day though yoga is never going to be or mean the same thing for any two people, and as long as you go into it with an open mind and find the right teacher it can be an amazing experience.

Spiritual Practice

I believe yoga can be taught as a spiritual practice. I do not think that yoga means the same thing to any two people, and because of this, each individual person is going to take from it what they need. Also, it will be for each of those people something completely different. It could be a spiritual practice, or a strictly physical practice, or even a combination of both. In our specific class, we do not really touch too much on the spiritual aspect of yoga, or whether it is spiritual. Since our group is so diverse it would be hard to make our class a spiritually based class because it could possibly offend someone who is religious or has their own spiritual beliefs. The individual themselves can seek to find a spiritual nature in the class, but they would be doing so on their own. 

Pranayama & Practice

In my usual class, we do three different types of pranayama. The three that we do are kapalabhati, ujjayii, and surya bhedana. Most times we will do at least one of these breathwork practices at some point in the class. Although, I'm sure there may have been one or two times when we did not. We usually do not do it for very long. I feel that the purpose for us is first so that we can become familiar with it because many of us had never tried it before. Secondly, I feel that it is used as more of a calming tool and a means to help us focus and block out the various distractions in our practice area. Breathwork, in my opinion, is not the focus of our practice. I feel that if it was we would take part in it much more often and for longer periods of time. Perhaps if we had more time or were able to meet more often we could focus more closely on the breath work. As it is though I feel that Stevee tries to give us a balanced class that touches on the postures as well as the breath work so that we can experience everything. 

Breath Retention and Suspension

In this weeks practice Stevee had us focus on breathing and breath work more than we usually do. This actually worked out well because it was part of what we were discussing in class this week. Also, my allergies have been extremely bad so I was wondering how things like alternate nostril breathing would help with that. Surprisingly the alternate nostril breathing actually did help. It felt like it relieved some of the sinus pressure and I was having less trouble breathing through my nose. It's been over a day since the practice and I'm still having less pressure and an easier time breathing. I'm not sure about all the outrageous claims that breath work is supposed to give you, but I'm happy with being able to breathe semi-normally again. 

Vipassana Meditation

This weeks in class practice was a meditation practice. Marcello was very nice and had a very laid back attitude. He seemed very informed about not only meditation but the effects it has on an individual in the physical as well as mental aspects. I enjoyed his presentation showing the different slides of the brains and how long-term meditation can cause changes. As for the actual meditation we only got to do this for about twenty minutes. I got a little antsy towards the end, but I figured that would be the case. Had we done a full hour or so I probably would have had a lot more trouble sitting still and concentrating. Sitting still for prolonged periods is a problem I've had my whole life. I get fidgety so I never really gave meditation a thought because I didn't think I'd be able to fully invest myself into it. Although, maybe after a great deal of time and practice I could. I definitely felt sleepy afterward and having insomnia anything that can make me sleepy in that short of a time is something I'm interested in learning more about. 

Yoga as Meditation

In the class, I attend it is only one hour long, so we do not really have time to include a proper meditation into our practice. Although, Stevee does have us do I guess kind of a mini-meditation at the beginning. We will close our eyes and she tells us to focus on what we want to get from practice that day or what we went to accomplish. In a way, this is sort of similar to meditation, but because of time constraints, we can only do this for a short period. If we had a longer class I'm fairly sure that Stevee would definitely incorporate some type of meditation into the class. 

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Since there was not a prompt listed for this week I just decided to relate my out of class practice to what we have been talking about in class this past week. On the blog, it has what are called the 8 Limbs listed. The first is restraint. This encompasses things such as not lying or stealing. We do not ever really talk about these things during our class. Although, they seem to be basic things that every person should be restrained from, to begin with. The second is observance. This limb talks about things such as cleanliness and self-study, as well as other things. Of the things listed on the blog cleanliness is probably the one thing we do not touch on in class. Things like discipline and self-study we do touch on. Stevee has given out her email in order for us to contact her about a pamphlet that talks about the Tibetan 5 Rites so that we can practice them at home. She also talks to us about just practicing in general on our own. The third is posture or physical exercise. We do postures in every class, so this limb is the easiest to relate to my out of class practice. The fourth limb is breath control. Stevee does go over a few of the different breathing techniques with us. We usually do at least one of them in each practice. Number five is sublimation or withdraw from the senses. I don't really think this one relates too much to my class. At least not that I can think of. Number six is attention. This one we constantly have to use in my class. Due to the practice space, there are quite a few distractions, so Stevee is constantly telling us to pick a point in the room and focus on it and block everything else out. The seventh limb is concentration. Meditation or meditating on things isn't really something that we get to do much in our class. We don't have much time together so we usually spend most of it on postures or breath work. The final limb is meditation. As I said meditation isn't really a part of our weekly classes. Although Stevee does ask if any of us are taking a meditation class or meditating on our own, so we do talk about it we just don't really have the time needed to do that limb justice.