Blog 8

 Today's yoga session was supervised by Jen Kretzer, who practiced shivananda. As I am a visual learner and perfectionist, I was relieved that she practiced with us while simultaneously facilitating the lesson. Because of this I was confident of performing my pose. This was my first time doing shivananda practice. I was exposed to new facets of yoga such as methods of pranayama that I had not realized existed as the open/close breathing of the nostril. I can honestly say that it is my favorite so far, now that I have encountered shivananda. I'm not sure if it was this kind of yoga itself or Jen's teaching, or both, but I was  interested in the class. To further explore my new found choice, I am interested in taking another shivananda class. I appreciated the cohesion of the series in which we practiced. Jen started the technique of pranayama, followed by a warm up. This time around the feeling of easing into the exercise allowed for a stronger quality of experience. Next were asanas done in repetitions and asanas meant to stretch, soothe, and relax soon afterwards. Throughout the session, I enjoyed the intermittent "corpse pose." The class was taught at a pace for beginners, but this helped me keep up by recovering a few breaths and allowing my body to rest because at the moment my stamina is not the best. Jen did an excellent job of approaching our yoga session as a lesson for beginners. With each pose she listed modifications, she gave tips on how to injure yourself, and the advantages that come with unique asanas. She recommended simple asanas that helped to increase my heart rate. I would characterize her teaching style as being bold, yet enjoyable. She spontaneously introduced us to the headstand by giving us hints on how to begin the execution process. Other positions were added, such as backbends, which made me even more relaxed as I am familiar with them as a gymnast from my past. Overall, I liked how she went outside of the box, but her audience was still welcoming. Her style of energy and teaching led to my new understanding of practicing shivananda.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 2

 This week I wanted to take a more challenging yoga class. I wanted to see what I was capable of and what I'm not capable of. Also, I don't have the greatest flexibility but that's something I wanted to work on. This class was 30-40 minutes long and called advanced Vinyasa yoga flow. This yoga dealt with core, leg and balancing. We began with a laying position on our backs. She told us to bring our knees to the chest. We did small motions of moving our hips right and legs and doing the same with our ankles. The next motion was like a situp but we kept our knees to our chest and just brought the head up to the knees. I did this motion a few times and it burned my core I was working up a sweat. I'm not someone that's flexible especially because I have big legs. This motion was to stretch out our hamstrings. So our legs would just go straight up while your back is still laying. I could not get my legs to go all the way up straight it had a significant bend to it. The m
Read more

Weekly Practice Journal

 This is my first time experiencing yoga. I, unfortunately, couldn't attend a live class due to my schedule this week, I searched up a video on youtube for yoga beginners. The title of the video was "10-minute morning yoga for beginners. We first started off sitting in a traditional seated manner such as crossing your legs on a mat. Then we started to place my hands on my knees breathing in and out through my nose. She said to pull your chest forward and lift your chin up and to do a big inhale and exhale to round the spine. She said to tuck my chin and inhale open chest forward chin up and to exhale to round cave my chest chin down and come back to the center . We did this motion a few times and moved on to the next motion. We started to reach our hands out past my sides so my fingertips barely touch the ground and to reach my left arm up and overhead as your right palm flattens down on the ground. We did a big inhale and exhale to switch sides, where the left hand comes down
Read more

Blog 11

I had a Full Body Yoga class taught by Sarah Beth Yoga today. It was a thirty-minute video on Youtube. Working on my versatility and power was the emphasis. She expressed doing the asanas while breathing with any shift as well. I also wanted to mimic the sacred space and allow a great space of breathing. I decided to go to my balcony where the sun was shining and there were bird chirping, plants around me. I could taste the fresh clean air going in my body.
Read more