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Final Journal Reflection

 Final Yoga Journal Reflection     This semester marks the semester that I practiced yoga the most. While I have been doing yoga for about six years, I only really used it for a specific purpose. For example, I would do a flow for stress when I was feeling anxious. When I felt like my muscles were getting tight I would do a flexibility practice. Previously, I never did yoga for any other reason but a physical exercise and a way for me to relax into my body. This semester, I've taken yoga more seriously and now the physical asanas are one of the many aspect of yoga that I focus on. Instead of it just being a physical practice, in the last few months I have cultivated it into my life on and off the mat.      Out of all the practices that we participated in as a class, my favorites were Iyengar Yoga and  Sivananda Yoga. I really liked Iyengar Yoga because it is highly customizable and can be tailored to your own personal progress. While I think Iyengar is excellent at marketing by mak
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12/4 Yoga Blog

      This week I didn't have much time to do a yoga practice so I did a 30 minute yoga flow for achieving front splits. This class was taught by Cat Meffan and I took it through Youtube. The front splits has been a pose I've been trying to master for some time now. Back when I used to due gymnastics it came easy to me but now that I've been out of practice for some time, it is a pose that I really want to work toward achieving. Most of the time my hamstrings and hips are where all of my tension is stored so this flow was perfect for that.      In this class, I liked how the teacher catered the flow to preparing for front splits. We did pigeon pose, low lunge, and flowed through other hip and hamstring openers. While I didn't achieve the full pose this time, I got pretty close. I used my blocks to prop my hands up and the pose felt a lot better and less intense that way. Normally when I do this pose without the blocks, I tend to hunch my back or go into the pose too far
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11/27 Blog

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      This week I did another yin yoga practice. Recently, I've been trying to implement a yin yoga practice at least once a week in my routine. I just find it to be the perfect practice when I'm feeling tired or run down and don't feel like doing any other forms of exercise. It's something that's beneficial for my body but without putting too much strain on it or exercising it too hard. I did this practice on Youtube from a teacher named Kassandra. The class was about 40 minutes long.      Specifically in this practice I did find a form of meditation. For example, during one of the more intense poses called toe squat, there was a really intense stretch through my feet. Since I don't stretch out my feet as often as I do my other muscles, the stretch was really intense. Instead of trying to fight the discomfort or completely come out of the pose, I tried my best to just breathe through the sensations and stay in the pose as long as I could. I've done toe squa
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11/20 Yoga Journal

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    Recently I tried Sound Healing after a yoga practice. I took this class through my yoga teacher certification program. The teacher's name was Christine and I took the class on Youtube for a little over an hour. This was my first experience with sound healing and it is the first time that I've felt this transcendental feeling from yoga in a long time.      We started the practice by doing a shorter, restorative inspired flow. Most of the poses were on the ground and they were very slow and gentle to the body. Once we did about 30 minutes of flow, we moved into 5 minutes of mindful breathing. We counted the lengths of our inhales and exhales in a comfortable seated position and then we moved into savasana. Traditionally I just take savasana on my mat but this time, since I knew I was going to be laying down for a while, I decided to take this pose on my bed with a blanket over me. I made sure I felt completely  comfortable and made adjustments like taking off my glasses and a
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Viniyoga

 This week I tried the Viniyoga practice that was included on Week 10 of the syllabus. The practice was focused on the low back and sacrum. This video was about 25 minutes long. One of the things I noticed that is different than other practices we've done is that this one felt more like a physical therapy session. It was very focused on anatomy and alignment, more than our previous practices. I also noticed that the cues were more focused on the body instead of more "yogic" instructions that are more metaphoric in nature. It seemed more like a stretching routine than a yoga practice. Some things that I liked about this practice was the pace. It wasn't too fast or too slow. It really helped me to focus on my alignment. I also liked that each movement had a breath linked to it. I felt like I got more out of the postures when the breath was included in every movement. Each pose built on each other which I also enjoyed. For example, in one pose we started off with a basic
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11/6 Yoga Blog

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      This week we did Sivananda Yoga with Jenn over zoom for about an hour and a half. This was my first time doing  Sivananda Yoga and it's probably my favorite zoom class that we've taken so far. I really liked that the practice is structured in the sense that there's a certain set of postures that are repeated every practice but there is still flexibility in the ability to modify or do different variations. For example, instead of doing headstand we practiced by doing dolphin pose. I liked having a goal posture to work towards instead of pushing my body into these really challenging poses without prior practice.      Another aspect of the practice that I really enjoyed was how it was broken up. I never started a practice with savasana but I felt like it started the practice off the right way. I was more relaxed throughout the practice since we started off with savasana and I felt like I got the most out of the class. I also really enjoyed the breathing exercises we did
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10/30 Yoga Journal

      This past week I tried an online yoga class intended to help with spine health. I took the class over Youtube from a channel called Yoga with Adrienne and the class was about 45 minutes long. Due to taking most of my classes online, my back has been feeling affected by constantly sitting all day. While I wasn't feeling intense back pain I just felt like my posture wasn't as straight as it used to be and I didn't feel as open through my chest.      I really enjoyed this yoga practice and after the practice I felt so much straighter and refreshed. The class moved relatively slow but I enjoyed it because I could feel my body opening with every posture instead of barreling through the practice and then just feeling good afterwards. I also really liked how she linked every movement with the breath. It felt like with every breath my chest was opening and my spine was growing taller. It felt really good to take care of my back problems before the pain worsened and I felt so
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