thetatiana (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thetatiana) wrote2006-11-06 10:33 am
thetatiana) wrote2006-11-06 10:33 am
Yoga
Leeann is absolutely my favorite yoga instructor ever! Jorge and Grisha came with me to her class last year, when she was very pregnant. She's about five feet tall, and was about 7 months along then, and she pwned all of us. Jorge pointed out how funny it is that she says in such a calm reasonable tone of voice such impossible things like "now bend forward and reach around behind your thigh and between your legs around your other thigh then lift to balance your weight on one index finger". Another thing I love is how she says things like "allow your right leg to float up toward the ceiling". Hello? Gravity pulls downward on this planet, and air is not denser than my leg!
But every time I take Leeann's class, I get all excited about yoga and want to practice every single day. I really should start doing it at home, because unfortunately Leeann only teaches one class every two weeks that I can attend. Also, Jorge and Grisha need to know that Leeann was much easier back when she was pregnant! She was totally slacking then. (laughs) Now she's taken it to another level, seriously. I want so badly to be able to do everything she has us do in her class, but for now I have to sit out a round every now and then to recover, yesterday only three times in an hour and a half, so I feel great!
Yoga makes you strong, flexible, centered, and poised. It is good for upper body, lower body, core, everything but cardio (although most yoga classes leave me panting and dripping with sweat) and explosive motion (you generally flow smoothly from one pose to the next, with long pauses in the poses).
Here are some of the poses I like best. All these pictures are from Yoga Journal.
Side Plank Pose (Vasisthasana) My arm shakes a lot on this one.
Half Moon Pose (Ardha Chandrasana) This one is fun to try to balance in. Sometimes I fall. =)
Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana) Most people only make a straight line between knees and shoulders, not a curve like this person can do. This feels really good in your back.
Plow Pose (Halasana) Going back and forth between candle (shoulder stand) and plow is really fun and *hard*.
Pigeon Pose (Eka Pada Rajakapotasana)
This one we just do the leg part of, with the back leg flat on the ground. Almost nobody can do the full expression of the pose, shown here.
(Jorge: "What kind of a pigeon looks like that? A road kill pigeon?")
All these poses feel really good. It's a feeling like you had when you were a little kid, of being very connected to your body and just feeling relaxed and soft and indescribably good all over. Yoga rawks! I hope I can take my practice to a higher level. I'm trying to either swim or do yoga every day now. I'd like to become a certified instructor eventually. I guess practicing on my own would be a good start for that. =)
I would love to be able to study under Leeann for every class. She reminds you over and over of the correct form, so that you eventually remember every part of it. For instance, in downward facing dog pose (Adho Mukha Svanasana), she reminds us each time to drop our heels toward the floor, rotate our arms outward, hold our heads loosely, press our hearts toward our upper thighs, spread our fingers wide on the floor with the middle finger pointing forward, lift our hips toward the ceiling, remember to breathe deeply, then she reminds us that it's supposed to be a resting pose (laughs). For me this is not resting. =)
This is my favorite pose of all, that we do each class at the very end. By then we've really earned it, and I can relax more deeply lying on a hard floor at the end of yoga class than on the softest bed in ordinary circumstances. This one is called corpse pose (Savasana). I'm very good at this one. =)
But every time I take Leeann's class, I get all excited about yoga and want to practice every single day. I really should start doing it at home, because unfortunately Leeann only teaches one class every two weeks that I can attend. Also, Jorge and Grisha need to know that Leeann was much easier back when she was pregnant! She was totally slacking then. (laughs) Now she's taken it to another level, seriously. I want so badly to be able to do everything she has us do in her class, but for now I have to sit out a round every now and then to recover, yesterday only three times in an hour and a half, so I feel great!
Yoga makes you strong, flexible, centered, and poised. It is good for upper body, lower body, core, everything but cardio (although most yoga classes leave me panting and dripping with sweat) and explosive motion (you generally flow smoothly from one pose to the next, with long pauses in the poses).
Here are some of the poses I like best. All these pictures are from Yoga Journal.
Side Plank Pose (Vasisthasana) My arm shakes a lot on this one.
Half Moon Pose (Ardha Chandrasana) This one is fun to try to balance in. Sometimes I fall. =)
Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana) Most people only make a straight line between knees and shoulders, not a curve like this person can do. This feels really good in your back.
Plow Pose (Halasana) Going back and forth between candle (shoulder stand) and plow is really fun and *hard*.
Pigeon Pose (Eka Pada Rajakapotasana)
This one we just do the leg part of, with the back leg flat on the ground. Almost nobody can do the full expression of the pose, shown here.
(Jorge: "What kind of a pigeon looks like that? A road kill pigeon?")
All these poses feel really good. It's a feeling like you had when you were a little kid, of being very connected to your body and just feeling relaxed and soft and indescribably good all over. Yoga rawks! I hope I can take my practice to a higher level. I'm trying to either swim or do yoga every day now. I'd like to become a certified instructor eventually. I guess practicing on my own would be a good start for that. =)
I would love to be able to study under Leeann for every class. She reminds you over and over of the correct form, so that you eventually remember every part of it. For instance, in downward facing dog pose (Adho Mukha Svanasana), she reminds us each time to drop our heels toward the floor, rotate our arms outward, hold our heads loosely, press our hearts toward our upper thighs, spread our fingers wide on the floor with the middle finger pointing forward, lift our hips toward the ceiling, remember to breathe deeply, then she reminds us that it's supposed to be a resting pose (laughs). For me this is not resting. =)
This is my favorite pose of all, that we do each class at the very end. By then we've really earned it, and I can relax more deeply lying on a hard floor at the end of yoga class than on the softest bed in ordinary circumstances. This one is called corpse pose (Savasana). I'm very good at this one. =)