Monday, February 10, 2014

Yoga

Throughout my years of doing yoga on and off, I have asked myself countless times if I am either a) too fat to do yoga and/or b) too tall/long to do yoga. I'm not being self-deprecating at all; I'm completely serious. When I do a forward fold (seated or standing), my stomach feels like it is in the way, and I can't stretch as far as my body feels like it could go. And when I'm in runners lunge, it is hella awkward to keep my hands on the ground in front of me while moving my forward leg back to plank because my knee is already above my elbow and just below my chin. These are actual concerns!

I recently re-started doing yoga in the comfort of my own home (because this princess would rather stay warm at home than brave the "cold" for the 3 minute walk to the gym) with a great app that I got for free from Starbucks. It is called Yoga Studio, and it has 15 minute, 30 minute and 60 minute classes for download. There are 3 levels (Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced) and each level has 5 categories: Relaxation, Flexibility, Strength, Balance and Combination. 

I started by trying a 15 minute Beginner Relaxation class before bed one Sunday evening and I felt so relaxed afterwards. The next night, I tried a 30 minute Beginner Combination. This was a bit more the pace I was looking for to feel like I've had a lazy workout. The next morning I tried a 60 minute Beginner Combination class, and I had found something that was beginner enough so I wouldn't feel intimidated by most of the poses and challenging enough to let me really focus on areas that I wanted to improve on. 

So far, I've done this class 4 times. After the 3rd time I was feeling pretty confident, so I downloaded a 30 minute Intermediate Combination Class. I completed it, but just barely. So I did the 60 minute Beginner Combination Class again and saw a huge difference from the first time I tried it. I was making some progress!

And all because of a little discipline and repetition. Unfathomable... ;0) My stomach isn't going to disappear overnight, so my forward folds still feel chunky; however I've smoothly transitioned from runners lunge to plank without feeling like I'm going to knock myself over with a knee to the elbow or chin.

Here is me doing beginner King of Dancer (Natarajasana I).


As my boss likes to say, onwards and upwards!

1 comment:

  1. My suggestion for any of the positions that make you uncomfortable is to perhaps skip just those positions, but to continue with the other positions. You may lose some of the benefits of those particular positions, but the benefits gained from the others strongly outweigh not doing it at all. And it may actually be that you're too tall for some of the positions. Yoga is geared primarily towards women, and as most women are shorter than you, it'll be geared primarily towards women in the 5'5" and shorter group, so yeah, you might find some positions are just always going to be awkward :)

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