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home practice

Yoga Challenge Day 12 ~ Have a Plan

July 9, 2010

I’ve realized over the last few weeks of daily yoga practice that my time on the mat is much more effective if I have a practice plan in mind when I begin.  That’s probably the largest difference between my current yoga challenge and the one I completed last year.  Last year I seemed to have more of an idea what my daily yoga routine would consist of; this year, not so much, which means I sort of just improvise for a while on the mat before I decide to call it a day.  Although my desire and commitment to practice is strong, I really don’t have the same kind of personal time as I did last year, and heading off to yoga class on a regular basis just isn’t really my thing. I’m definitely all about the home yoga practice , but like most things in life, unless we plan ahead (or even have some goals), we tend to slip away from our idealistic intentions.  And, some of us just need a little more direction than others… That’s why I’m totally pumped that a few days ago I received an e-mail invite from Gaiam Yoga Club to try out their 12 week yoga program taught by Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman.  The home practice course includes guided instruction from Rodney and Colleen where they focus on a different category of yoga posture each week.  One week studying standing poses, another week focusing on sun salutations, then a week on backbends, then twists…you get the picture.  I just enjoyed viewing a video blog post from Rodney and Colleen about the importance of maintaining correct posture and ways to mindfully improve this crucial, but oft-neglected aspect of our daily lives.  As I watched the video and poked around some of the resources on the site, I felt excited to get involved in the community and get started with the program. I now have a plan. I’m starting tomorrow.  I’ll let you know how it goes. Filed under: yoga

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Hip Openers Video from Yoga Journal Home Practice

May 17, 2010

Hip Openers = one of my favorite reasons for practicing yoga asana :)   I don’t know why anyone would dread hip openers.  I like them so much I often sit cross-legged (lotus or half lotus) in my chair at work.  This is a short, but sweet hip opening sequence from Yoga Journal’s Live Mag channel.  I just completed it, and feel very, very good.  A nice sequence when you only have 20 minutes.

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Yoga Journal says:

Supple hips can ease back pain, give you a more agile gait, and may improve circulation in your legs. But there’s more, says San Francisco yoga teacher Stephanie Snyder. Like the junk drawer your house, the hips are where negative emotions, such as stress, fear, and sadness are energetically held. By doing hip-opening poses like Lunges, Pigeon Pose, Ardha Matsyendrasana (Half Lord of the Fishes Pose), Baddha Konasana (Bound Angle Pose) and others, you free up that space for prana (life force) to move through your pelvis—and to clear out the emotional junk.

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Expand Your Practice with iPhone Yoga Apps

March 15, 2010

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Over the last couple of weeks I’ve accumulated a fair number of yoga apps on my iPod Touch. Though I haven’t played around with them enough to decide which ones I like best, here’s the current list of yoga apps on my iPod [links go to iTunes App Store]:

I did most of the primary series yesterday using the iPhone YogaMat app to follow along with an Ashtanga podcast I downloaded on iTunes. The app thing worked much better than I expected, especially since the full version of the YogaMat app has the primary and intermediate series sequences already programmed in. However, the YogaMat app only has poses, no instruction. The little stick figure guys are great though.

That worked so well that I decided to practice today with Yoga Journal’s iPractice app. The iPractice app has voice instruction and background music to practice with. The full version of iPractice has 15 complete classes. It’s basically Yoga Journal’s “Home Practice” section on steroids. Having some good yoga instruction on my iPod made squeezing yoga practice into a busy day away from home a cinch.

FYI: This weekend only, if you’re looking for a nice yoga app, Authentic Yoga with Deepak Chopra and Tara Stiles is on sale for 99 cents. I bought it for $2.99, so that’s a real good deal. It’s one of the best looking yoga apps I’ve seen and it has tons of great video and audio instruction. Highly recommended!

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