My final project turned out really well, and I learned so much during this project. Yoga is definitely something I will continue doing after this intensive after all the benefits I’ve seen in myself, and after learning how much it can truly change people’s lives. I think that yoga is often thought of as a trendy form of exercise for flexibility and getting fit, and because of the stereotypes associated with it, many people shy away from it. What people don’t understand, is that it is one of the most adaptable forms of exercise. All types of people can do it: people with disabilities, old people, thin people, healthy people, fat people, flexible people, young people, weak people, truly anybody can do yoga. People also tend to see it as only a form of exercise for the body, while it is mostly a form of exercise for the mind. As Shannon Connell said “it’s not just stretching the body, it’s stretching the mind.” I think this is something super important to understand, because you won’t get as much out of the practice if you just go into it to get stronger or more flexible, you need to go into it conscious of your mind and your breath. One of the things that amazed me the most during my time in Boulder was how much yoga impacted the people I spoke to. All of the instructors I spoke with had very traumatic incidents while they were practicing yoga or that caused them to start yoga. Yoga healed them from these traumas, whether physical or mental, and helped them become better people. Yoga is truly a very powerful practice; it has the power to straighten a hunchback, allow someone with anxiety and depression to get off their medication, heal injuries, bring purpose into one’s life, and steer someone away from addiction. I was lucky enough to hear first hand the ways in which yoga enhanced these people’s lives so much, and I hope one day I will get to experience this myself.
My goal going into this project was to find the best yoga for me. What I discovered was that depending on how I feel, physically or mentally, all of the styles of yoga (at least the ones I looked into and practiced) can be good for me. When I feel like I want some exercise I may opt for a faster Vinyasa style class or hot class, if I am feeling burnt I might do better with a Yin class, and if my hips are really hurting me I might do a more healing Restorative class. One of the most challenging things for me during this experience was reaching out and speaking to the different instructors. It is really out of my comfort zone to interact with new people, especially to do so alone and to ask them questions. By the end of my time, I definitely felt more comfortable speaking to the instructors. I was very anxious to speak with Shannon, and as a result, I was awkward and didn’t ask very good questions, but by the time I spoke with Haley, it felt like much more of a comfortable conversation than an interview. I would definitely say I learned a lot from this experience and it was very rewarding. I am so glad I decided to focus on this for my independent study because yoga has already helped me so much. I hope to continue growing my yoga practice both on and off the mat.
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Somehow I managed to keep pushing back going to a hot yoga class, so I had to do that today. I was really dreading this class because I really hate being hot, and in the heated class that I took earlier I was sweating so much, so I was worried for how hot this class would be. I also wasn’t sure what to expect; I didn’t know if this class would be more of a flow class or slower, deeper stretches.
The hot yoga class was set to 105º with 60% humidity. I walked into the room and immediately felt smothered. The class was 75 minutes and started with lots of standing poses and balances. Towards the end we did more stretches and poses laying on the mat. This class was not a flow at all. It mostly consisted of holding postures for 30 to 60 seconds multiple times. A frequently practiced version of hot yoga is the Bikram series. Bikram yoga is …….. I think the Yoga Pod series was similar to the Bikram series in that we did all of the postures twice, but there was a variation on what postures we actually did. At one point during class I felt pretty dizzy and a little nauseous, but that feeling quickly passed and I was able to keep practicing. By the end of class, the towel I had layed on my mat was completely soaked in sweat. However, because I was so hot, Shavasana was so much more rewarding and relaxing than usual. During Shavana, the instructor passed out ice cold, damp, lavender scented towels to lay on our faces. This felt so incredible and it made the entire sweaty, smelly, challenging class worth the it. Although parts of the hot yoga class were enjoyable, I don’t love it like some people do. I recognize all of its benefits, and while I wouldn’t really want to do it again, I know it is something I should do because I may come to love it through practicing it again. Today I planned to go to the same classes I took last Tuesday: Shannon’s Vinyasa class followed by her Restorative class. However, in the morning, one of the instructors I had been in touch with finally got back to me and suggested we meet today. Because the classes weren’t until later, I was still able to go to them as well as meet with Haley Kalb.
After speaking with Haley, I went to Shannon’s Vinyasa class at Yoga Loft. Like last week, this class had the perfect balance between relaxation and challenging and pushing the body. The Restorative class afterward was also very relaxing. While traditional Restorative consists of holding poses for 5 or more minutes, we started out with shorter holds of about 3 minutes and then worked up to a few final long holds. My focus was a lot better during this class than in the previous one, and during some of the holds I was able to just focus on my breath and not acknowledge any of the other thoughts in my head. However, I quickly started thinking again because I was proud I had finally been able to only focus on my breath. After class I asked Shannon if she could look at my Warrier 2 because I always feel very crooked in it. She gave me some suggestions to try and help make my hips more square and said to just be patient because it takes time.
I really enjoyed speaking with Haley Kalb, she gave me some interesting things to think about and was super nice and helpful. I am also happy I got to meet with Shannon again before I leave because she has been so helpful. Today I planned to attend a Vinyasa 2 class at The Little Yoga Studio with Kathleen Shea and then interview her after class. Kathleen was one of the instructors who Shannon recommended I contact because Kathleen was one of her students and she said that Kathleen was so down to earth and so understanding of yoga for someone so young. I really enjoyed the Vinyasa class with Kathleen. It was less physically demanding than most of the other Vinyasa classes I’ve attended, and the structure of the class was also different. While the other Vinyasa classes I’ve gone to have consisted of slowly going through a few poses, turning them into a faster flow, and then making that flow more complicated, in this class we actually did a lot of shorter flows focusing on different parts of the body. This class was also a little slower than most of the other Vinyasa classes I’ve attended which I liked a lot because it gave me a little more time to check in with my body and have some more self expression.
Talking with Kathleen was very rewarding for me and we ended up talking for close to an hour. Her Vinyasa class was also one of the best I’ve taken during my time here, and I really loved how it was structured differently than the other classes I’ve taken. She gave me some great advice for my hip pain and I plan on keeping it in mind during my future practices.
I planned to attend a hot yoga class at Yoga Pod, as well as an Avita yoga class at Yoga Loft today. I was pretty nervous about the hot class because I didn’t really know what to expect, and I don’t like sweating a lot which was the one thing I knew I could expect from hot yoga. Avita yoga wasn’t a style I was originally planning on doing, but I decided to try it out because Shannon told me it would be good for my hips. Avita yoga is a healing yoga consisting of gentle movement and stretches to create more mobility and stability in the body. It is a very good style of yoga for people dealing with injuries, chronic pain, stiffness, and hyper flexibility.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get as much done today as I had hoped to do because I wasn’t feeling well, but I am glad I made it to the Avita class. I am hoping to attend one more Avita class while I am in Boulder to see if I can tell any difference in my hips. I will go to a hot yoga class next week to make up for missing the class I had planned to go to today.
One of the other instructors Shannon Connell suggested I reach out to was Rob Loud. He is a very popular instructor at Yoga Pod. I contacted him and he was willing to meet me today to ask him a few questions. I also attended another Yin yoga class, and I read about the 4th Niyama, self-study.
The Yin class I took today was a little bit more intense than yesterday’s candlelit class. It still was very relaxing and mellow (I think that’s the mood for most Yin classes), but with some more difficult stretches. These poses definitely had a more intense “edge” than last night’s and I had to work a little harder to just breathe through them and to really focus on not tensing up against the stretch. This uncomfortable edge is very important in Yin yoga because it can transfer over into real life: when you can learn just breathe through a difficult pose, you have set into your consciousness that with some deep breaths, you can get through an uncomfortable or stressful situation in life. In Yin though, it’s very important to know the difference between that uncomfortable edge, and actual pain. The instructors today and last night were always emphasizing that you should feel a stretch, but never any pinch or pain. One of the poses we did was hurting and pinching my hip/hip flexor a lot, so I had to modify the pose with a strap to ease the pain. I still felt the deep stretch, but the pinching went away when I used the strap. Everyone has different levels of flexibility and different ailments that prevent them from doing certain things, this is why props and modifications are so important, especially in a style of yoga so focused on deep stretching.
I really enjoyed speaking with Rob Loud today; he had some really interesting experiences and pieces of advice, and I’m really glad I got to speak with him about his yogic journey. I also really liked the Yin class that I took because although it was more intense than yesterday’s class, I was able to focus better on my breath than my thoughts than I have been able to in the past. It was interesting taking the Yin classes two nights in a row because it really gave me a chance to better compare them and my likes/dislikes about them. I am hoping to compare more classes this way in the future. Today I went to two yoga classes. I attended a heated Vinyasa class (this is different than Hot yoga which is practiced in a temperature of around 105º when doing the Bikram sequence) and a candlelit Yin class. In the heated Vinyasa class, the room was set to 95º with 40% humidity. The heat encourages deeper stretches, stress relief, and detoxification through sweat. In the Yin class, the room was very warm, and it was lit by candles all along the walls. Yin was one of the styles I was most anxious to try in a classroom setting because the deep stretches can sometimes be very intense, however, this was a very mellow and gentle class.
The heated Vinyasa class was at Yoga Pod. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite as hot as it was, so I wore heavier clothes than I should have. I ended up having to take off my shirt mid-flow to use as a sweat rag because my face was dripping in sweat. This makes me nervous for Hot Yoga because if I was that sweaty during a heated sequence, I am going to be dripping during Hot. Aside from the heat, I really enjoyed this flow. It was definitely more of a workout than yesterday’s Vinyasa class. We focused a lot of shoulder opening and back bending, and by the end my arms were so tired that it was difficult to just hold them up in Warrior One. Depending on my mood, I can really enjoy a yoga flow that makes me sweat and that makes my muscles burn, but sometimes I just need a calm and relaxing practice. After yesterday’s classes and today’s first class, my hips and hip flexors were complaining a lot. I had planned to go to the candlelit Yin Yoga class at The Little Yoga Studio, but my because of the state of my hips, I wasn't really feeling up to it. However, I had already committed, and with Shannon’s words that “the hardest part is showing up” in my head, I decided to go. Thankfully, this wasn’t a super intense Yin class. The stretches we did were mostly light, and although there was still the goal of pushing until the body reached that edge, the stretches were such that the edge was much more comfortable than it has been for me in the past. I really enjoyed the calm mood that the dim light from the candles brought. The room was packed, and I don’t think one more yoga mat could have fit on the floor, but because of the dark and quite, when I closed my eyes, it was easy to feel alone and to simply focus on my breath and what my body was feeling. Today’s classes were very beneficial for me, and I enjoyed doing them both on the same day because of their contrasts. In the Vinyasa class I was constantly moving and constantly flowing in a bright, hot room, while in the Yin class, I was holding stretches for 3-5 minutes and breathing deeply in a warm, dimly lit room. I really enjoyed both of these classes, and they both had aspects I liked and aspects I didn’t like. I think depending on my mood and energy on any specific day, either of these could be the best class for me to take. That’s something I really love about yoga so far: that no matter my energy, mood, schedule, there is always some type of yoga I can do that will agree with me. Today was my second day of focusing on yoga since I’ve been in Boulder. I had a meeting scheduled with a yoga instructor named Shannon Connell who I reached out to over winter break. She was very eager to help me and she even gave me some names of some other instructors who I might benefit from reaching out to. After the meeting, I planned to attend her all levels vinyasa class followed by her restorative yoga class.
all living beings. She lives yoga off the mat by following the Yamas and Niyamas. She started practicing yoga when she was 15 because she had a hunchback and was going to need surgery when a doctor suggested yoga. In just three years, her spine was straight. This was nice for me to hear because it gives me hope for my hip issues. When I asked her about my hips, she suggested learning anatomy, listening to my body, and being patient with myself. She also incorporated some hip openers and pelvis adjusters into her classes for me. Shannon teaches 17 yoga classes a week consisting of Jivamukti (Sanskrit for liberation of the individual soul, a very spiritual based practice), Hot Yoga, Vinyasa, Power Yoga, Restorative Yoga, Yin Yoga, and Forest Yoga.
She really just teaches all of these different styles in order to reach the largest audience possible because yoga saved her life, and she wants to spread it to as many people as she can. Shannon is also a psychologist for girls who have been sex trafficked. As a yoga teacher, students often come to her after class telling her emotional stories and seeking advice. This really was what made her become a psychologist, so that she could communicate the healing of yoga in a more scientific manner. She told me that grad school gave her a certificate, but that all of her knowledge about psychology truly came from yoga.
I felt no pressure to push myself any further than I felt was right for my body. The class was the perfect balance of exercise and heat to slow, deep stretches. I ended feeling refreshed, relaxed, and contempt. The Restorative class that followed was also very relaxing. We started by doing some slow stretches, then holding some restorative poses for about 3-4 minutes. We eventually worked up to the full 10 minute stretches in which the mind is supposed let the thoughts pass by, unacknowledged. This was very difficult for me, but the class was still very relaxing. After class I asked Shannon what the difference was between Restorative and Yin yoga. She said that Restorative is the practice of holding poses and completely relaxing, while in Yin the goal is to hold deep stretches to a point where they are almost uncomfortable, and to breath through them.
Talking with Shannon and taking her classes today was very rewarding. I learned so much and she gave me more advice on other instructors to reach out to. I loved the Vinyasa class because it was balanced, and I really enjoyed my first restorative experience. This was my first Restorative class, and although I do need to work on meditating, I was still able to completely relax, focus on my breath, and feel the light stretches. I plan on taking a few more of Shannon’s classes while I am in Boulder because she has helped me so much. Today was my first full day in Boulder. I planned to go to a class at a local studio called Yoga Pod and I was hoping to speak with the woman I had been emailing with you works there. I also wanted to read some more of The Yamas and Niyamas as well as transcribe and go through my interview with Kelly so that I could then revisit and revise my questions. The Yoga Pod class was a Vinyasa 2 class, so I was expecting it to be a little more advanced and fast paced than a beginner's class. The woman I am staying with (Virginia) and my sister came with me. The class started out relatively easy, but it quickly progressed into very fast paced flowing with some new and difficult positions. I have only ever taken classes with Kelly before (I usually just use YouTube), so this was very new to me. The class pretty much consisted of going through some poses and then incorporating them together in a flow which we repeated three or four times, increasing in difficulty each time. I thought that I would be very focused on how I looked compared to others, however, I was surprisingly not that concerned with that. I do think this may be unique to this class however because I was just so focused on getting through the pose we were on or holding a difficult position that I couldn’t really pay much attention to others. We were also moving from one pose to the next so quickly that I didn't have much time to look around. Although this class was very rewarding at the end because I had gotten through such a difficult hour, I’ve always just appreciated slower paced classes because I can focus more on my breath and my mind. I am looking forward to trying other instructors and seeing how they differ from this one. One thing I did like about this instructor was how she occasionally came over and adjusted students or deepened a stretch. I often feel like I’m crooked while doing yoga, so those micro adjustments helped me to feel like I was doing them right. After class I asked if Joy- the woman I had been in contact with- was there, but unfortunately she wasn’t. They told me her schedule and because I got a 30 day membership to Yoga Pod, I will most likely see her soon. I also read about the Niyama “self-discipline” which was a more challenging chapter for me to understand than the others I have read. It talked a lot about a needing to “burn away” the bad as to make more room for new growth. As I understand it, the “burning away” is kind of the discomfort of self-discipline. You need to go through a little unpleasantness to have growth and progress in the mind and body. I also finally got around to transcribing my interview with Kelly. I used this as a way to revise my questions based on things we didn’t/did talk about. I finished going through this list of questions and revising them based off of that interview.
I think I had a very productive day today. I stepped out of my comfort zone with that yoga class because it was so much more challenging than I’m used to, so it was rewarding because it was difficult and also because it was challenging to try something new like that. It feels good to finally have a list of questions ready for future interviews with different instructors, and I feel very good and prepared. Today I travelled to Boulder, so I knew I wasn’t going to get much done yoga wise. I wanted to read some more of The Yamas and Niyamas on the flight so that I could still be somewhat productive today. I was also hoping to transcribe my interview with Kelly from yesterday, however, I ran out of time to do that.
In yesterday’s blog post I said I would talk more about my meeting with Kelly in today’s post. Yesterday we met to mostly go over the final details of my trip, I showed her some of the classes I was planning on taking, and we went over the rough draft of questions I am planning to ask some yoga instructors. After going over my questions, and adding some to the list, I interviewed her as I would an instructor in Boulder. This was very helpful for me as I got to kind of feel out what it will be like, but with someone I am more comfortable with. I am also going to try and brainstorm some more questions based on the things she said in the interview when I transcribe it. We also spoke a lot about The Yamas and Niyamas because she was the person who recommended that I read it. This was very helpful as well because I got to put some of my ideas into words and formulate new ideas as well. In yesterday’s post I talked about how I am not a spiritual person, but how I might be able to work towards nonexcess by, instead of finding holiness in things through some sort of divinity, finding it through nature and the earth because I feel a deep connection with nature, and it is the root of all that exists. I brought this up, and Kelly completely agreed. Just because the book spoke of “walking with God” or a greater force, doesn’t mean I can’t see this same holiness by less spiritual means. Speaking with Kelly was very helpful and I am hoping to transcribe our conversation within the next few days.
I obviously didn’t get a lot done today because I was travelling, however, I plan on doing a lot tomorrow. I am hoping to attend two yoga classes tomorrow, as well as possibly talk to one of the instructors I’ve contacted. I would also like to read some more of The Yamas and Niyamas. |
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