Yoga at Home for Absolute Beginners!

Yoga at Home for Beginners: Practice in Silence If You Get an Injury

In my last post I discussed the benefits of using music to enhance your yoga at home practice.  Everyone's tastes and needs differ but music can definitely give your practice an energizing boost.  That said, however, I also recommend that you practice yoga at home in silence if you get injured.

Why, you ask?  Because practicing to the "sounds of silence" enables you to listen to and "hear" your body more readily as you stretch and hold your poses.  When you can "hear" your body, you notice what is going on with it and can adapt your movements more readily so you can heal from an injury. Ten days ago while on vacation with my son, I apparently pulled a muscle in my lower back after spending hours at a waterpark, walking barefoot on concrete for almost 5 hours, and slipping and falling on my butt as I tried to get up after going down one of the slides.  

I didn't realize that pulling a muscle can create enormous constraints on one's body and in this case, my lower back - the sacrum area became a field of stiffness and pain.  In previous times when I have felt stiffness after sleeping in an awkward position or sitting too long, doing yoga would usually alleviate the problem right away.  This time, my pulled muscle created such constriction and tightness that I could not get into the plough, shoulder stand, half-lotus or even the child pose (which I had considered to be one of the easiest poses that I present in my book) without feeling like my lower back was in a vise!  

As a result, I had to substantially adapt my yoga poses over the next few days as well as trek over to a chiropractor whose office is a short walk from my house.  Because my lower back was so constricted, I practiced yoga in silence.  I found this most helpful to better "read" my body in its temporary injured state.  And, I discovered this to be an excellent practice because I could hear my vertebrae adjust as I did poses such as the cobra that target the lower back.

Practicing in silence once a month or so is a useful habit to make sure you are attuned to your body as you do yoga.  It's especially important if you have an injury of any kind.

Yours for listening to your body with the "sounds of silence."

Laura Venecia Rodriguez

 

 

Yoga for Beginners: August 26 is Musical Yoga Day! Rock on?

August 26 is almost over but, I learned this morning and only now had a chance to share that apparently today in 1967, the Beatles, Mick Jagger, and Marianne Faithful met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who helped spread the practice of Transcendental Meditation and I assume related practices like yoga in the Western world, including the United States. That was just a few years before I discovered yoga.  To celebrate that day, the email notification I received encouraged yogis to practice yoga with rock music.

I am curious - how many of you yogis out there practice with rock music?  My tastes in music are eclectic and far ranging.  I have to admit that I rarely practice with rock music even though I love all kinds of rock music. I find rock better suited to jumping on my mini-trampoline.

My favorite music for yoga ranges from light classical music (like upbeat Mozart) and classical guitar (think Andres Segovia) to flamenco jazz guitar ( think Jesse Cook, Jesse Cook, and Jesse Cook! as well as Lawson Rollins) to smooth jazz.  No, I don't practice to the sounds of sitars or any type of Indian music of ethereal new age type of music, although I am not adverse to it. One of the readers of my books, Karyl, says that she really enjoys practicing to the album called Putumaya presents Yoga. 

Everyone's tastes are different. Here is what I think is important for choosing music for your yoga practice:

1)  You LOVE the music!

2)  The music energizes and relaxes you.

3)  The music syncs with and enhances your focus on the flow of your movements and breathing.

4)  You feel blissful after your practice.

If you have special music to share, please comment!

Rock on, jazz on, or otherwise do your yoga moves to the music,

 

Laura Venecia Rodriguez 

 

 

Yoga for Beginners: "Inspired" Yoga Moves

The photo above shows me in the beginning phase of neck movements that I do daily.  Neck rolls are one of my favorite yoga poses because I feel as if my shoulders are being massaged gently and that the tension that tends to store in my neck/shoulder area is released easily.  Neck rolls can be meditative -closing your eyes while doing them enhances the relaxation quality of the movements and you can really tune into and listen to your body while doing them.

One of the books I recommend for new yogis that contains many details about the essential nature of yoga is The Spirit and Practice of Moving into Stillness by Eric Schiffman.   He offers many suggestions for enhancing your yoga practice and ensuring that it's inspired. From his book, I learned about closing my eyes during the neck movements to enhance the relaxation effects they elicit.  It really works!  I recall that in November 2010  when I taught a beginners demo yoga class at the National Hispana Leadership Institute Executive Conference in Miami, FL, I automatically closed my eyes while demonstrating this pose for a moment, forgetting that I needed to first check the class attendees' movements!

One thing I discovered after re-committing to a daily, heart-felt yoga practice five years ago was that as a teenager and in the decades that followed, I had too often practiced my yoga poses in a mechanical rather than inspired way.  I did yoga the way certain musicians play their instruments - accurately and with precision but lacking feeling. And you know what? I just didn't gain the same level of bliss or energy that I enjoy now.

When you infuse your heartfelt "feeling" into your practice it's easier to tune into your "inspiration." And, inspiration aligns you with the genius within that enables you to make the most of your practice and to avoid injury.  One helpful signal to remind yourself to tune into your heart and feelings before you practice is to sit in the half-lotus pose as shown above (or any other cross-legged pose), do an alternate nostril breath or two, and cup your heart with your hands for a few seconds before you begin your yoga poses.  Watch what happens.  Please let me know if your yoga poses don't feel more "inspired" and if you don't feel at least double the bliss and energy you normally feel?!

Yours for inspired yoga poses,

 

Laura Venecia Rodriguez

 

Yoga at Home for Beginners: Yoga on Vacation May Require More Discipline!

In previous blog posts I have written that when you develop a yoga at home practice, you can take it virtually anywhere as long as you have enough space to roll out your mat and have a foot or so on each side of you to stretch yours limbs.  I have shared that I have practiced yoga in many hotel rooms and even in a tiny cabin on a cruise ship which I did last January.  

However, if you take a vacation in which your schedule goes upside down and you sleep in really late (as I have done this past week on a beach vacation with my son), sticking with your yoga regime can be a real challenge.  One of the keys to instilling a daily yoga practice is choosing a time that is easiest for you to maintain based on your daily lifestyle.  For me, it's the morning.  Well, if you sleep really late and have no regular schedule on vacation, it is so much easier to let your yoga practice slide.  Even if you have much more free time!  It's just the way things are!  I have felt quite lazy this week!  

However, if you don't want to start losing your flexibility and energy, you will just have to 1) remember how important yoga is for helping you to stay flexible, energized, and serene; 2) just de-cide (i.e., allowing no other options) that you will do it and pretend you have no choice; 3) start your practice and allow no interruptions; 4) smile as you practice, put an extra dose of your heart into it,  and if possible, put on your favorite music; and 5) don't worry if you miss a practice or two as long as you continue doing your poses on most days.  

Yours for maintaining your yoga regime even during super lazy vacation days of summer!

 

Laura Venecia Rodriguez

Yoga at Home for Beginners: Trust Your Instincts First-Everyone's Body is Different

I share the above photo in one of the chapters of my book, Yoga at Home:  Gain Energy, Flexibility, and Serenity in 20-30 Minutes a Day because for me it epitomizes one of the myths that many people (not all, but still too many!) have about yoga - that you have to do challenging pretzel poses like this to be a real yogi and to benefit from yoga.

So untrue!  At least in my opinion. I have been benefiting from a regime of simple, gentle hatha yoga poses.  I doubt I could ever put myself into the above pose.  I don't have the upper body strength to do it. I also lack the coordination and finesse to wrap myself backward into such a pose. 

One of my regular blog readers recently shared a blog post by another yoga practitioner (www.egoyogini.blogpost.com) who shared her encounters with some less-than understanding and intuitive yoga instructors who assume that everyone can master yoga poses if they try hard enough, long enough or tuck their butt in enough.  Ecoyogini so correctly pointed out that our bodies all differ and not everyone can necessarily achieve every yoga pose - their bone structure may simply not allow it!   So true!  And she concludes that "each person should not strive to achieve an "external yoga ideal" but should find what yoga looks like for them."

I agree with such wisdom.  I advise, almost ad nauseum, that as you learn and practice yoga- be careful, be gentle with yourself, listen to your body. Always!  Never push, pull, or strain!  Accept what you can and cannot do in any given moment. For me what yoga looks like is a gentle heartfelt practice of exercising my body from the inside out in a relaxed, dreamlike way.  And, I can tell you the benefits have been wonderful!  No competition and no comparing!  Beginners - head this advice and you won't experience an injury!

Yours for listening to yourself while doing yoga,

 

Laura Venecia Rodriguez

 

Yoga at Home for Beginners: Yoga Helps Guitarists with Finger Exercise

I never mentioned this, but I took classical guitar lessons from age 10-18 so I had three years in there which overlapped with my yoga practice!  It never occurred to me at that time (of course, I was "just a teenager") that certain yoga exercises could help me as an amateur guitarist.  But, if you think about it, it's easy to see how certain yoga poses could benefit a guitar player.

In my teens I practiced 30 minutes to an hour a day.  A classical guitarist typically sits leaning forward as they play.  And guess what?  It's easy to develop a neck cramp and tension in your back after an hour or so.  Yoga rolls are a wonderful antidote to the kinks you may develop in your neck after guitar practice.

Also, obviously, when you play guitar, you use your fingers continuously.  Well, certain yoga finger exercises could help warm the guitarist to warm up or cool down after playing. For example, I found the following yoga finger exercise from one of my yoga primers, Yoga, Youth, and Reincarnation by Jess Stearn.  It just dawned on me last week how this could definitely help increase the flexibility in a guitarist's fingers!

Here are the instructions on how to do The Flower - adapted from Jess Stearn's book with my own input added to the mix.

1. Clench your fists firmly with your thumbs outside your fingers.  I find it helpful to visualize that I am grasping a fireman' pole and trying to climb up (something I could not likely do!).  Jess Stearn suggests that you imagine that your hands are like the tight buds of a flower in late winter.

2.  Imagine you have a circuit of energy emanating from your heart through your arms and up into both hands and fingers  Take a few moments to do this.  There's no rushing!

3. Take a minimum of one full minute to allow that vibrant energy from your heart to gradually open both hands simultaneously, just as a flower opens its petals  to the sun early on a spring morning.

4.  After a a minimum of one minute, each finger of each hand should be unfurled with palms wide open and fingers fully stretched.

5.  Gently move each finger forward on the both hands, starting with your thumb, toward the middle of your palm and release, allowing each finger to spring back to its original open palm position.

6.  Slowly, imagine that it's sunset and your fingers, like the petals of a flower, return to their original, closed position.

Repeat once or twice or as often as you feel guided.  Don't dismiss this just because it may sound a little woo-woo. Try it, you guitarists out there!  And report back on what you experience...

 

Yours for playing guitar with flexible fingers through yoga,

 

Laura Venecia Rodriguez

 

Concerning yesterday's post about yoga at home for cancer patients, in addition to Jillian S. McKee, credit should also be given to: http://www.mesothelioma.com/

Best,

Laura Venecia Rodriguez

Yoga at Home: Guest Post on How Yoga at Home Helps Cancer Patients

Today I am sharing a guest post by Jillian McKee on the benefits of doing yoga at home for cancer patients.

Those With Cancer Find Comfort in Home Practice by Jillian McKee

Cancer patients often find it very easy, convenient and nourishing to practice yoga at home. Often, a cancer patient's energy level will fluctuate dramatically during the course of his or her cancer treatment. Practicing yoga at home will allow the patient to set the pace of the yoga session, have easy access to the bathroom for bouts of nausea and will be able to adjust the temperature of the yoga room. The patient will also be free to spend as much time as he or she feels it is beneficial in restorative poses such as savasana.

The ease and comfort of practicing yoga at home while battling cancer is a wonderful way to decrease anxiety and enhance quality of life. During the course of cancer treatment, a patient may not have the energy to go to a yoga studio. If he or she is undergoing chemotherapy as part of a cancer treatment protocol, it may be much more comfortable to practice yoga in the privacy of his or her own home where there is a private, easily accessible bathroom and an adjustable thermostat.

By practicing at home, a cancer patient can easily set the pace of the yoga workout. If the patient is using a DVD or following a yoga class online, he or she can stop the DVD or class in order to take a break, have a glass of water or rest in child's pose if the patient is feeling exhausted, light-headed or dizzy. For example, a mesothelioma patient who is battling a mesothelioma diagnosis may need to take several breaks in order to complete the pranayama portion of a yoga class. He or she may even want to skip the more intense pranayama exercises and focus on restorative and soothing yogic breathing exercises.  These exercises may increase the life-expectancy and enhances one’s quality of life.

There are many benefits to a home-based yoga practice for cancer patients.  A cancer patient may enjoy practicing yoga at home much more than in a public yoga studio because he or she will be able to set the pace, the temperature of the room and be able to stop and start the practice, if necessary. Every yoga class finishes with a wonderfully restorative pose called final relaxation pose. Often at a yoga studio, you are limited to five or ten minutes in final relaxation pose. If a cancer patient is practicing yoga at home, he or she will be free to remain in final relaxation pose for thirty minutes or even an hour in order to receive all of the nourishing benefits of his or her home-based yoga practice. 

Thank you, Jillian for your thoughtful article!  You can see more by Jillian S. McKee at:

 http://center-yourself.blogspot.com

Yours for reaping the rewards of a home yoga practice,

Laura Venecia Rodriguez

 

 

 

Yoga at Home for Beginners: Short on Time? Split up Your Practice...

Time-time-time.  Lack of time to do everything we need seems to be the bane of our modern lives.  So many people complain ad nauseum that maintaining any exercise practice is so difficult because they "lack the time."  However, I don't buy this argument...sorry! As I advocate in my book, Yoga at Home:  Gain Energy, Flexibility, and Serenity in 20-30 Minutes a Day, just DE-CIDE (i.e., cut off other options) to practice yoga daily and carefully select your practice time so that it best suits your body clock and schedule.

However, you can't ignore the fact that "life happens" and our daily schedule doesn't always unfold as planned.  You have a late night out galavanting on the town or maybe staring at the ceiling in bed because of insomnia. The following morning your plan to practice yoga gets shot to smithereens! Or, if you practice at lunch or in the afternoon, you get sidetracked by an important business luncheon or your kids' afternoon sports match runs overtime and again, your time for yoga gets away from you.  

Well, you know how adamant I am about the need for a daily yoga practice (or at least 6 times a week) of at least 20-30 minutes to gain maximum results.  But, I must admit, while I was writing my book several people advised me to change my title and advise readers that they could invest less time each day or fewer times per week. Well, no, I just couldn't back down from that.  Seeing that my original yoga primers advocated a practice that would take at least 60-90 minutes a day, I think 20-30 minutes is reasonable for us busy 21st century citizens.

But, what do you do when your schedule gets disrupted?  Be creative and just insert 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there in between your other activities.  If you're at work,  squeeze in neck rolls, breathing techniques, and side bends in the restroom that you can do in business attire. Another strategy is to divide up your practice between the morning and the evening.

The past few days I have had late bedtimes and haven't been able to get up as early in the morning as usual.  I did not have time to do a full morning session of yoga.  So, instead, I did half in the morning and half in the evening before dinner (ALWAYS exercise on an empty stomach, never after a meal!).

Now, I felt out of sync thinking about doing yoga in the evening because I am not conditioned to it. But, here's what I did to overcome my initial reluctance.  I pretended I was an automaton and just had to do the practice no matter what. Without allowing time to think I rolled out the mat, quickly changed clothes, and then put on my favorite new CD of Latin jazz guitar music (by the band, Incendio). Then, I put my heart into my practice and it was easy to do so once I got onto the mat! And, I had especially wonderful practices the past two evenings.

Yours for creative ways to carve out daily time for yoga!

 

Laura Venecia Rodriguez

 

 

Yoga at Home for Beginners: My Book is Featured in Local Gazette Book Column

 

What an honor!  My book and I are featured in today's Montgomery County, Maryland Gazette book column! Staff writer, Mia Cortez, interviewed me 10 days ago and said she receives many books for her review.  As we began our talk about my book and my yoga practice at home.  She told me she had tried a yoga class once only to have the instructor mention with a somewhat derogatory tone that Mia was "double-jointed" (as I am) and implied that this was a limitation for doing yoga!  Shame on that instructor!  If I, Laura, born double-joined and klutz can do yoga, so can virtually anyone.

Of course, the definition of "doing yoga" can vary widely.  Yoga has become so trendy and even competitive in some circles that unless you can contort your body and limbs in supernatural ways, you're just not going to make it in yoga!  So untrue.  That's why I wrote my book!  To prove that you can benefit tremendously and gain the wonderful essence of yoga by practicing selected, simpley oga poses in the comfort and privacy of your home.  By doing so, you WILL gain energy, flexibility, and serenity in 20-30 minutes a day.

You can check out the Gazette article at:

http://www.gazette.net/article/20110803/ENTERTAINMENT/708039898/1152/1152/silver-spring-author-touts-benefits-of-at-home-yoga&template=gazette.  I apologize that the link is not clickable!

Yours for enjoying the benefits of yoga at home!

 

Laura Venecia Rodriguez