Yoga at Home for Absolute Beginners!

Yoga at Home for Beginners: Yoga's Role in the Superbowl and for You?

Well, I must admit, I am not an avid football fan.  The only game I watch (sort of) is the Superbowl so I don't appear un-American!  In all candor, the half-time music show attracts most of my attention during this annual event.  I do not favor either team this year -although I guess since my college alma mater is in Massachussetts, I lean a tad more toward the New England Patriots!  But, on the other hand, maybe I should support the Giants for reasons you'll see below.

But, to be fair to both sides, in the above photos you see pink (?) yoga mats for each team.  Yes, you can buy such mats - they're easy to find on Google or Amazon. No, I haven't bought one - they don't appeal to me.  But, these mats may motivate you!  But what most intrigues me is the behind the scene, supportive role that yoga may play at the Superbowl!  

In June 2011, New England Patriots player Devin McCourty stated that "If you think it’s hot outdoors, you should try spending 90 minutes inside a 105-degree studio performing yoga exercises. That’s what I’ve been doing twice a week as part of my offseason workout regimen," McCourty writes. "Talk about an intense workout. You sweat from the time you walk in the door to the time you leave. A few players I know said they had tried hot yoga and that it helped improve their flexibility while flushing out their systems, so I thought I would try it. I can do most of the poses, but I’m not as flexible in my upper body because I’m so muscular. Sometimes I just have to stand there and watch everyone else." 

The Giants as a team are even more involved in yoga - they've had yoga instructor Gwen Lawrence helping them enhance their pre-and in-season workouts for the past 11 years!  Lawrence  specializes in various forms of yoga including Ashtanga Vinyasa, Hatha, and Iyengar.  She says, 

photo via flickr

“My philosophy is, strength plus flexibility equals power on the field.  Doing these moves not only keeps players less injury prone – because a tight, rigid body is more likely to crack and break – but they also translate into power.

“We’re working on mental toughness, too,” she said.  “Sometimes you have players with pre-game anxiety, and the breathing techniques they learn in yoga can help them cope.

 

Hmm - will their yoga practice as a team give the Giants and additional edge this evening?  It's food for thought.

I don't usually talk about athletes and yoga because I am all about motivating "regular" people to practice yoga.  But, here's what we can recognize from football players' practice of yoga - if it can help them become more flexible, less injury prone, and able to cope with anxiety, can't it help you do the same? 

Yours for energy, flexibility, and serenity through yoga,

Laura Venecia Rodriguez, the Beginners Home Yoga Coach

 

Yoga at Home: Yoga Tip for Maintaining Your Motivation

The shoulder stand pose, shown above, is one of the more challenging yoga poses that I do daily.  It takes some focus and caution to enter, hold in place, and exit this pose.  Plus, I always make sure that if I switch my yoga practice to the afternoon or evening (which I sometimes do on weekends), that I don't do this pose until at least 3 hours after a meal to avoid interfering with digestion.

Some people tell me that they find it difficult to keep themselves motivated to do a regular yoga pracitce. One technique or tip that I have found helpful when on occasion, my motivation starts to lag is to go back and re-read the benefits of the different poses I do. I included key details on the benefits of each yoga pose presented in my book, Yoga at Home:  Gain Energy, Flexibility, and Serenity in 20-30 Minutes a Day, not only to explain what the poses do but also as inspiration and motivation. Just a few minutes of perusing the details of a pose are enough to inspire me to re-ignite my motivation.

Spend a few minutes reading the following 13 key benefits that you gain from doing the shoulder stand. Aren't they amazing!  Do you really want to miss out on them?  Especially the last one?!! I bet it will prompt you to don your yoga attire, roll out your mat, and begin a yoga pose right now!

Key benefits from the Shoulder Stand:

1. Benefits and energizes the entire body.
2. Massages and stimulates the spinal column.
3. Increases blood supply to brain to increase energy, tones the nervous system, and can improve mental faculties such as the memory.
4. Stimulates the thyroid and parathyroid glands, and enriches the pituitary gland.
5. This inversion repositions organs and glands into their proper place by countering the downward pull that gravity puts on the body.
6. Enhances circulation and helps to relieve strain placed on blood vessels when the body is upright for long periods. May alleviate varicose veins.
7. Can help regulate weight because the pose helps stimulate the thyroid gland.
8. Strengthens back and can build up chest.
9. Can eliminate headaches.
10. Stretches and strengthens shoulder and back muscles.
11. Stretches muscles and ligaments of the cervical region (the top part of the spine that consists of the seven vertebrae of the neck and the disks that separate them).
12. Strengthens entire nervous system.
13. Stimulates sexual glands and organs and boosts the libido. 

 Yours for enjoying daily yoga practice at home,

Laura Venecia Rodriguez, The Beginners' Yoga at Home Coach

 

 

 

Yoga at Home for Beginners: Why Yoga is so Fantastic & Sage Wisdom from the Sixties!

Photo printed with permission by Marci Zaroff, www.fasethefuture.com

Eco-fashion trailblazer, Marci Zaroff, shown above beaming in a meditative pose, epitomizes, in my opinion on showing how fantastic you feel if you engage in a regular yoga practice. In the 1969 edition of "Yoga-28 Day Exercise Plan," yoga instructor and author Richard Hittleman shared the following viewpoint:

"Interest in yoga is at an all time high-and with good reason.  During the past decade millions of Americans have come to recognize that the benefits of physical yoga are very great. (Note from Laura:  I didn't think "millions of Americans were doing yoga back then!)  Not only do they far surpass those of any system of self-improvement for the body (calisthenics, salon programs, jogging, isometrics, competitive sports), but they extend also to the emotional and mental aspects of the individual. Yoga is concerned with the health and beauty of the organism as a unified whole."

Yes, indeed, I have experienced an enhanced sense of wholeness in my mind, body, and spirit through my daily practice of yoga. And, this has occurred when I have practiced yoga focusing on oneness and really being present every moment of my practice with how I felt in my limbs, muscles, ligaments, and joints.  

A few weeks ago, the media reported the results of recent research done on a number of people with back pain.  Three groups were tested over a 12-week period - a control group that did nothing, a group of people who did yoga, and a group of people who did some other kind of stretching.  Reportedly, the results of the research revealed that the group of people practicing yoga and other kinds of stretching had similar results in alleviating their back pain.  However, what seemed to be ommitted from the study, I believe, was a comparison of the overall well-being of all the participants who did yoga versus those who did some other form of stretching.  I strongly suspect that those who did yoga would have not only alleviated their back pain, but have also felt more blissful, energized, and serene. But, I'd like to know from those of you who read this blog, what's your opinion on this?

Maybe I am biased (well at least slightly), but I think at least that the gentle form of yoga I practice and that Richard Hittlma taught is especially fantastic for you because it works you from the inside out and the intense focus on your movements results in amazing energy, flexibility, and serenity!

Yours for feeling fantastically whole with yoga, 

Laura Venecia Rodriguez, the Beginners' Yoga at Home Coach

Yoga at Home for Beginners: Stay Relaxed During Hectic Holidays-Do Yoga!

You CAN Stay Relaxed & Serene This Holiday Season! - Press Release-November 2011

“Real, regular” people can de-stress during the holidays by practicing gentle but powerful yoga in the privacy and convenience of their own home! 

As we enter the busy holiday season, many people experience considerable stress because of the lack of time and money to get “it” all done and the pressures to produce a perfect, idyllic experience with family and friends. The extra shopping, cooking, cleaning, and entertaining we do can lead to depression, sleep disturbances, and lethargy. But, a gentle yoga practice done in the privacy, convenience, and low expense of your own home can enable you to stay relaxed, serene, and full of energy in the midst of all the holiday activities. 

Self-taught yogi Laura Venecia Rodriguez, who has been practicing yoga for 40 years, recently released her first book, Yoga at Home: Gain Energy, Flexibility, and Serenity in 20-30 Minutes a Day. Half-instructional, half-motivational, Yoga at Home includes easy yoga breathing techniques such as the alternate nostril breath and dreamlike, slow-motion poses like neck rolls and the backward bend that take only a few minutes and enable you to stay relaxed and serene no matter how hectic your life is over the holidays.

Furthermore, “yoga is NOT just for the elite corps of supermodels, celebrities, athletes, or super-flexible instructors,whom many of us could never match in ability,” asserts Laura. Gentle, slow yoga can be practiced at home by virtually ANYONE who wants to feel wonderful and stay calm and relaxed during the upcoming busy holiday season.

Although yoga books abound, Yoga at Home is likely the only one you will find authored by a real, regular person who considers herself the ultimate klutz! Written in a simple, easy-to-follow format, and laid-back style, Laura’s book makes yoga accessible to the absolute beginner who may have felt that yoga was beyond his/her reach.

Yoga at Home gives the reader step-by-step instructions for 20+ yoga poses, tips on how to keep yogafun and avoid injuries, as well as creative techniques to gain maximum benefits from a yoga practice. Laura proves you don’t have to do the complex, pretzel-like poses you find in magazines, or the super-intense forms of yoga often taught in yoga studios, to gain tremendous benefits from this 4,000-5,000 year-old practice.

Check out - Yoga At Home: Gain Energy, Flexibility, and Serenity in 20-30 minutes a Day

Laura Venecia Rodriguez

190+ pages; $12.95

Published May 2011 by Awaken the Wisdom Within Communications, LLC

ISBN # 9781453898369

Available from Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/dp/1453898360 or at https://www.createspace.com/3493692

Yours for staying relaxed and serene in the holidays ahead,

Laura Venecia Rodriguez, The Beginners' Yoga at Home Coach 

 

 

Yoga at Home for Beginners: Yoga Practice can Lead to a Decrease in Medication!

Just the other day I was talking to the mother of one of my son's friends who dates back to pre-school years. We hadn't spoken in a couple of years.  She told me that she had been thinking of me the past few weeks because last August she bought my book, Yoga at Home, and had recently begun her yoga practice.  She shared her delight with her home practice saying she had set up a special yoga space in her home.  And, to her great joy, because of her yoga practice, she was no longer suffering from migraine headaches and that the quality of her sleep had greatly improved.

What a welcome testimonial about the power of a gentle yoga practice! I personally have been fortunate in that the number of times I have had to use medications in my life has been almost nil.  So, I cannot personally attest to yoga's benefits in helping to lower one's dependence on medication.  However, physician Timothy McCall says in his book Yoga as Medicine that "it is not uncommon when people begin to practice yoga regularly that their need for medication decreases."

This is NOT to say that you have the green light to just any medication at any time. However, I do believe that as you practice yoga consistently over time, your ability to read your body and be attuned to its messages increases. As McCall also says, "The more you do yoga, the more you'll have access to that intuitive senses of what's good for you and what isn't."  And, I would add, "you discover what you need and what you don't require to feel your best and remain healthy." You may well find that you can decrease or even eliminate your use of medications.  Of course, always check first with your licensed medical practitioner before making any major changes in your medical regime to be safe.

Yours for reaping untold benefits from practicing yoga,

Laura Venecia Rodriguez, the beginner's yoga at home coach

 

Beginners' Yoga at Home: As Dr. Oz Says, Yoga CAN Improve Your Sex Life

 

 Cobra pose (shown above)

 Plough pose (shown above)

 

Half-locust pose (shown above)

Full locus pose (shown above)

Today's Washington Examiner newspaper (lhat kind of right of center free paper distributed at the metro or maybe at your Washington DC metro doorstep) had its "regular healthy" living column by Dr. Mehmet Oz. And, today's title was, "How yoga classes can improve your love life."  Naturally, it caught my attention and I felt compelled to comment!

I beg to diffe with the article's premise only in that it's not "yoga CLASSES but, rather yoga POSES that can boost your libido. Well, whether in a class or in your home yoga studio, yoga poses can definitely rev up your sex life if you have one, AND let you know what you're missing if you don't....!

Dr. Oz says that yoga acts as an aphrodisiac because "the combo of stretching, toning, and deep breathing juices up a lot more than your joints"...and it "activates your vagus nerve which helps boost levels of key feel good chemicals in your brain, including serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins."  Dr. Oz reports that you'll start to see results "fast" from doing yoga - after just 12 weeks of practice.

Yes, that is true.  What Dr. Oz surprisingly neglects to explain is that yoga also messages your internal organs including your sex glands and that's why you gain a boost in your libido. The four photos shown above show a sequence of the cobra, the plough, the half-locust, and the full locust. Particularly, if done in this order, these poses can rev up your libido in far fewer than 12 weeks, maybe in minutes, I'd say, depending on your physicial conditioning.

Skeptical?  Just try it and and you might well like it.  I have included the instructions for these poses in previous posts which you can find in this blog's archives by doing a search.   I would have taken up too much space to put them all together here.  Or, in a shameless plug for my book, you will also find the complete instructions for all of them in my book, Yoga at Home:  Gain Energy, Flexibility, & Serenity in 20-30 Minutes a Day.

Yours for a healthy sex life with yoga,

 

Laura Venecia Rodriguez

 

Yoga at Home for Beginners: Why is Flexibility Important?

Above you see a photo of my business friend, E.G. Sebastian, doing the cobra.  You will find this photo and instructions for how to do the cobra in my newly released book, Yoga at Home:  Gain Energy, Flexibility, and Serenity in 20-30 Minutes a Day (available at Amazon.com).  The cobra releases tension from your back, spine, and shoulders.  It also stretches and adjusts every vertebra of your spine from the neck to the base of your spine and helps restore youthful flexibility.

Why is flexibility so important?  Seems like a silly question with an obvious answer.  Yes, flexibility is important for mobility, that's for sure.  However, the following quotation from yesterday's message in The Daily Word illustrates further why flexibility is important.  "Because I am flexible, I never give up on myself or my dreams.  When a change seems to alter my plans, I don't give in to feelings of helplessness or hopelessness...Any tendency to be rigid in my thinking falls away..."

We were born to move easily and effortlessly.  However, our sedentary lifestyles reduces our flexibility. When we lose flexibility and become more physically constrained, not only can we start experiencing discomfort and pain in various parts of our body, but we can feel diminished emotionally as well and our ability to roll with and withstand the punches and storms of life declines.

When you engage in your daily practice of yoga, focus on stretching as much as you can without strain or pain to maximize your flexibility. Dr. Timothy McCall says in his book, Yoga as Medicine:  The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing, "Scientific studies have documented the increased flexibility of muscles and the increased range of movement in different joints that come with yoga practice."  And I would add, the more flexible you are, the freer you are to live fully, physically, emotionally, and spirituality. When you increase your flexibility with gentle yoga, you'll be like the kind of tree that bends back and forth and survives the storm rather than breaks in two.  Flexibility allows you to survive and thrive in life.

Yours for staying "bendy" with yoga,

 

Laura Venecia Rodriguez

 

Do Yoga at Home: Your Age is no Barrier to your Practice!

New book!  Available at www.Amazon.com

 

"There's no age at which a person cannot help himself." ~ Ageless Yoga by Rosie Reichmann.

I just love the above statement that appears in Rosie Reichmann's book, Ageless Yoga.  Rosie wrote her yoga book at age 80!  She shows many photos of herself doing a variety of yoga poses.  Her book which I read about 3 years ago inspired me so much.  At age 80, her upbeat attitude about living life to the fullest regardless of how many years have passed reminded me that I have no excuses for not staying active.  And, of course, yoga is one of the practices she was doing (at the time of the book's publication, about a decade ago) to maximize her well-being and enjoyment of life.

Regarding age and the passage of years, it's fun to celebrate birthdays because we're celebrating another year of life we've enjoyed. However, if your focus is on gees, how much time you have left or if you expect certain limiting conditions to pop up because the years are passing by, STOP! Age is  "Nothing But a Number," as the headline of a recent Washington Express article (May 24, 2011) read,in referring to exercise queen, Kathy Smith turning 60 this year.  I am not too many years away from that number either.  BUT, as Kathy Smith believes, there's no reason you have to seem anything like a senior citizen just because of your chronological age.  In all candor, I really do still FEEL 25 (can't say I look 25, alas, but you can't have everything!) which I attribute to my healthy eating, yoga, and aerobic exercise.

Just like Kathy,  I also am fiercely adamant in the view that "number of candles on your birthday cake" need not determine your activity level.  Certainly not!  Among her many execise activities, Kathy Smith does yoga twice weekly. 

Yes folks, regardless of your age, you must remain as active as you can because it makes you feel so darn good!  If you don't stay active, gravity and other forces can take their toll and as Kathy says if you don't start doing something now, you can get ready to do nothing later.  I couldn't agree more.

The yoga poses that I present in my new released book, Yoga at Home:  Gain Energy, Serenity, and Flexibility, in 20-30 Minutes are Day, with your physician or medical advisor's approval, can be started at any age.  The key is listening to your body and taking baby steps.  It doesn't matter how long you take to master a pose.  What is important is that you move and stretch your body daily or almost daily.  As another yoga writer, Ina Marx remarked in her book, You are in Charge:  The IM Method Total Fitness for the Fit and Not so Fit, when starting yoga, a, "regard your body as unused territory that will need patient cultivation."  

Start gentle yoga today to help yourself feel your best and remain active for virtually forever!

Yours for doing yoga regardless of your age,

 

Laura Venecia Rodriguez

 

Yoga at Home for Beginners: Stress happens... release it with yoga!

  

Aaah...  how I love Edvard Munch's painting, The Scream, shown above!  Why?  Because when I feel stressed, it is SO cathartic for me.  The painting epitomizes the need for and value of a primal scream now and then when the pressure builds.  What me - have pressure?  I do yoga don't I?  Yes, of course I do.  Does this mean I never feel stressed?  Of course not!  Does any mother of a teenage boy escape stress?  I think not. 

The type of gentle, slow, hatha yoga I practice does not prevent stress because it cannot prevent the ups and downs of life.  But, it does allow you to release the stress that comes your way. During the past few days my teenage son has driven me to my wit's end.  No need for details.   If I weren't practicing yoga daily, I might really lose it. Yesterday's interactions with my son were especially difficult and punctuated by vociferous rantings and ravings.  This morning I realized that I had to take a few extra steps during my yoga practice to release the pent-up stress and strain in my mind, body, and spirit that had developed yesterday.

My first step was to create a clear intention to release stress and to relax totally and I dedicated my session to that purpose. I followed this by switching on my two vanilla-scented battery operated candles to  enhance the mood. Next, I turned on the light classical music station to have soothing music in the background. A wonderful, soothing piece, "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair" by Debussy came on the music station.  I could not have asked for a more appropriate selection! Lastly, I remembered the time I lolled on the beach in Kauai with my college friend, Marilyn, and visualized myself back on vacation.  Guess what? It worked.  I had a soothing, delightful yoga session and felt so relaxed afterwards.  We can't escape stress, but we can release it with yoga. When you open and stretch your body with strategically created yoga poses, relaxation occurs more easily and stress dissipates.

Yours for releasing stress with yoga, 

Laura Venecia Rodriguez

P.S.  Yes, I am trying to persuade my son to learn some yoga poses and breathing techniques!

Yoga at Home for Beginners: Got Knee Trouble? Yoga Helps!

Our knees are a vital part of our anatomy. As the largest and most complicated of our joints, they carry the weight of our body, day in and day out. Strong, flexible knees enable us to be move fully and easily. If our knees become stiff or painful, our mobility and well-being is greatly impaired. As the years go by, the knees are often one of the first parts of the body to have problems.  Degenerative arthritis is a common affliction. However, yoga poses that stretch the legs and target the tendons and muscles around the knees can provide relief in many cases.  (Always first check with your medical adviser first...).

Just the other day while driving to a PTA meeting, my neighbor (and mother of one of my son's best friends) said that she had started having knee problems recently which her husband attributed to her passing the half-century mark. (Bah humbug, I say...!) However, on Sundays she hosts a yoga instructor at her home and started learning poses that helped the knees and in her words, it was a "miracle" what resulted from those yoga poses! Relief from her knee pain!

I have had a similar recent experience with my knees because (hold your breath - I am revealing a deep dark secret!..), at the moment I have some fairly advanced bunions (and ugly as all get-out, sheesh!) resulting from my flat feet pronating over the years.  If I don't wear those annoying orthotics (which means I can wear very few cute shoes and definitely not heels!), the bunions  throw my ankles and knees out of alignment causing discomfort. I too, have relied on yoga to give my knees and ankles relief! The hero pose (aka Japanese sitting position), the plough, and the backward bend on the knees have helped me enormously when I have neglected to wear those orthotics. (Tsk, tsk...) As Dr. Timothy McCall says in his wonderful book, Yoga as Medicine, "Yoga is well particularly well suited to help prevent or minimize the erosion of cartilage that causes the join pain of osteoarthritis, and to create greater ease of movement and decrease pain within joints that have already sustained such damage...Misalignment of bones, dysfunctional movement patterns, lack of body awareness, poor posture...all of them are problems that yoga can help correct."  So do you have knee problems?  Go roll out that yoga mat and get started with yoga right now!

Yours for strong, flexible knees with yoga,

 

Laura Venecia Rodriguez