Yoga at Home for Absolute Beginners!

Yoga at Home: Sharing Yoga with My College Classmates

 

A week ago (June 4, 2017), I had fun sharing my daily yoga practice with my Wellesley College classmates.  In the above 2 photos, I demonstrate the bow and the half-locust poses.

I try to avoid using cliches, however, it's hard not to focus on how the years have zipped by when you attend your 40th college class reunion. As one of my classmates exclaimed, "where did 40 years go?!"

No matter how many years go by and as long as I possibly can, hopefully, until the day I "dance off the planet" (as 97-year young yoga instructor, Tao-Porchon Lynch says what she plans to do when her time is up), I will continue to practice yoga.

During the plans for the reunion, I was asked to give a yoga class and I agreed, emphasizing that I would share SLOW, GENTLE poses best suited to beginners, period.  And, that's what I did in the 45-minute session on a (finally, after numerous gray days) bright, sunny Sunday.

At the beginning of the class I shared my key tenets of a daily home yoga practice:

1)  "Slo' mo is the way to go" - I move into and out of yoga poses slowly and deliberately.  This allows you to really FEEL the pose.

2)  "The power of the pause" - take a short break (often going into the "child pose" as a relaxation poses between other poses) between each pose to allow your muscles to regroup and recover from a stretch.

3) "No pain or strain is all gain" in a gentle hatha yoga practice.  Challenge yourself, but never push, tug, or force your body into a pose.  A few years ago, according to an article in the Yoga Journal, over 16,000 people enter emergency rooms every year because of injuries sustained in a yoga class - no doubt the result of trying to go further than the body was ready to do

4)  Inhale and exhale deeply while practicing.  Synchronizing your breath with your movements enhances the energy boost you gain after a yoga session.

Some of my classmates are real athletes. Others may have not done too much physical exercise recently.

Whatever level they were, my classmates enjoyed the poses I shared - as apprehensive as I was in providing instruction that may have been "too basic".  I received many compliments after the class. People told me how great they felt.

One classmate told me that during the final Savasana pose (the sponge pose I call it - when you lie on your back and totally relax for several minutes at the end of a session), as she listened to the relaxing yoga music -  strong feelings welled up inside her.  And a gush of tears flowed.  Yes - in addition to its physical benefits, yoga can at times, release a much needed emotional release of pent up feelings.

In sharing my yoga practice with my college classmates, I realized once again, that indeed, you do not have to do the most complex, pretzel yoga poses to benefit greatly from yoga.  Start with wherever you are, move gently, and consistently,  inhale and exhale deeply, and you may just forget that 40 years have elapsed since you finished college!

Yours for enjoying gentle hatha yoga, 

Laura Venecia Rodriguez, the yoga at home coach for beginners

 

 

 

Yoga at Home: My Yoga Class with Tao Porchon-Lynch!

Legendary 93-year young yoga instructor, Tao Porchon Lynch and I on Saturday, June 9, 2012

As long-term readers of this blog know, I rarely attend yoga classes.  My time is limited and frankly, I am still a bit of a klutz when trying to keep up with an instructor. I have learned most of what I know about yoga from books, audios, and videos.  However, when Jackie, my work colleague and friend, told me that Ms. Lynch was giving a yoga class in Vienna, Virginia, last weekend, I knew I HAD to attend!  I was eager to meet this living yoga legend - a woman who studied yoga in India, acted with MGM in the 1940s and 1950s, danced all her life, and who has been bucking and defying conventional wisdom in recent decades. She has myriad interests and hobbies from delighting in observing birds to being a wine judge! 

Ms. Lynch gave two workshops last Saturday.  I attended the afternoon portion which lasted almost 3 and one=half hours.  Ms. Lynch's energy never flagged, From the moment I entered the yoga studio when she gave me a big hug, to the end of the class, Ms. Lynch radiated joy, enthusiasm, and gentleness. The class of about 15 participants included area yoga instructors who no doubt sought to learn some pointers from this extraordinatry master instructor of Iyengar yoga, a form of hatha yoga that focuses on structural alignment of the physical body and emphasizies standing poses. Many of us took notes between poses!

In my next post I will share some of Ms. Lynch's teachings and more about my personal experience in the class and how I will apply what I learned to my home practice.  Till then, when you roll out your mat and doing your yoga practice, meditate on one of her proclamations, "Everything comes from inside."

Laura Venecia Rodriguez, the Beginners' Yoga at Home Coach

 

 

 

Yoga at Home for Beginners: What? Not Allowed to Leave a Class?

I met a group of women yesterday at a special high tea held at the Hay-Adams hotel in Washington, DC. We shared personal challenges and triumphs and what we were "on fire" about or not...During one of our breaks, a young woman told me that she had recently gone to a Bikram yoga class - a 90-minute session of 26 yoga poses repeated twice and done in a very hot room. 

This was her first experience with yoga and she had attended with a friend. Astounded by the intensity of the session, at one point she decided she needed a break and made a move to leave the room. The yoga instructor stopped her and "told" her that she was not allowed to!  What???   A few years ago I wrote a post about a work colleague who was not allowed to remain in a class and now this time someone told me that she wasn't allowed to leave the class just for a few moments!

Wow!  My experience with yoga classes is admittedly limited and so I may be naive about how such classes are done - especially Bikram yoga since it involves 2 rounds of yoga poses. But,  I just can't imagine taking a class for the first time and not being allowed to take a break if needed. The yoga instructor sounded like a drill sergeant or a coach on a varsity high school team.  In those situations, yes you can't just take a break when you want. 

In my humble opinion, however, a yoga class instructor should be an encouraging coach who guides you along - but doesn't force you into anything!  "Forcing" someone to do or not do something in a class is so antithetical to the spirit of yoga - at least the way I learned it!  And yoga instructors should ask and know how much experience new class participants have when they join a class.

No wonder injuries sustained in yoga classes are increasingly common! As I always say - learn yoga in slow, deliberate, baby steps and you won't overexert yourself, get sore, or risk injury.  This is why I continue to practice in the safety, comfort, and convenience of my home and why I haven't been injured doing yoga.

Yours for listening to your body as you do yoga and taking breaks as needed,

 

Laura Venecia Rodriguez, the beginner's yoga at home coach (for regular, REAL people)

 

Yoga at Home: June 21 Book Presentation, Signing & Demo for Yoga Beginners

 

Have you friends or family who have been curious about but never tried yoga?  Please tell them about the upcoming event in which they will learn:

Yoga is NOT just for Models, Celebrities, Jocks, or Already Super-Flexible People!—Real People Can Do Yoga!

YOU CAN Learn Gentle Yoga at Home and Feel 25, Even if You Are 35, 45, 55, or ….!

 My book, Yoga at Home:  Gain Energy, Flexibility, & Serenity in 20-30 Minutes a Day! (now at Amazon.com)  will be available  at the event

EVENT:  Book Presentation, Group Discussion, Book Signing, and Beginners’ Yoga Demonstration 

Date and Time: Tuesday, June 21, 2011; 7:00-8:30 pm 

Location:  Sante Wellness Center, 13511 Sherwood Forest Terrace, Silver Spring, MD 20904

(near New Hampshire Ave. and Randolph Road intersection)

Phone: 301-384-3002

Event Fee:  $10

 About the Author, Laura Venecia Rodriguez

Laura Venecia Rodriguez, MBA, MA, BA (Wellesley College) and total non-athlete and klutz (!) taught herself yoga at home decades and decades ago at age 15. She has over 25 years experience as a professional researcher, writer, analyst, and speaker. She has a passion for sharing ancient wisdom principles and techniques and wants more “real” people to reap yoga’s benefits by practicing at home.

 

 

Yoga for Beginners: Bikram Yoga classes- Hot-Hot-Hot but Not-Not-Not for Me

Just the other day, one of my Facebook friends who lives in Tuscon, an amazing speaker and scientific hand analyst, commented, "if you like your yoga, hot, hard and intense, then Bikram Yoga, Tuscon is for you..." And she added what a great workout and de-tox you could get in your body, mind, and soul.  I believe that is the case for most types of yoga, even the gentle kind that I do because I stretch fully and focus on how my body feels.

Her words "hot, hard, and intense" and those of a yoga teacher who said that Bikram yoga classes are all "moany" and sweaty" admittedly shifted my mind to something else...But, anyway, the idea of yoga classes that are "hard and intense" brought back my bad memories of trailing behind and stumbling about at those dreaded field days in elementary, middle, and high school. 

A Bikram yoga class typically features 90 minutes of 2 rounds of 26 hatha yoga poses done in a room heated to 104-105 degrees to warm the muscles and prevent injury.  I watched a few videos showing Bikram yoga classes and explaining their benefits. These include increased flexibility, improved circulation, enhancing the immune system, and healing of injuries which are also what you gain by doing gentle hatha yoga. The principal difference, I think, is that bikram yoga, because of its intensity, gives you more of a cardiovascular workout.  However, klutz that I am, I don't think I could keep up in a bikram yoga class.  

Is one type of yoga better than another?  I don't think so - and there are so many kinds to choose from these days.  For the non-athlete, starting with the kind of gentle hatha yoga I do, seems the most feasible and least intimidating.  A few months ago at a writer's group, a journalist said that he once went to an intense yoga class and got a major workout. But, it seems that the class was too much for him as he admitted how sore he felt the next day and that he never ventured back to the class.  

Gentle hatha yoga versus the more rigorous forms like Bikram yoga is kind of like comparing running and jogging with brisk walking.  Running is the most intense form of these movements.  However, I believe it's been pretty well documented that brisk walking done daily can keep your heart as in good shape running as long as you achieve a certain minimum heart rate.  Maybe someday I'll try a Bikram yoga class out of curiosity.  But, for the moment, I will stick with my present gentle yoga regime.  I fear that if I tried a Bikram yoga class I would exit it singing that refrain from an old Linda Ronstadt song, "poor, poor, pitiful me."

Your for a cooler form of yoga,

Laura Venecia Rodriguez

 

 

Yoga for Beginners: Roof-top Yoga in DC for all Levels? In this Heat?

Hmm, I was intrigued when I read an article, "Elevating Your Yoga Practice," in this past Tuesday Washington Post Express paper.  The Liaison Capitol Hill hotel (15 New Jersey Ave., NW, 202-638-1616) is offering free 7:30 am yoga classes for hotel guests n the 10th floor pool deck.  Holding yoga classes seems to be spreading as the photo above is in a different location and I found several more photos of urban roof-top yoga classes.

The yoga classes held in this week at the Liaison Capitol Hill are limited to 15 people (good idea for individual attention) and focus on vinyasa flow yoga.  They are supposedly open to "anyone of any fitness level."  I always wonder how does that work?   How can you have beginners and super experienced yogis together. When I hear that, I figure the classes can't be for beginners.

The purpose of these roof top yoga classes apparently is to take advantage of the natural heat (is that an understatement or what????) at this time of year because it warms up the body.  The instructor recommends shifting into a child's pose when class participants get too hot and of course, there's always the nearby pool to jump into.

Of course, I think it's good to do yoga anywhere and everywhere you can to stay slim, supple, and serene.  I doubt though that the class will attract people who suffer from vertigo or fear of heights.  I have neither, but I think I will stick to my cool basement for the next few mornings as our heat spell continues.

Heatedly yours,

Laura Venecia Rodriguez