Week 7

        This week’s yoga practice was online via zoom with Jen from The Yoga Hive. She took us through Sivananda yoga; this kind of yoga is more static and involves less movement between positions. Jen has been teaching and learning Sivananda yoga for 18 years, she learned from The Freehold Center, in Freehold NJ, which is now closed. Sivananda is a man from India who put together this form of yoga; he had three disciples that two went to the US (New York and Virginia) and one to Canada to teach students about this form of yoga. Every practice consists of the same poses and positions but there are some variations for different levels of experience; for example, a beginner won’t perform a headstand the first time around. Jen’s teachers learned directly from Sivananda’s disciples. Sivananda believed in 5 proper ways of living: Proper breathing, meditation, proper exercises (postures), diet (vegetarian), and proper relaxation. Alignment is not as important compared to other forms of yoga, these positions are more static and less moving from pose to pose quickly. Jen emphasizes that if there is any discomfort, pain, or numbness to stop performing the position. 

        I enjoyed this form of yoga. It focused more on being in the position than trying to go from pose to pose. Breathing is a huge part and if your breathing is off, your positioning is not synchronized. This time I was able to perform most of the poses, except the headstand. Yoga block would have been a great tool to use during practice, but I do not have any. Instead, I used a large book, about the size of a block, to use in replacement. After practice, I felt that my muscles were more stretched and my mind focused for the day. This exercise is great not only for physical health but also for mental. If I were to take this class a second time, I would be more prepared and somewhat expect what the next pose will be. 


        What I have noticed in “pop-culture yoga” is that it mostly consists of celebrities or well-known people who chose yoga as a way of life. These celebrities use brands and marketing strategies to get a better following while turning yoga into something completely different than it was originally. This new yoga takes no part in the religious aspect and only use it as a means of exercise. Now when a person from the west is asked “What is yoga” they will most likely say that it is a form of exercise that promotes expensive activewear and do things like ‘juice cleansing’. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Final Journal

  Number 14 and final yoga journal. I started the class by only taking one yoga class at Stockton my freshman year of college and now being a senior, my perspective of yoga has changed. At first, I saw it as a ridiculous exercise that was a trend on the west coast, for example, California. Due to the current global pandemic of covid-19, classes at Stockton were converted to be online. This made it impossible to hold live face-to-face yoga sessions and was hard to truly experience what can be. For me, I preferred the meditative aspect of yoga and also the physical as well but not at the same time. The reason I chose to take this course is for my holistic health minor because I am always interested in alternative medicines and practices to heal the body in a natural way. Not everything can be done naturally, there will always be instances where medical intervention is required. This experience of learning and practicing yoga at home has taught me that Yoga can be done without fancy equ
Read more

Week 3

            Week three of online yoga. This week’s class was via a zoom call in class with guest speaker Diane Polli. She walked us through a different kind of yoga called Bikram Yoga. Although she did not perform the poses, Professor Greene showed the class how it was done. For this type of yoga, I’ve noticed that the individual performing it must already have some flexibility. As a beginner, it was not starter friendly and I was not able to fully or correctly perform the positions. In a typical Bikram Yoga studio, those who practice regularly and are familiar with how the class flows, are put in the front to show others how to carry out the positions. Since this class was online and was not available for an in-person setting, I believe it was executed the best it could.           The beginning of the class felt pointless; we started with a breathing exercise to lay out the foundation, but it was just moving my head and arms up and down to me. As we moved on, the positions become more
Read more

Week 4

           Week three of online zoom yoga practice. The guest teacher for yoga practice this week is Amita Bhagat. Anita showed how to do Iyengar yoga. Its practices in 53 countries and is about finder one’s inner self. It takes six to seven years of practice to become certified at the first level; there are multiple levels to Iyengar yoga. It can be analyzed as a ritual because it is an action that an individual repeats on a schedule, whether that be daily to annually. A ritual consists of certain steps be taken at a specific time; one can think of it like a witch’s spell and of course yoga. According to Nevrin, symbols and props with set rules of interaction are rituals but yoga can be explained also in that way. Iyengar himself used his body as a “test subject,” meaning his body was treated in a way that a scientist would perform tests on a lab subject; a “laboratory” Amita said. He would practice most of his life, after a day of teaching he would then spend ten hours practicing for
Read more