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 equipment. For example, an expensive yoga mat, lulu lemon leggings, and costly yoga classes taught by an instructor who took a couple classes on teaching. I like not producing a lot of waste in my day-to-day life by using products that are reusable and have multiple purposes. A yoga mat is not one of the products that I would invest in because I can use a variety of other objects as a substitute. For me, a substitute was substantial for the semester and as time went on, I saw less and less need for a decorative yoga mat. 

The beginning was hard because I had not the slightest idea of what I was doing. The only yoga experience I had before taking this course is that freshman year of college, I took a single yoga class offered by the school in the TLRC building on Stockton’s campus. As I slowly got into the weekly practices, I was able to concentrate more on my classwork while keeping organized. This amazed me because I have tried a broad variety of other forms of exercise and purchased blue light glasses to focus on schoolwork. Taking a walk in the morning before my synchronous classes did not last long because of the cold weather approaching. I wish I was able to take this course face to face and not during a pandemic. Online courses feel distant and disconnected from the real world. Learning at home is difficult because I rather learn face-to-face and can visually absorb the information then apply it hands-on.

Yoga can mean many different things to many different people. For example, the west tends to use yoga as more of a physical exercise or as a way to meet with friends periodically and the other side, in the east, sees it as a religion to find total enlightenment. I do not really see a yoga mat being a necessity in practicing yoga. In a class setting yes, it is best to have one to protect your hands and feet from the floor, but I would rather do yoga outside on the grass. It does not matter to me if my hands and feet get a little dirty. The feeling of being more connected to the ground and feeling the grass brings me deeper into the yoga mindset. During the winter this is hard to do. Some practices were via zoom in synchronous meetings and my other practices were YouTube videos I have watched on my own time. I prefer to practice yoga in the morning while I have my morning coffee. It opens my mind for the day. In the first few classes, I laid out a towel on top of a rug as a makeshift yoga mat. I did not want to buy an expensive mat then not get much use out of it. 

Throughout the course I did have some trouble a few weeks into the semester on completing some sessions because my mental and physical health was declining. Once I had some time to things and focus on my health, I decided to try to incorporate more meditative yoga. First, I started with a couple sessions a week and gradually built up to practice every day. Meditation greatly improved my mental health which then led to my physical health increasing as well.  After reviewing all my yoga journals of the semester, I realized that I have not improved much physically but greatly mentally. During the course of the semester, I was looking for yoga videos on YouTube but after a while, they seem to run out. The biggest obstacle to overcome with the weekly journals is finding new and interesting videos on the internet to try. On YouTube, there are thousands of videos to choose from, but they seemed to repeat the same concepts and the same positions with little variety. The beginning of the semester was the most enjoyable and an eye-opening experience I have had with yoga because of the guest speakers in class-leading the practice and showed the class an alternative practice. From Hatha Yoga to Sivananda Yoga to Iyengar and the list goes on. I enjoy yoga more when each class has some variety to it.