Tuesday

[muck_a_luck]

Rodney Yee: Power Yoga Total Body

I have to say, having adventured out and tried some new things, coming back to this disc I'm pretty sure that of all the preset practices it is the best one for me. A good power workout, plus an excellent combination of backward and forward bending.

And I love the rocking.

Sweated like a pig. Had a great time! I am weirdly less flexible of wide angle standing forward bend. No putting my head on the floor today. On the other hand, I have been doing Shiva Rea's hip and shoulder openers almost daily, and I could really tell the difference in my practice today.

Comments

[melayneseahawk.livejournal.com]

Yoga question: My shrink wants me to add exercise to my weekly routine (exercise increases metabolism and makes endorphins, which improve mood). What do you suggest is a good yoga exercise DVD for beginners, preferably one that can be done in 30-45 minute blocks?

[muck-a-luck.livejournal.com]

I started with Yoga for Dummies which I checked out from the library. I really like this instructor and have some of her other DVDs. It's a clear introduction to a dozen important basic poses and some other concepts.

Candlelight Yoga is a nice, easy, soothing routine. Not my favorite, because I'm more about power yoga, but still, a nice introductory one, very managable.

If you want to be more adventurous or when you are ready for a challenge, I would recommend both Rodney Yee's Power Yoga Total Body and Shiva Rea's Yoga Shakti.

The Yee video is long and strenuous, but the postures are not too difficult. So you could just do the first 15 minutes at first, then build up to doing more and more til you can finish the whole thing. The sweaty part is at the beginning, so if you can make it through the first 30 minutes, the rest should be OK, though you may chicken out on the backbending for a while (I did!).

Yoga Shakti is divided up into small pieces intended to be mix and match. So although there are four nice preset routines, you can also just take out pieces to try and get comfortable with. Yoga Shakti does have by far the most advanced poses of this group of discs, but for most of them she gives you beginner options to build up to the more advanced pose.

I have not personally used it, but zats_clear absolutely raves about Yoga Journal's Beginner's Step By Step Yoga. It's on my wish list.

All that said, especially when I was starting yoga, I really liked to do some kind of aerobics warmup to get loose and warm before doing my yoga practice. When you are at the beginning point for flexibility and stamina, yoga can be really tough and being warm when I started was incredibly helpful for me. If you're going to be doing discs and you are planning to exercise in 1 hour chunks, I'd try to find a good half hour aerobics thing you can stand, tehn follow it with the yoga. But that's me, not you! And I'm about 15 years older than you, too, so it may not be such an issue for you.

[melayneseahawk.livejournal.com]

Amusingly enough, I went to the library a few days ago, and Mum suggested I pick up a few tapes while I was there. I hadn't written down anything from here (hadn't expected to go to the library, hadn't expected to go out period), so I just picked some stuff up that looked beginnerish and not too weird.

And I grabbed two of the things you suggested here. Not sure if I remembered them back in the hindbrain, or what. Still, amusing to me on some level.

[zats-clear.livejournal.com]

regarding the step by step: you can see some of it on yogajournal.com, specifically, one here: bending and twisting poses and of course, there is nothing as basic and sun salutations!