For the last few classes we have been focusing on breathing.  It’s important to take the focus off of  just the pose and bring it to one of the most important parts of the Yoga experience, the breathe. When we breath correctly we can dig in a little deeper while holding our poses.

Mountain pose is a wonderful place to start because once we are in good posture with our shoulders back and down, our chest open, our body in alignment with hips over ankles, shoulders over hips, head in line with the spine, then we have the optimum position for beginning to fill our lungs up or expand them eventually so that they can hold more oxygen.

Easy pose is a wonderful place to experience your breath in a seated position.  Shoulders back and down while over hips, head in line with spine and the lungs are ready to be filled.

The biggest problem with breathing is the fact that we are used to standing around in bad posture.  Bad posture immediately closes off the chest and lungs and heart.  Good posture opens it all up and gives your heart room to pump and your lungs room to fill to maximum capacity.  What I’ve found to be true is that once we’ve been breathing in bad posture so long, it’s as if we are learning how to breath a new.

If there are poses that you feel you have difficulty breathing in, just be patient with yourself because eventually your lung capacity will increase and you will learn to keep your chest open in those poses.  ”Be Patient With Yourself”  and as always Peace, Love, and Blessings to all…..

Robin

All Yoga poses with the exception of a few, require use of the core in order to keep your balance and stability. I think it’s a good thing regardless of the type of exercise you decide to do, to keep that muscle confusion going a bit. In Yesterdays class, we used balls and bands. By using the ball we have to work on keeping our spine stretched up in to good posture just a little bit harder causing us (even without thinking about it) to engage that core a little bit tighter. Take a basic warrior with a lunge and add in some side movements while holding a large ball and you have the core engaged even more. Bands are also a tool that is used in a similar way while giving you some additional strength building. We also did presses from the core. I define a warrior press as pushing down through the center of the body, through the bottom, bending both knees and then pulling back up through the center of the body, lifting from the core and tightening the bottom when we come back to start. Yoga is so much more than breathing and posing. It’s an overall unique experience for you to become strong and healthy while discovering all that you can be. Peace, love, and Blessings………

I’m excited about sharing my daily thoughts on Yoga. I will be giving an agenda for each up coming class. I’ll be sharing the highlights and all the wonderful things experienced during each class. I hope you will join me and give feedback.