And So It Begins...

Yay for Yoga

Reading Reflection

"Now, the teachings of yoga are presented.

Yoga is the stilling of the changing states of mind.

When that is accomplished, the seer abides in its own true nature.

Otherwise, at other times, the seer is absorbed in the changing states of the mind."

These are the four introductory sutras from the book we were assigned to read before our first class, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. These four simple lines explain what is to be accomplished during the practice of yoga - the stilling of the mind. During our everyday lives, our minds are constantly buzzing with thoughts and responsibilities. We're reflecting on the past, thinking about the present, and planning for and worrying about the future. For pretty much anybody, particularly a chronic worrier like myself, this causes a lot of stress. When I'm not worrying and planning, my mind is wandering off into its own distracted world.

With yoga, all the stress, unhappiness, and other "changing states" inside you are calmed as you "abide in [your] own true nature". These four sutras were a good way for us to be introduced to yoga, our class practice of yoga, and the various other readings for our class that revolve around it.

It told us what to expect and gave us a goal to aim towards.

A book that presents us with yoga in practice is a novel, How Yoga Works, by Gesne Michael Roach. In this story from a seventeen-year-old girl from Tibet's point of view, the reader sees how yoga can heal your body, heart, and mind, even when you're going through great unhappiness and pain, and make you feel whole again. The Yoga Sutra that the girl has inherited from her late master and the practice itself help to teach kindness, happiness, peace, and more.

During the first 8 chapters, while on a personal mission to seek a new master and spread the teachings of yoga in India, she is imprisoned when the Captain and Sergeant of a town jail accuse her of stealing the old yoga book that her master had given to her. She is held in a cell while the Captain enlists her to teach him yoga in the hopes that it will heal his back pains.

Despite the constant leers from the Sergeant, the bad state of the cell, the lack of food, danger to her dog Long-Life's health, and overall unfortunate circumstances, the girl makes the best of her situation and resolves to help the Captain, taking it on as her new temporary calling. She recognizes him as a good student and wishes to bring him happiness and peace and to soothe his pain, which is kind of amazing since I would be pretty darn bitter about everything by that point and not in the mood to be nice to these people.

We see the Captain's personality improve as he obediently follows the practice and listens to everything she has to say about yoga and the meaningfulness behind it. She teaches him of compassion, selflessness, and yoga's ability to heal not only him but others as well through him. She teaches him that he must want to heal and help himself and the people around him. She has already learned herself, and you can't help but admire her a little for it, especially since it's such a sharp contrast to how you think someone would react to unfair imprisonment. Most teenagers and young adults nowadays focus mainly on just themselves, their problems and desires, though you'll come across a kind-hearted few that make it mission to help others, like her. She's pretty much the opposite of what we see in most captured protagonists in today's movies and books, who will simply just fight back, look for any way to escape, and feel only anger towards his/her captor. It just makes me hope that things will turn out alright for her in the end and that she will succeed in helping everyone. I'd love for her to get out of this having helped herself and everyone around her.

Class Reflection

Practice during class has been interesting to say the least, especially since it is on Tuesdays and Thursdays and on those days I have another yoga class earlier in the day. I'm going through different exercises in each class. We haven't started the downward-facing dog in the other yoga class yet, thankfully. It's been cool learning about yoga's history and the sanscrit words for each move. We're learning a little bit of everything!

There have been numerous times during the class where I was shaking like a newborn baby foal while trying to hold my pose, but at the end I was surprised by how different I felt. I was wobbly and a little stiff, even the next morning, but I wasn't terribly sore, and I actually did feel stretched and like I'd just spent and hour and fifteen minutes in a sort of focused blur. I wasn't thinking or worrying about anything else during asana practice.

I was worried I would feel really self-conscious around the others, but quickly realized everyone was too focused on the professor and their own struggles with their poses. We were all having a good time, too. I feel as if that is a really important part of doing yoga for me. We're all smiling, laughing, and having a good time, as confused and stiff as we might feel compared to others at times, and this helps with releasing a lot of the tension that builds up within me as the week progresses. I felt rather proud when I could hold the poses as long as everyone else, too, which I was honestly worried I wasn't going to be able to do since I'm not as in-shape as most of the others. I would start the day kind of worrying about the exercises and my homework for other classes, but then I'd finish with feeling surprisingly rejuvenated though a little tired and smelly. I most enjoy the end of class, when I'm in the corpse pose and feeling relaxed and satisfied. I'm looking forward to getting better at yoga and learning new and more complex poses, and I hope it continues to help me with stress and even some of my physical health.

Outside Class

Being perfectly honest, I haven't had much time or will to attempt yoga outside of class. Besides my regular class readings, my psychology class/lab has been keeping me busy all week with mini-projects, and it's been tiring me out. As of yet, I don't think I've noticed too much of a physical difference in myself, though I definitely feel more relaxed and limber after each yoga class. I also find myself trying to sit straighter, and I'm finding a new appreciation for stretching out my limbs. I've tried connecting my hands behind my back a couple of times after Thursday. It hasn't gotten much better, to say the least.

Yoga has a different de-stressing effect on me than when I listen to music, go on the internet, or pet my roommate's dog. I'm not completely sure I can explain it. Where these other things succeed in distracting me and making me happy emotionally, yoga succeeds in de-stressing me physically and mentally. I'm tired afterwards and in bad need of a shower, but I feel accomplished and a little clear-minded. I think I've been feeling a little less stiff lately, which could very well be because of yoga. My back and shoulders have been stiff and bothering me for a while now, especially when I wake up or sit for a while after getting back from classes, so I can kind of relate with the Captain in How Yoga Works, at least on that end. They haven't been bothering me as much as they usually do, and I'd love it if yoga helped with that problem.

I'm always starving after class if finally over, too, which at least tells me that I've been working hard and haven't been slacking off, which I admittedly have a tendency to do during anything physical that doesn't revolve around out-walking and out-climbing my parents on outdoor vacations. I'd like to think last week's yoga classes helped me during the festival and parade in Austin that I went to on Saturday, which involved a copious amount of walking and standing. My feet finally stopped screaming when I got home around 3:30 am.

Other than these little things, I haven't had much of a chance to try out what I've been learning on my own time, but I hopefully will within the next week or so, when things finally calm down in a couple of my other classes. I'd sure love the break and time to focus on something else...