Yoga as a Physical Culture

 For this week, I decided to stick with the same instructor as last week in a guided session by Adriene. Recently, I've been experiencing some moderate neck pain (from sleeping I assume) so I decided to try and find a session geared towards alleviating my pain. Sure enough, Adriene had a session for the purpose of relieving shoulder and neck pain though the practice of yoga. We begin in a upright seated position in order to allow the spine space to stretch and elongate itself  and want to make sure we focus on sitting up straight. 

We begin the session as I found we usually do with this instructor, which is by first focusing on your own breathing in an effort to ground and focus yourself before beginning the yoga. From there, Adriene instructs us to enter a form of a cat pose where we focus on releasing the shoulder blades to wrap forward and hug the ribs in while tensing followed by relaxation. I enjoyed this pose because every time I took a breath in, my muscle felt as if they were stretching against the pressure that I felt in my neck. After only doing this pose for 2-3 minutes, I instantly felt that I had a significantly more movement in my neck than I previously had.

Another one of the poses that helped to alleviate my neck pain was where Adriene instructed us to press are palms together in order to "create a little bit of heat" in-between your hands. after bringing them to in front of my face, I was instructed to place my hands behind my head and reach my elbows to the ceiling. I found that staring up and maintaining my breathing was somewhat difficult but definitely helped with the tension within my shoulders/neck. I also enjoyed how Adriene kept reminding us to imagine our head/spine were attached to a piece of rope that was connected to the ceiling in order to maintain our postural balance and remain sitting upright. All in all, I enjoyed this yoga and can definitely agree that it helped loosen up and partially alleviate my neck pain. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yoga as a lifestyle and culture

 For this weeks yoga, I performed a yoga focused towards waking up and starting your day on the right foot. Adriene was the professor and began the session with positive affirmations and movements specifically geared toward stretching. I enjoyed the movements Adriene walked me through and could feel the fatigue/tired feeling leaving my body after each asana. One specific pose that stuck out to me was the tabletop position and how we switched into downward dog to stretch a majority of the body in one motion. As always Adrience reminds us to focus on our breathing and to stay grounded many times throughout the session. One observation I have made about Adriene and her practice is that she has fully embraced the “pop culture” yoga identity. While her sessions are well planned and efficient, she takes views on yoga that would be questioned when viewed under a traditional light. With this being said, I personally enjoy her style and think that there is importance in both aspects of yoga...
Read more

Theme as Ritual

 After reading the article by Klas Nevrin and discussing the concept of practice being a “ritual” in class, I decided to perform a yoga that included various different postures. After some looking, I decided on performing a yoga that focused on flexibility within the mind and body (with Adriene as the instructor). While practicing this yoga, I made sure to pay specific attention to the changes in nature, impact, and intensity and how it affected my practice. I felt that viewing my practice in these different aspects helped me to connect more with the yoga and had overall better intentions going in. We began with focusing our breathing followed by entering an extended child’s pose. While in this position, Adriene explained how the further you stretch your hands in front of you the more pressure is put on your shoulders. I also enjoyed the mountain pose where I was instructed to keep my feet grounded in order to gain the full feeling of my height in relation to the ground. I felt mor...
Read more

9/30 Bikram Yoga Series 1

 This yoga (Bikram) was taught to the class by Diana Polli and I conducted my practice at my house. My initial reaction to Bikram yoga was that it was more intense that I expected. We immediately began the yoga and I found it slightly hard to keep up with the oral instructions as I was unfamiliar in how the postures moved from one to another. After changing my view so that I could follow along as the class also demonstrated the posture, the class became much more enjoyable.  The beginning postures were mainly standing which I found to be quite strenuous and slightly more difficult than I could handle. With that being said, I still gave every position my best shot and found that a majority of them really helped to loosen up my muscles and help me feel better. Before long, I began to work up a sweat and also found myself having to take water breaks which is ironic considering this yoga is usually done in a heated room. My favorite of the different postures that we did from this ...
Read more