Practice yoga regularly

a few times in the past, but now I’m doing this with the 30-in-30 alumni. If anyone wants an invitation to the “practice yoga 30 times in 30 days” team and/or the “practice yoga 7 times in 7 days” team, just let me know and I’ll be glad to send one.

Anyone still active on this goal here, in this team for 2007? Shall I invite others to join? or have you changed your yoga goals – or even your priorities in general?

We did some good work together last year, but perhaps it’s time to disband as a team?

In any case I wish you all a happy and healthy 2007. Namaste.

Sorry for the long absence. I hit a very rough spot inthe emotional life shortly before starting the new job. Ever since then everything has been a bit off. Still doing the morning Rodney Yee tape, and was hoping to do a daily section of the Richard Hittleman book each day this month (28 day-sessions in the book, 28 days in February….) But this week it fizzled out – haven’t had enough time in the mornings for the Hittleman. Also, for several weeks I’ve have had no time for any longer, more intensive sessions. I miss them a lot!

Not to mention re-adjusting to the 9-5 thing is tough on the system: activity, diet, sleep, all those patterns are messed up. No time for yoga is such a lame excuse. I do have time, but need to arrange it better. Lately I seem to need to just veg out a lot, but that’s the adjustment period , I hope.

Ok, enough. How’s everyone else doing?

Well, I was really cruising along there for a while, but lately my practice has been all mangled up. So I’ll have to try to find that groove again. That’s all I’ll be working on for awhile, just getting a daily, early morning practice back.

I mentioned in my check-in that I’d be doing some more chapters…what I didn’t mention is that these are all about inverted postures. So this week I will be paying particular attention to inverted postures.

Many inverted postures cause me a moment of panic. It is the unfamiliar sensation of blood rushing to the head and perhaps the fear of losing control. I’m starting gently, though.

I especially like plough…it is so soothing. What are your favorite inverted postures?

It’s been an interesting week. I was getting into a sort of yoga frenzy, practicing an hour and a half in the mornings and another hour later in the day. Lately there has been very little happening in my life, but I know that soon it will all change, so I’ve been trying to make the most of it. I did some meditation and pranayama, though not daily.

At home I’m still following the 2 tapes and doing daily chapters from the Richard Hittleman book. Every 4th chapter is a review, and I’m repeating the review chapters a few days in a row before moving on. Over the weekend I’ve been visiting a friend and just using the book and some sequences I remember from the tapes.

This week I’ll do a few more chapters from the book, keep doing the Rodney Yee AM tape and the first Kathy Smith tape. I’ll try to become more familiar with the second Kathy Smith tape while I’m at it, but I’m not ready to switch yet.

I’m noticing changes. But then I do something silly like fall asleep on the couch, and screw my back up for days.

Well, today feels like Sunday since it’s a holiday. Greetings, all. :)

This week I was trying to do yoga before 9 am, and I did this every day except Sunday (when I slept in, but fasted and practiced most of the rest of the day); I even did it before 7 a couple of days; no alarm clock. Still, going on the computer before practicing is a hard habit to break; I gave in to the compulsion 3 days last week.

I’ve started adding pranayama and meditation to some sessions. During a hike Thursday I also sat in meditation, and tried some walking yogic breathing.

Beginners mind: I’m taking my time and reviewing all the beginners poses thoroughly. Followed the AM Yoga for Beginners tape by Rodney Yee every day, supplemented by some long sessions: Kathy Smith beginner tape, 2 days; practice from books, 2 days.

I’ve decided it’s also good to set aside a day to not follow any routine, and just let my body go from one pose to the next as it sees fit. When I started Saturday morning, this led to spontaneous meditation!

• start practice by 6:30 am
• pranayama and meditation daily
• be kind to myself by staying off the computer am’s.
• daily Rodney Yee tape followed by
• a brief daily session from Richard Hittleman’s “Yoga, 28 day exercise plan”
• figure out source of panic on left side triangle pose

In case anyone is interested, I’ve gone back and added excerpts (from the weeks when I was starting to practice under another goal) to my “Regular Practice” entry of Jan. 3.

Good morning! It looks like we have a real team now. All of us are trying to develop our own regular yoga practices. I’m going to stop sending invitations for now, but if any of you would like to invite others, please feel free to do so.

In my other team, people decided to check in on Sundays about their previous week, and to set out their intentions for the upcoming week. Would this be useful here? I’m also happy with people posting as frequently as they wish, especially since most of us are just starting to develop our practices. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Seeing so many entries from others starting their practices around the new year has been very exciting to me. Thanks for doing this together!

Hi, teammates!
I’m not working right now, but I’ll be starting back very soon, so my goal is to develop a daily morning yoga routine that I can continue doing once my new job starts.

So far, I’m doing pretty well: did the 15 minute AM Yoga for Beginners tape (with Rodney Yee) every day for 5 days, and a longer tape (by Kathy Smith) for two afternoons. Over the weekend I forgot to bring my tapes, but practiced all the same.
I found that by evening I’d start to crave those stretches again.

The only problem is that, since I’m not working right now, my start time varied widely. Sometimes it would still be dark out, other times it would be noonish. I need to make a habit of getting up and doing yoga early, before breakfast, and before too much thought goes into the upcoming day.

So, for the upcoming week, I’m going to try and do the yoga before 9 AM every day. I’m also going to try and stay off the internet until after yoga! (This morning I’m obviously blowing off that second part, though in my own defense at least I’m thinking about yoga as I sit at the computer.)

Good luck to you both all of you in the upcoming week and please feel free to invite others to join us.

I’d given up on this as a stand-alone goal (started as “exercise 3x/week”, then, briefly, “practice yoga.” In the last weeks of 2005, finally, I managed to start a daily yoga routine as part of my “be healthier” goal.

Ideally, I’d be doing yoga every morning first thing. Besides following my AM Yoga tape, I’d also like to work through my yoga book, and do some of my more strenuous tapes more often. Still not sure whether I’ll take a class again. Classes are great, but it’s the daily habit I’m most concerned with developing.

Following are excerpts from when I started practice under the “be healthier” goal:

Dec. 30
Yoga: I’ve been doing a little every day, before eating or starting the day’s activities. It has helped me to become more aware of my body’s needs and my state of mind/emotions. It would be so great if I could maintain a daily yoga practice in 2006!

Dec. 19
I did yoga every day but one, and I’ve noticed already my body starting to crave the yoga stretches. That craving will make it easier to keep practicing.
For this week, I’m sticking with the yoga goal -every day, this time.

Dec.13
It’s remarkable how, once you set your mind to do something good for yourself, every cell in your body and every thought in your head conspires to resist doing it!

Dec. 11:
I did yoga 5 days this past week, though some days it was just a quickie routine…. So this week I’ll try to …practice yoga every day with somewhat more demanding postures.

Dec. 5:
I’ve now given up on all those separate goals, joined this team, and started doing yoga – like magic, the procrastination bug I’ve had since last summer flew away. So my subgoal is to do 20 minutes of yoga every day this week. (actual start date was Saturday 12/3/05).