Practice yoga 30 times in 30 days

Well I can officially check this goal off!

Today’s practice wasn’t too brilliant, really—went along with a Yoga Today podcast and had to stop entirely too frequently to blow my nose (still recovering from that cold). Still, I’m glad to say I’ve done this. Thanks for all the support and best of luck to the rest of you! I’ll be continuing on at the alumni goal, hope to see you all there. :)

So I’m finally feeling most of the way better and am back on track with yoga. Today’s session was short and simple as I’m still feeling mildly congested. I felt very weak (especially in my arms) after a few days away but those familiar movements were surprisingly comforting once I got going. I’m looking forward to a longer, more intense, hopefully very satisfying practice tomorrow.

Well, I should’ve finished my 30-in-30 yesterday, but I’ve had a miserable cold for the past few days and it’s left me basically unable to breathe through my nostrils. :(

Last time I went a few days without practicing, I started this goal all over again. This time, though, it’s for reasons beyond my control (rather than because I’m being lazy), so I’m going to go ahead and not count these last couple days. I’m still at 28-in-28 and I’ll resume practicing and counting as soon as I can breathe properly again (hopefully tomorrow or the next day!).

I’m sorry I haven’t been active on this team in ages now—school has really taken over my life. The good news, though, is that I’ve been managing to fit in yoga every day! I’m now just 5 days away from acheiving my 30 in 30, which is very exciting. There’s some temptation to stay on for 43 in 43, but I don’t know yet that I will. Either way, I’m really grateful to this goal for making me prioritize yoga. This semester is tough (as evidenced by the fact that it’s forced me to cut back severely on my online time) and has the potential to stress me out completely, but I’ve been managing to handle things fairly well and I’m sure yoga has quite a bit to do with that. :)

Wow, I’m at the two-week mark! And I’m again behind by one session—I did two wonderful practices just the other day but then didn’t manage to do any yesterday. Oh well. I’m confident I’ll be able to catch up soon.

I’m so, so glad I have this goal. Lately I’ve been noticing all these little things that have improved: I’m getting more flexible every day and my breath seems deeper, longer, and smoother every time I practice. There are many more things and I feel accomplished each time I note one.

So, some things I still want to do with this goal:
- Start practicing in the mornings more often. Leaving it to the night means that it gets skipped if I’m tired, and also that I don’t get to reap the benefits of energizing poses. I love how alive and ready I feel after morning yoga, so I’ve gotta do more of it!
- Work more on the spiritual and mental aspects of yoga. More specifically, I’d like to start doing some more meditation and working with the stress-relieving properties of yoga. Though these are the things that used to interest me most about yoga, lately I’m having trouble with them and I think I’ve been too focused on the physical part.

I know there are more but I’m very sleepy so that’s it for tonight. I hope you’re all well!

Well, I haven’t really had time to post lately, but I’ve been keeping up these past few days. Today is Day 9 for me and will hopefully see a practice in the evening; currently I’m at 7 practices in 8 days.

My semester started a few days ago and did bring with it a more orderly schedule, but no time for yoga in that schedule, just soul-crushing amounts of homework! It’s been tough but I’ve really been valuing the stress-relieving properties of yoga as a result. My favorite practices in the last couple days have been slow, self-directed, sometimes challenging but mainly relaxing.

Yesterday (which was my 20th birthday!) I started the yoga class I’m taking through my school this semester. To be honest, I didn’t like it all that much. The instructor talked and talked and talked and talked and then talked some more. The class is designed for absolute beginners, so we spent two hours learning how to relax in savasana. And of course I’m not so arrogant as to say I didn’t learn anything from this, because I did, but at this rate I’m wondering if the class will ever get up to the speed I desire. I’m considering dropping it and enrolling in something slightly more advanced at a studio near here, we’ll see…

Anyway, I hope you’re all well and hopefully I’ll find some more time to read & comment on all your entries soon!

Well, yesterday (day 4) didn’t work out because I was busy preparing for and then enjoying the world’s greatest dinner party. (I did play Twister at the dinner party, does that count at all? Haha.) But today, day 5, was fantastic in terms of yoga. I’d had an emotionally intense few hours, so I decided to do a simple self-directed practice with a big focus on love (feeling, recognizing, and appreciating it around me, and helping others in my life to do the same). No real challenging poses, but lots of slow flowing and deep breathing. I used a little thing we sing in church (“When I breathe in, I’ll breathe in peace/When I breathe out, I’ll breathe out love”) and ended my shavasana with a recorded version of an English translation of Sufi poet Hakim Sanai (courtesty of Poetry Chaikhana). It was beautiful.

So I’m not thrilled about having missed a day, but I know I’ll make it up soon! My semester starts tomorrow, and with school comes a much more ordered schedule, during which I will probably be lucky enough to even do yoga twice a few days a week! AND I’m starting a yoga class on Wednesday, for which I’m very excited!

I just finished an incredibly intense yoga workout! I was thinking I wanted something fast and flowing because I had a lot of energy, and boy did I get it! I went with an old (well, old in podcast years, by which I mean it was from last month) Yoga Today episode I still had on my computer (“The Secret to Success in Yoga: Continuity”—I thought that title was fitting for this goal!). It was fast-paced, full of challenging poses, and wonderful. I got through about 45 minutes of it before collapsing into child’s pose, then shavasana. At points it was almost too challenging, but for the most part it felt great, and I think I did a better-than-usual job of staying with my breath, which is definitely a good thing. :)

So I’m off to sleep very, very deeply! I hope you’re all doing well and am continually inspired by all of your entries.

Today was a pretty good yoga day. I did some things on my own (sun salute, cat/cow tilts, etc.) and had that wonderful feeling of flowing from pose to pose before I could even consciously think of them—like my body knew what to do before my mind. I love that! After that, I repeated some parts of the Yoga Today podcast I did yesterday, then finished as usual with several minutes in shavasana. All in all probably 30-40 minutes and a good workout.

Okay, so here I go again with this goal! (For those of you who weren’t here or don’t remember, I gave it up a couple weeks or so ago when I traveled & forgot my mat, leaving a 4-day gap in my practice, which I just felt was too long.)

Today I used one of my favorite yoga resources: the Yoga Today podcast. For anyone who doesn’t know, Yoga Today is a free daily hour-long lesson you can get online (I subscribe via iTunes, but episodes can also be downloaded from the site). It works well for me because I do yoga in my bedroom, which is also where my computer is. I went for an old episode that I hadn’t yet used: Core Strengtheners, of which I did about 25 minutes (some of the poses were a little intense for me today, what with not having practiced in a few days + having done more than my share of celebrating the new year in the past couple days), followed by 5 minutes in shavasana. A good reunion with yoga for me. :)

Happy New Year, everyone!