How has yoga changed your body? (Life?)

[CoteDAzur]

I have no more knee pain

My back has straightened & the stooped shoulders have disappeared.

Arms are toned and muscles have appeared

I thought not being able to run anymore meant that I would go round and weak, but yoga picked up the pieces

I started with hot yoga but found it too difficult, too hot and it made me ill.

Vinyasa flow suits me much better. It helps me deal with stress, stretches my back and I feel strong. It helps with muscle tone and I have actually acquired a waist!

Would anyone like a lavender bag ? ????

Ive been doing a very gentle yoga class for over a year (weekly, but sadly term-time only).
The things I enjoy are:
Increased flexibility (I've got arthritis but am hypermobile too so it's good to move my joints in a controlled way).
Awareness of my posture (backache is definitely worse if I don't have a 'yoga back').
Much more relaxed neck and shoulders.
And the most important thing of all... It's the time in the week where I spend an hour and a half thinking about me and my body, and only that.

When I'm queen for the day I will prescribe yoga for everything. Heartache? Check. Stress? Check. Aches and pains? Check. Weight loss? Check. Poor posture? Check. Need an hour and a half time out? Check.

Whats not to love?!

I think the notion of a "beginners" yoga class can be a bit confusing and may be reflective of Western values. It can become competitive..

By rights anyone should be able to join a yoga class and be guided through the sequences in the same way as someone who has been going for years. Each posture should have progressions so maybe two or three options that enable successively deeper stretches and if you are new to yoga or have an injury then you stay with the more gentle option.

That's how I would define a good teacher. But I recognise teaching quality varies enormously as do styles of delivery.

I struggle with Pilates breathing. I think it's the reverse of Yoga, which freaks me out!

you are all making me envious, I know I probably am making excuses but would love to do yoga however have such limited time (working LP to a 2.5 year old!).

when I have seriously done yoga in the past it has benefitted me in every way I can think of - great energy, happy and bouncy, more sociable as happier, lost loads of weight, toned up, better skin etc etc etc

at the moment I am crying out to do some but with everything else on top and DS sadly time is defying me. The irony is I know I would be much happier as a parent and get on with all the parenting work / housework much better if I just had the energy yoga gave me. Argh.

Must find an hour twice a week to try again....!!

Griselda - Would it be possible for you to start your yoga practice on YouTube in the evenings, once your DS sleeps?

I have booked my class for Wednesday evening -really looking forward to it! I don't think I was ready for yoga before, when I would have looked at it with the view of weight loss/body shape. All the comments about reducing stress/calmness/relaxation/flexibility are what I'm looking forward to.

That's really interesting Daisy. The studio that offers the beginners class implies that you need to do this first so I just took that as a given. I think I'm a bit nervous about being a beginner so the idea of attending an existing class made me feel like I wouldn't be able to keep up. What you said about progressions makes perfect sense.

thanks Cote, good idea but he doesn't go to bed till 8.30ish (I just can't do early mornings so rather that than be awoken at 6am!!) so by then I am knackered, yoga is the last thing I am on my mind!). Hopefully when he drops naps he will go to bed a bit earlier. I really tried to get up before him but I am not a morning person and failed miserably, that or he woke up too and foiled my attempts!!

I will give it a go this week, find an hour sometime. No excuses!

Could you try including him? I have a YogaKids dvd that ds loves - i started using it when he was about the same age as yours. He's 4 now and still loves it - he also makes up his own poses and Ohms all over the place! It's more about having fun with it than being perfectly aligned, but it would give you a chance to at least do a little bit. It may not be very relaxing practising with a toddler but you could add yoga nidra or just some breathing and meditation even for 5 minutes or so once he's gone to bed to compensate.

that's a good idea velvet! I will give it a go... it might be like hard work at first but in time maybe he'll be a good yoga partner!! anything would be a start for me at the moment. I've been feeling so groggy and tired in general that i really must must must get on to it. It takes me like three hours to feel awake in the morning! (OP sorry to slightly hijack your thread!!).

I've been practising for 4/5 months and am another that can't imagine not doing it now, sounds twatty but it was like a bit of an epiphany when I went to my first class!

I can now do upwards of 10 press ups where I could do none, my body shape is changing (too slowly for my liking still!), I'm generally happier. I've also finally managed to get a handle back on my eating and am not overeating and have finally cut out dairy, which I've been meaning to do for such a long time.

I always come away from class feeling so calm and centred (even if I do walk funny cos of how much my hypermobile hips have stretched! )

My life was forever changed when I walked into my first Ashtanga class back in 2003.

I first started when I was 17 and have always had some sort of practice so I cant really say how it's changed me, I've never not done it, although it's never been quite as important to me as other things such as swimming, lifting, running

griselda my 2.3 year old wanted to join in a lot when I first started but he now gets (after 2 months) that I can't have him climbing all over me so he plays near me instead. Sometimes he will try join in, like this morning he joined in with corpse pose. It just took a lot of me telling him no don't jump on me and I had a bit of stopping and starting but he harasses me much less now. Maybe just find the best time for you and do it.

suzanne - It's wonderful that you've started yoga at 17 and never stopped. Arguably my biggest regret in life is that I stopped doing yoga for many years when DC were small. Asanas that came so easily and caused no pain in my early 30s are now nearly impossible in my early 40s.

?Have you made progress in your 40's Cote, or do you feel that your potential for flexibility has been permanently limited by the hiatus ?

There were periods when my practice consisted of a few rounds of sun salutations before the children woke up.
I've lost some flexibility i?n backends, tbh these days I worry a bit about taking things too far and over stretching ligaments.
I recently stopped doing any stretching because I thought it might be interfering with running, just re introducing it now. ?

it is VERY hard to relax enough for yoga with small children?
I think I still did some but that part of my life is a bit blurry in retrospect so I can't be certain exactly ?

I've only gone back to yoga less than a year ago and already I have made a lot of progress. I'm still not where I used to be 10 years ago in some asanas, but I now can do others (like headstand) which I never did before.

Like you said, the limitations now are more about the various injuries and dodgy joints that have accumulated over the years, due to running for the most part.

that old devil
running

also I suppose it's often a case of needing to get to a certain level so that a much wider range of poses are possible and then you can progress more quickly?

Yes, running. It's like a drug - addictive, gives euphoria, but does damage (sometimes). I did enjoy it immensely while I could run, though, and it changed my body dramatically.

Sorry to hear that running is off limmits Cote, but iirc you are also a swimmer (and a proper trained one at that) do you not find that the post swimming high is as good, if not better than the post running high?

I find yoga helps with mood, but for me the effects of prolonged and intense endurance exercise are in a completely different league