Perhaps the reason why is that they made judgement based on what they’ve heard from other people. Did they go for a class before? I’ll take my guess and say no, these people probably have not.

If they have gone for yoga classes in those commercial studios in big cities, they would have realized that these classes are focused mainly on asanas and perhaps some breathing exercises. Just because the name of the poses or asanas are in another language does not make it religious.

We probably need someone to repackage the yoga poses and call it something else. Maybe call it Power Stretches And Exercise. Maybe that will go down well with everyone.

It’s incredible how closed minded people can get or how easily they pass judgment about something or someone without understanding. I am guilty of such behavior too!

Sometimes you take one look at a person and your mind starts building an imagery of that person based on stereotypes. Sometimes this can’t be helped. But I guess the important thing is to open your mind and observe with your heart. Sometimes, the person with the worst first impression may turn out to be one of the best friends you have!

Life is full of surprises!

~Namaste!

When you become too stubborn and unyielding, things often turn even more against you. However, when you are able to surrender and to go with the flow, things always turn out somehow for the better eventually.

Heebs has this particular flow which he is having us do pretty a lot this few weeks. It is what he calls the offering yoga flow (i think). I love the flow as it is simple, graceful and yet symbolic. When you do the flow, you are offering to something bigger than you ( maybe it’s the universe, your god or the divine ).

1.Stand with feet together with hands in namaste.
2.Breathe in and raise your hands slowly upwards with palms facing towards you. ( in the usual sun salutations, the palms of the hands are usually facing each other when raising ) This is like signifying a pair of hands with palms cupped and offering… so when you raise up, it is like you are offering, opening…
3. Then close your palms and move hands downwards, forming a namaste… flowing with the namaste hands as you bend down and touch the floor with your palms.
4. Breathe in, raise your head, and lengthen your body with your palms still on the floor. Breathe out and then forward bend.
5. Walk back to plank. Then lower the knees, chest and chin.
6. Rest your whole body down. Lower head to the floor with forehead touching the floor and your hands stretch out in front with the palms facing upwards. Keep your two big toes touching. Then breathe in and lift your head, arms and legs.
7. Then move your hands beside your chest and move into upward dog.
8. Move back into downward dog.
9. Then walk in small steps towards your hands until you are in a forward bend.
10. Then lift your head and lengthen your body while breathing in. And then back into the forward bend when you breathe out.
11. Finally,palms facing towards you, raise hands up and finally end with the namaste.

~OM

Some teachers however say that it shouldn’t matter. Perhaps… But not when you do not have the strength or flexibility yet to overcome the various difficulty in these poses. Seriously, some poses are oh-so-easy for some long limbed people while I struggle like a beginner to get into them ( cowface or binding during

One of such difficulty was jumping from downward dog straight into a seated position with legs straight out in front (ashtanga style). With short arms, the area to jump through is shortened and often I find that I cannot “swing” through and the legs always get “stuck” at the “gateway”. Thus I was reduced to going into a crossed legged seated pose first and then extend the legs out.

But finally I was able to jump through straight legged yesterday!

How?

Pretty ingenious I must say. I attended an intermediate yoga workshop by Kenny ( yes, the teacher with the much drool-some physique ) and picked up this tip.

So if you are short like me, you can try this :

When you jump forward, just lift up your wrists! ( shifting your weight all on your knuckles and finders )

Neat?

You bet. I was able to slip through ( still not as smoothly but it went through ) with straight legs! Yey!

OM~

PS. HEadstand?? still working on that… grrrrr….. but i am glad to report that I am finding more confidence in tripod headstand!

Technorati Tags: downward dog, tripod headstand

Anyway today, I went for a new yoga teacher Power Yoga Class. This yoga teacher is very fit… he has a muscular physique (the waist must be smaller than mine and the rippling 6-8 packs is quite amazing -> doro observed… hehe… Guys, if you want a six packs, well then yoga is the way to go…) and an incredible yoga practice.

Since most of us in the class are new to his style of teaching, we were all quite lost when he says “Falling Stars” ( this is what I heard… ) I wondered and pondered what he meant even after he showed us that it is Chaturanga. He was soft and often his pronounciation was not very clear. Then I figured he meant “Falling Staff”… but I still could not figure out why falling… only after the class, one of the fellow yogi mentioned “Four Limb Staff” that I realized that the yoga teacher was referring to “Four Limb Staff”… ahahaha…

Anyway his power yoga class has quite a bit of Ashtanga yoga style to it and had us doing plenty of vinyasas. Some of the tougher yoga poses he wanted us to do included jumping from downward dog to Lolasana ( wah… he did it so nicely… that’s the power of 6 packs… ), jumping from downward dog to crow, jumping from downward dog to Tittibhasana and back to Chaturanga, Visvamitrasana ( infamous David Swenson pose on his Ashtanga book ), going to Hanumasana straight from downward dog.

He also managed to fit in poses like Warrior 1, Warrior 3, Revolved Triangle, Half Moon, Revolved Half Moon, Bound Revolved Shoulderstand, Niralamba, cresent lunge, Wheel (2 variations), balancing with one leg and the other straight back and the hands in namaste behind and chest on thighs, … Wow… come to think of it, he made us do quite a number of poses… He also tried to test our arm strength by having us go into Chaturanga and then hold and then turn to one side still in Chaturanga…. He also did an interesting twist to the Extended Side Angle (Utthita Parsvakonasana)… the bottom arm is lightly rested on the knee with hand in chin mudra instead. Quite nice! And it sure make sures that you are engaging your back leg.

Phew…

Tomorrow will be interesting day for me as I will become a videographer and take a good break from yoga… by filming the rest in the yoga class! Hehe…

Plus, a fun in the sun day at Sentosa! Woohoo… Handstands in sand at the beach perhaps?

OM~

Technorati Tags: Power Yoga, Ashtanga yoga, Lolasana, Tittibhasana, Chaturanga, Visvamitrasana, David Swenson, Utthita Parsvakonasana, chin mudra

The class was all about strengthening the quads and activating the forearms. Furthermore, the classes by Heebs tend to move towards being able to feel the parts of your body, being aware of the movements.

To strengthen the quads, we did a new pose – kneel with body upright. Then keeping the body diagonal by leaning back, move your bottom towards the left side and then across to the right side before lifting up again to kneeling. Woah, you can really feel the quads… it was intense ( my face actually squirmed everything I did that… ).

To activate the inner forearms, we did our vinyasas with only our thumbs and index finger on the floor and the rest of the fingers off the floor. We did the rolling into plank from down dog slowly with awareness to the core. By curling the back and lifting up with the head coming up last into plank slowly, the core is activated in the process. By the end of the class, my poor thumb base was red and totally in pain. I think my skin is really thin and it gets really painful.

We did alot of jumping to crow and back to chaturanga today. Plus the jellyfish yoga… which is essentially the crow pose and we lift up and down in crow pose. Heebs says it is like the muscular energy of the jellyfish, pulsing up and down. Well, lucky the jellyfish is pulsing in the water…. here I am trying to “puff up” and down with all 50+kg… how much does a jellyfish weigh in water anyway? HAHA….

Oh ya… tried bunny hop to handstand but did not succeed this time. I truly believe it is all in the mind… and yesterday, my mind was not really there… I really need to get back my regular sleeping hours…

Zzzzz…. need more sleep….

Technorati Tags: yoga class, arm balances, vinyasas, crow, chaturanga

Finally I am able to hop up to handstand with both legs!!

Amazing feeling!

As usual, today’s Heeb’s class was jammed packed with people ( many who came in late had to squeeze in with additional mats ) There were many new faces in the room this session ( they probably won’t know what they are getting themselves into if they were not practicing long enough… it’s heeb’s notorious P2 class )

First the “torturous” abs session. Partner with a friend. Lie head to head on your back. Reach out for your friend’s shoulders and your friend reach out to hold your shoulders ( from under ). Then lift both legs towards the ceiling. Then lower to the floor with just 2 inches above. Then back up again. Repeat 25 times. ( must sync with partner some more… ) Then finally to lift your legs to touch your friend’s legs as they lift up also, meeting of the legs just above the legs. This was done for another 25 times…

Yep… you can hear the groans coming from every corner of the room. Amazingly I did not feel too much on the abs.. perhaps the pain will come tomorrow…

Heeb did the “asymmetrical” downdog again today. Just go into downdog and then lift one leg to the sky with hips even. Then lift the arm on the other side and put behind your back. This requires much focusing and rooting of the hand and foot on the floor as you balance.

Another fun pose he did quite regularly recently is the single leg “squat” down. What is this? Stand in Tadasana and lift one leg up. Hold both hands on the lifted leg. Extend the leg forward. Keep your hips and shoulders even. Then slowly squat down with the standing whilst still holding on to the extended leg. Then once you are fully squatted with that single leg, slowly “unsquat” your single leg and come back up to standing single leg ( all the while with the other leg extended in front with your hands ). Great for building quads!

And finally the fun inversions!

I did the bunny hop several times. I found that the first few times I did, I can feel the hips getting higher. And it felt lighter and lighter. But still I cannot seem to move the hips forward more. What I did was when I jumped, I breathe in and held the breath as I sprung up ( as bo and heebs taught in many of their classes ). This time I felt the jumping was lighter. Then the final jump, I told myself, “just do it, pull out whatever you have!!” And I did it. Almost magically I felt my hips tilted over and naturally my legs went up!

Over the moon! I think my constant training of my headstand using the single leg lift first also helped in this bunny hop to handstand as it strengthen my core muscles.

Wee!

And I must say my day started with me feeling thankful to whatever that I had. The feeling of gratitude that I have the health to do yoga was strongly felt today when I saw this man who was walking with a limp. Then I thought about whatever that I have in my life and I felt thankful again.

Everyone should always start the day with thanks, especially to whatever that one has. It will bring you much joy for the rest of the day! I promised!

OM~

Technorati Tags: handstand, downdog, Tadasana, squat, inversions, headstand

Yey, today we are back doing backbends and dropbacks. Woohoo!

Twas a bit scary doing the first dropback as I have not done it for quite some time. I remember the first time I tried doing drop back, it was quite scary. The feeling of going down backwards is not something normal people do. It’s like falling down into the unknown. But once you overcome that fear, the feeling is light and open and almost magical. It’s like you gone past that what ifs stage, and you know you are going to be just fine and your hands gonna land safely… you know exactly what’s going to happen.

If you are new to backbends or have some back problems, please please, do not try this… unless you have your yoga teacher around, kay?

Some tips on drop backs that I have experienced ( due to amazing teaching by Bo )
1. It’s all about opening the chest. Try this anusara method in opening your chest : Stand with “robot arms”, arms bent at elbows. Have someone in front of you to help spot you. Ask the person to put his hands on your elbows. You push your bent arms against the person’s hands. Breathe in, roll shoulders back, push your chest outwards ( like a puffed pigeon’s chest ). Then push your bent arms against the person’s hands as you back backwards. … –> must draw pictures to show properly… stayed tuned…

2. Standing wider, bending your knees slightly and pushing your hips forward as you bend backwards will help.

3. If your back is still not strong, you can practice by standing with your back facing the wall. Then bend backwards using similar “robot hands” until your max and you can stretch your hands out behind and above your head to touch the wall behind. Then you can slowly “walk” your hands down the wall.

Then the second part : coming back up from the drop back ( from wheel ).

This is one part which I am still practicing hard to get. But I think I am inching forward. I can finally feel that I am engaging and pushing my feet down to the floor as I move up.

How I practice ( thanks to Shirley who shared this tip ) :
While in wheel, try to lift your hands off the floor. Slowly work with hands on floor, then try to go onto the fingertips and then to try to lift and hang with the fingertips off the floor. While using this method, I find that I was able to connect with the legs more and hence able to finally figure out how to push the foot to the floor when trying to lift.

Another good way to help is to have your feet apart more and have your feet with toes pointing slightly outwards. This way I can feel my inner thighs pushing down to the inner shins and finally down to the inner side of the feet.

Oh ya, must try to rock back and forth to help with the momentum abit to lift up ( I dare not do this when I am alone, I need a security “blanket” to help me in case i fall back ).

Technorati Tags: Ustrasana, urdhva dhanuraasana, Eka Pada Rajakapotasana, anusara

What is this pose? ( I am trying to find the sanskrit for it… but cannot find… anyone who knows, please let me know! )

First of all, the hips need to be “opened”. Really open.

Sit with legs in front of you. Then bring one of the legs close to your body by bending. Move the leg back and try to put the foot of that leg on the tricep of the same side arm. In effect, you will have your foot “stepping” on your tricep. Then bring the leg on the floor to the back and place your arms in chaturanga ( all these time, the foot is on your tricep ). Finally go down into chaturanga and lift the back leg up. All the while, remember to keep the foot on the tricep tight.

The difficulty of the pose stems from the fact that your hips need to be really open in order to move the foot behind your tricep of your arm. I could do it on one side only. My dragonfly “fluttered” abit, lifted the back leg for a short instance before coming down.

Technorati Tags: flying dragonfly, chaturanga

Perhaps my headstand is coming to fruit soon.

What happened was I went for an Anusara 1 class where Bo had us do the headstand push ups. Meaning we go into headstand against the wall and then lift the head off the floor and back on the floor again for several times. I find that today my body is lighter and some how more light. Perhaps it is because my head is clear and more focus during class? Hence the push ups were not to difficult to do.

After this class, I went for Power 2 class. During the class, I find lightness ( apart from a light nagging pain in the inner groin when doing reverse warrior ) and strength to go through the class. I guess the Anusara 1 class helped warm the body up and more open to do this class. Some other people were groaning but I find it ok to go through. Weird huh?

Heeboon did his recent favorite flow ( several other flows before working up to this one ):
1. Down dog.
2. Left left leg up into 3 legged down dog. ( extend the leg up strong and engaged )
3. Lift the right heel up to lift the left leg even higher.
4. Sweep the lifted left leg inwards with the knee to the chin ( body curved )
5. Then put your left feet in between the palms ( no sound ) into a lunge.
6. Sweep your arms into Warrior 2. ( do it with style, with the back arm sweeping behind the head )
7. Exhale into Reverse Warrior.
8. Sweep back into Warrior 2.
9. Then move into Garuda arms ( the front arm on top of the back up ) and squating.
10. Bend your body and push your Garuda arms towards the front and your hips back.
11. With Garuda arms, swing to the back and turn into Warrior 1.
12. With Garuda arms and in Warrior 1, go into a backbend.
13. Then come back up and go into Resting Warrior with Garuda arms.
14. Lift the back leg from Resting Warrior and go into Warrior 3 ( all warriors have been deployed!! )
15. Then slowly move the back leg to the front and go into the full Garuda pose.
16. Slowly disengage the same back leg from the Garuda pose and flow back into Warrior 1 with the arms still in Garuda pose.
17. Release arms and put palms on the floor.
18. Float the front leg back and slowly go down into Chaturanga.
19. Upwards Dog.
20. Finally Downward dog.

Repeat for both sides of the legs.

I like this flow. Powerful and yet graceful with strength. But you need lots of concentration.

Then after we did all the inversions. One of them was headstand which he wanted all of us to do the [tag]Hatha yoga[tag] way. Meaning to go up with both knees towards chest, then knees towards the sky before straightening up to the full pose. I went up against the wall and managed to stay in headstand for 2 seconds full balance without the wall.

I am contented….

OM~

Technorati Tags: headstand, Anusara, Warrior 2, Reverse Warrior, Garuda arms, Warrior 1, Resting Warrior, Warrior 3

So I thought I give it a try!

The first class I went was a Hatha 1 class ( a hatha yoga class for beginners ) by Bo ( my favourite teacher teaching Anusara yoga). It was great. It gives me time and space to explore each basic pose again. Since it was a beginner’s class, it tends to be slower and hence I have more time to “feel” the pose. Plus I get to go into the pose following more of Bo’s instructions of all the spiralling of the leg muscles and hugging to the center, opening of chest ( I admit, last time I do not really know what he meant but now I think I am getting the gist and it is helping me a lot! )

There was this guy beside me. He was fat, really fat but I applaud him for taking action to do yoga! I mean it shows that he cares about his body enough to come for yoga class. This is the spirit that everyone should have. Health is important!

I really hope that he will stick on to yoga and come regularly and I can guarantee (cross my heart too!) that he will lose weight and slim down and feel great about himself, and love his body more by taking good care of it. I have seen several real cases of unhealthy, fat people that has changed their lives around before of yoga. Yoga, amazing!

After this class, me and my yoga buddy rush over to the other class, Hatha 2 class ( starts exactly the same time as this hatha 1 class ended! ). We made it just in time for the pranayama session in the beginning of class. As usual, HeeBoon’s class ( this is also another one of my favorite teacher, in fact I fell in love with yoga because of the yoga flow that he teaches… inspiring and TOUGH.. haha ) was tough as usual with all his 3-legged down dogs ( the chaturungas, up dogs then back to chaturangas and then lift a leg up before going back with the leg up into the 3 legged down dog ), but this time with focus on arm balances.

How did I feel during the second class? I was surprised that I did not feel tired at all! In fact, the feeling was different. More energised and more open.

I have heard from yoga teachers that having more than 1 class is not very good for you, especially if it is power yoga or ashtanga yoga. I think it means that not more than one tough class per day. I think a hatha 1 class or a yin yoga class followed by any power or ashtanga class will be ideal.

I think I have a new schedule to follow! hehe…
OM~

Technorati Tags: hatha yoga, Anusara yoga, lose weight, pranayama, 3-legged down dogs, power yoga, ashtanga yoga, yin yoga