Posts

Yoga as Physical Culture

I have participated in many different types of group exercises and believe me when I say that Yoga is hands down one of the hardest things I have ever done. I can see how some people think that yoga is not exercise do to the fact that you do not run or do crazy lifting but yoga makes you sweat like there is not tomorrow. I have never sweat so much in my life than these past couple weeks doing yoga. Even though it doesn't get your heart rate racing in ways that make you think you are going to die. Yoga still makes your body ache and sweat. Yoga can "empower" you to do things that you did not think was possible. When you are able to hold your own body weight in ways that you did not in a million years think was possible that is amazing. Yoga helps with breathing and calming you down as well. In my last few weeks of yoga, I have been able to make sure that I am staying calm more and trying my best. It is hard because when  I first started doing yoga, I was falling and did n

The Studio as Ritual Space

On my second day at yoga, I decided to go back to the Ocean City Aquatic center. My instructors name was Debbie. The aquatic center uses the same room for most of their different class exercises. I have come to this class before so I understood what I was getting myself into and how the yoga instructor taught the class. The room smelt like plastic and pool, since there is a swimming pool that takes up most of the building, I guess it was pretty safe to assume the smell of wetness was in the area. Debbie, my yoga instructor played calming music as we began to go through out yoga class. there was not decorations on the walls I guess that is due to the fact that the room had multiple purposes. The other people who were in the room seemed to have a positive outlook and seemed to really love coming to yoga. I did not have that aspect yet, I thought that yoga was still super hard. Everyone in the room seemed really nice and calming. They welcomed me into their circle of regular yoga goers.
When I first registered to be in the class, I did not know what I was getting myself into. My expectation of yoga was nothing like what reality was. When I first walked into my yoga class, I thought that I would see a bunch of super skinny soccer moms in there. I thought that when I would go into this class being not in shape at all and being overweight that I would be judged and made fun of. When I walked into the class there was a large range of people there. Of course you had your typical super fit people in there but then you also had a bunch of other people in there as well who were just trying to look better and get healthy. Being super unhealthy I knew that this yoga class was going to be super hard. I had already taken a few other classes with the yoga instructor before when she was the instructor for Pilates (Something else I struggled with).  She did not know my name by heart but she did notice me and said hello. She was excited that I was going to try yoga. The atmosphere w