Yoga - CD/SD

yeah, i think it might have more to do w/ legs vs. torso+arms than flexibility

They played LCD Soundsystem and MGMT in my yoga class the other day. Surprisingly ok.

Felicity where do you go?

This is to be my Big Summer Of Yoga

Crunch LA.

i am going to be doing 1hr in mornings 3 consecutive times a week throughout all of june!

bell_labs you will be able to touch your toes soon enough, i'm sure of it. even if you've got back pain. it does take time though - you kind of have to have patience with yoga. or it teaches you patience with self. i don't know, i do the kind of yoga that doesn't feed my competitive drive, and therefore lets me chill out - b/c i mean, there are plenty of other arenas in life where that drive is engaged. anyway, i have pretty tight hamstrings etc and at first found it super painful to try to touch my toes, but after about two years of regular practice i can put both hands flat on the ground w/o pain, once warmed up.

i feel like finding a good teacher and a good set of people in the class is kind of the first challenge! but i am v picky that way

yeah i'm not taking a class, just doing dvds. at least for now! maybe once i get a little more flexible i will be less intimidated by classes.

i started doing 10-15 mins of yoga before i run or play basketball last fall - at first id have to get warm to barely touch my toes now i can put my palm flat to the floor!

doing this workout 2x week, makes me rly tired afterward, following day i feel 5 years younger. other days i stretch, cardio/circuit, drink beer. in that order.

jesus 90 minutes?

that's how long my class was.

I sleep a lot better on days I do yoga. 90 minutes seems like a long time.

My clases are 60 or 90 minutes.

90 minutes is great in the evenings ending with a long Shivasina under a blanket or towel. Ahhh.

lauren, are you doing yoga anywhere I know? ;)

i'm bad about trying new classes, f. i'm SO self-conscious. so for classes, i've stuck to my old standby (kusala).

and yes, long class followed by a rest under the blanket is awesome.

haha btwn this and the talk on beauty/etc thread abt being wrapped up in blankets at a spa, i've realized how much i hate being wrapped up in blankets or being under a blanket in a public(ish) space! so not relaxing to me. weird realizations file.

(roughly) 45 minutes of moving asanas followed by 20 minutes of balance poses, 20 minutes of yoga for your abs, then 10 or so minutes of chillaxin in child's pose variants.

the length was intimidating but the 1st half is definitely the most challenging part for me. once that parts over i really enjoy the focus on breath control and slowly increasing my range of movement.

now i just gotta do this twice a week until i'm 80. easy part.

Yeah, it makes me feel like I'm stuck in an envelope! Always hated kindergarten enforced naptime.

xp

where can you buy the video for that?

felicity, you should try Brock's class at Yogaworks in westwood. It's full of flyers, which can be, um, a challenge to yr ego if yr not one, but also the best vinyasa class east of Venice (where Vinnie Marino still reigns supreme). Towel or mysore rug required.

....flyers?

i don't want to think about what a yoga class in westwood is like. the scene at my bf's nephew's kiddie karate class was scarring enough.

i'm finding rmexico's post completely o_O/LA

i also don't know what a flyer is!

Anywhere further east of Venice?

Am I a flyer?

dunno - do you effortlessly lift into handstands mid-vinyasa? do you look forward to jump-throughs? would you describe a bakasana>handstand>eka pada kundinyasana sequence as "really centering"? then You Might Be a flyer...

There are any number of good flow (and non-flow) classes and teachers in the hoillywoo/silverlake/downtown area. I'm just a sucker for vinyasa in a hot room. It's the difference between a bowl and a brownie.

Cool, thanks. I do want to try the free Sunrise/Sunset Runyon Canyon yoga, too.

i'm finding rmexico's post completely o_O/LA

Totally OTM, by the way, but LA's like that. Ground Zero for yoga in the US and home base for 80% of the Yoga Industry's superstars (for better and for worse).

The idea of any form of exercise having superstars is mindblowing to me.

Oh wait. I forgot about the Olympics.

haha yeah, but i love california for it anyway, even if i find a lot of it kinda o_O
xpost lol supastar yoga exactly... but it's been going on since the 70s on the west coast!
i've done a bunch of anusara yoga, which is US-based, tho maybe not california (maybe arizona or even texas), and there's something about it that doesn't quite gel with me. and something that does. anyway... i actually don't even know if there's a 'formal' name for the kind of yoga i've been doing with my current teacher. i mean, i keep forgetting it and forgetting to ask. it's nice though.

Anusara = John Friend = Texas, north of Houston in one of those creepy newfangled New Urban-type places: http://www.thewoodlands.com/

I find the language a little fruity, but the practice itself really good - the focus and attention to detail of Iyengar without the severity, and notwithstanding the absurdities the actual Anusara teachers I've known have almost without exception been really excellent.

It's also a perfect complement to the flow stuff, where Warrior IIs have a tendency to get pretty sloppy as folks struggle to keep up. Without a foundational alignment-based practice it's just calisthenics, people.

/yoga nazi

(note: many astanga types will openly smirk at Anusara types; many serious Anusara types turn out to be ex-astangis... it's a funny little world. in my limited experience it takes about six months with any practice before you "get" what it's about, and much like sports clichés and 12-step mantras there are things that seem silly at first but reveal hidden depths in practice)

PS felicity if yr going to Crunch check out Donovan's class if you can. I've never had him as a teacher but he's a genuinely great guy and sure SEEMS like he'd be an equally great teacher. If you make it tell him Jake said hello and he will shower you with good vibes :-)

yeah i did anusara practice regularly for over a year and then some few-month courses spread out over the next year - i love the attention to detail but there's something about the rhetoric that i have to resist/ignore or i end up feeling keyed up and self-conscious. again, depends on the teacher too - even the subtle difference btwn using "we" vs "you" - i like "we"/"let's", which anusara doesn't use. haha i just don't like being told what to do.

i can't deal with most astanga classes - just the wrong kind of tension for me, but sometimes really good for getting mind off other things b/c it can be so intense. i just know a lot of, uh, 'type As' who do it and none of them seem all that yogic (philosophically) to me. but whatever, i guess we all have dif reasons for doing yoga. it kinda freaks me out when people get on the defensive/offensive abt their particular practice - i'm like, wahtever works for you, isn't that point?

i haven't been a yoga man for a v v long time :-/

the weirdest things hurt after doing yoga, such as the tops of my feet. ow tops of my feeeet.

that's how you konw it's working!

roger, I have taken Jake's class. 'e is so copa. I will look for Donovan too.

I kept thinking about "flyers" in class today during all the twists and binds.

o no multiple Jake confusion! (suffice to say Donovan (tuesday nights) has never heard of "rogermexico" - we were neighbors before I moved north)

Roger that. What's your Vector, victor?

ok this is great. i have been doing it for a little over a week and already have definition in my stomach. the tape i am doing is specifically for back care and mostly focuses on lower back, stomach and sides. i should mention that i also have been laying off the beer all week, but yeah it's encouraging to see results so quickly.

:)

Search: tree pose, crow, twists, binds, chattaranga, headstand, shoulder stand, eagle anything

Destroy: Chair pose, side angle pose, tortoise, wheel, handstand

I love yoga but I wish it was cheaper. At a studio a class is around $20 now, which makes it hard to go multiple times a week. I could do it at home but I do better with a teacher leading me. I can finally do a couple of chattarangas before collapsing.

My favorites: cat/cow, downward dog, cobra, sphinx, upward dog, fish. Any back bends/heart openers.

Least faves: triangles, warriors, chair, that thing you go into before crow that is like a squat, pigeon.

Love: shivasana. I've had a few teachers end the class without corpse pose, instead just doing a couple of restful poses such as legs up the wall. Not right.

so not right! <3 shivasana

yoga should srsly not cost so much. i have found several good teachers who understand this here, phew, and even a few who do free community classes for people who would probably otherwise go to a yoga class, whether because of cost or 'culture.'

the only pose i always feel a slight dread/dislike for is bridge/wheel, and i'm not sure why, even though i've gotten better at it. a lot of poses i used to not like, i figured out and like now, which is encouraging to me right now as i'm tackling handstand from the ground up. like totally still faltering at L-pose - where you put yr feet on the wall and hands on the floor and make an L.. it is kinda scary. but that's ok.

i am doing another 1-week everyday 7:30am course starting monday ooh

aww guise I <3 wheel

pincha mayurasana > handstand, but mostly because I suck at handstand

eka pada kundinyasana > crow for same reason, but also because it feels more like flying

CLASSIC

my yoga class is 60mins

the bit at the end (shivasina??!) is SOOOOOO good, guys