Yoga: Movement and Breath

 Traditionally, yoga translates to “movement with breath”.  So when I break that down, anything can become “yoga”.  But yet there is a lot of stigma around what yoga is, what it is good for, and who it might be good for.  When I talk about yoga throughout this post, I do refer to yoga in the more traditional thought, and how our western culture views it: certain posture sequences with a focus of breath, and I personally have been trained in and done more Hatha styles of yoga.  But I would encourage you to think of yoga as more than just specific postures in a sequence.  Yoga is a dance of the body accompanied by breath, yoga is strength and softness, patience and restlessness, function and play.  Yoga is however you find peace and discomfort in your body, mind, and soul.  

 I believe that yoga can be good for anyone.  Yoga can be accessible to any body, and with the right teacher you will find more strength, mobility, and endurance both mentally and physically.

 I started yoga years ago.  I went to my first yoga class when I was 13.  My dad was a fitness instructor (bootcamp style) and I would go with him when he taught, and one Saturday he decided we should try a yoga class as well.  So he dragged my 13 year old butt to this class at our local gym and we laid out our mats and attempted what we could.  This was fairly traditional “hatha flow” style yoga, with lots of down dog flows and warrior lunges.  All of these were accessible in my 13 year old fit body, but I hated it.  I thought it was boring and weird, and the silence of mild meditation was uncomfortable.  What I have later learned is that silence or sitting with my own thoughts is uncomfortable, and a discomfort that I would fight yet yearn for until this present day.  As the years progressed I weaved in and out of yoga until I was 17 when I started going to Bikram Hot yoga.  And I became obsessed with the heat and hot room.  I felt challenged and competitive with myself, and loved the sweat and feeling I got from it.  From here I transitioned to a different style of hot yoga, Modo or Moksha.  This was different from Bikram, but still had some structure and flow to it.  As the years passed and I dabbled in and out, my practice and strength and breath work progressed.  I was hooked on the sequences, but wanted some diversity.  I started going to Moksha more regularly and challenged myself in the classes.  I was introduced to a few incredible teachers and this really acceled my journey with yoga. I would still go to the gym to strength train a couple days a week, and was running long distance, but yoga was speaking to me more and more.  I had run a few half marathons and my body was not loving it, so I decreased my distance running and stepped more into yoga.  After a few years of regular attendance, I was 24/25, working full time as an RMT and really wanting to accelerate my practice.   I decided to get my yoga teacher training certification.  This was a two week intensive training with two of my favourite teachers and it was life changing.  Everything aligned with how I currently viewed the body.  Everything interconnected and I was re-learning movement patterns and getting deeper into my body, deeper into my practice, and deeper into myself.  

 Over my years of practice, I gained a better relationship to myself and my body.  I was surprised at the amount of strength I was able to cultivate with a full yoga practice, and the amount of endurance I cultivated- both mentally and physically.  And this continues to develop as I continue to change and shift how I enjoy moving my body.  Lately I am more called to weight training, but also mobility.  And I have found that the balance between the two is perfect for me.  I have taken my learnings from years of yoga, and yoga instruction, and continue to explore new ways of moving.  Weight training has loads of benefits, but I also need the mobility, stretch, and strength in end joint range to feel more balanced and help prevent injury.  

My mental journey through yoga, meditation and movement is ongoing.  When I went to that first class as a 13 year old, my brain was going crazy and I thought “why am i here”.  As I continued to grow my practice, my “monkey mind” would come in and thoughts would flow and flood.  At first I thought I needed to push them out.  But what I have learned is that it is more about noticing those thoughts, and not allowing my brain to fully dive in and engage with these thoughts.  To not progress my thoughts and follow through making plans, or building lists, but to just observe the thoughts.  It is a constant practice.  Now I enjoy meditation and the mental aspects of yoga.  It is still often the most challenging part of yoga, but I have also seen and felt the benefits of being able to rest my conscious mind and watch the subconscious emerge.  My mental health, patience, and clarity is stronger when I continue with a regular meditation and/ or yoga practice.  

When you are starting a yoga practice, or any movement practice, the postures are often not the biggest problem.  Though sometimes the physical part may feel tough, the discomfort of getting into your body and out of your mind is what discourages people most.  I find that people who have not experienced a lot of yoga also think that it is just stretching.  This is not the case.  A lot of yoga can help you build strength and cultivate mobility.  Strength comes from a number of body weight postures and movements that are integrated through yoga.  And I have found that mental strength is also cultivated as you practice and progress further.  

The yoga that I now like to experience and teach from my own body incorporates these more traditional flow styles, like down dog and warrior two postures, but also incorporates more functional movements like squats and lunges.  I add in a lot of lateral movement like side lunges, and segmental work through the spine to keep my body moving and open.  I like to challenge my mobility by gaining strength in end range, and I have found this to help increase my weight training and decrease my incidence of injury.  I have started to incorporate isometric muscle contraction (muscle contraction without movement through that range) to increase strength at that range.  I focus on how it FEELS in my body, and less on how it may look.  Moving with my breath and body, flowing through my available range of motion, and challenging my mental capacity is how I like to progress my movement patterns and find more freedom in my own body.