I am grateful for being assigned this learning project because it gave me the push I’ve always needed into trying yoga. It has been something I have always wanted to do and I am so glad that it is the journey I chose to embark upon.

When I first began in January, I had never experienced yoga before. I have a dance background and enjoy barre fitness classes who use some yoga poses in their stretching. I created a goal of doing 2-3 yoga sessions per week that I was hoping to stick to.

I explored a variety of different online resources including websites, YouTube and iPhone apps. Some of my favourites were the Yoga Down Dog app, Yoga with Adriene videos on YouTube, and Yoga for Beginners | Mind+Body app, as well as a favourite classroom resource, Cosmic Kids Yoga.

I learned that yoga originated in Ancient India for people to “still the mind” and that the word yoga in the language Sanskrit means “union”. It is all about uniting the physical, mental and spiritual (or mind, body, spirit) practice with a large focus on breathing. I tried to work on all aspects of yoga as I continued through my journey.

I found that the timing of my yoga practice was what kept me consistent and sticking to my weekly goals of 2-3 sessions per week. I enjoyed yoga nidra and dedicating evenings to connecting with my mind and body before going to sleep.

Throughout these months I was able to work on my stamina, consistency, and mindfulness. Yoga allowed me to reconnect with my body postpartum.

As for the future… I hope to try in person classes including hot yoga. I have enjoyed my at home sessions, but I am ready to try out a yoga studio for the full experience.

To my readers, thank you for following along my yoga journey. I have appreciated your positive comments and feedback throughout the course. I wish you all the best with your future endeavours in your learning journeys and as educators.

Namaste.

I’m not going to lie, it has been a tough week in my household battling illness so I did not get to practice any yoga. Since my family is just starting to get back into a normal routine, and I am almost done playing catchup around the house, I am ready to start getting back on track with my weekly goals and continue my evening yoga sessions.

For those of you who maybe haven’t followed along on my yoga journey, a few weeks ago I decided to try practicing yoga in the evenings before bed because I found it was when I had the most time with the least amount of interruptions.

I am hoping to keep this routine of practicing yoga in the evenings (minimum 3 times per week) after the course ends. I have been enjoying taking some time for myself when being a new mom can be so challenging some days. Yoga practice has been great for my mental and physical health. I have found that it has helped settle my mind and body before a restful sleep.

As for this evening, here is what I am going to try before I go to sleep.

Have you heard of Cosmic Kids Yoga? I have used this resource in my classroom over the years (especially during pandemic teaching when we didn’t have access to the gym) and my students really love it.

What I love about it is that I can quickly do a search on YouTube and find videos that vary in length and themes. The instructor, Jaime, is very animated in story telling. Throughout each yoga session she takes kids through an adventure story filled with actions and yoga positions for the kids to follow along to so they are also a part of the adventure. If my students are into dinosaurs, there is dinosaur yoga. The movie Frozen, Star Wars, springtime, underwater adventures, and more! Cosmic Kids Yoga has it all!

During the pandemic, my students would follow along to yoga quests. We would have to complete a series of yoga stories and follow along on a map to earn a badge. We would do yoga a couple of times a week to make up more physical education minutes.

Now in my classroom, I use it if my students need a body break. I also find it useful if your lesson you have planned doesn’t use the whole period and you need a filler. I always let my students know that it is part of their physical education mark and what I am looking for as they participate in classroom yoga. Using yoga this way is a good way to help those busy bodies reset. It is good for mindfulness too (Jaime even has videos for mindfulness). It is also great for the teacher to reset before the next lesson. I always dim the lights, remind students that it is quiet time, and I strategically spread them out around the classroom (and have them practice personal space).

Since I am not in the classroom currently and I was already aware of this resource prior to starting my learning journey, I thought I would download the Cosmic Kids Yoga app and check it out. On the home page it has featured videos, yoga, mindfulness, relaxations, bedtime, brain breaks, dancing, quests, and benefits. You can also choose videos based on length or by age. The app looks super kid-friendly, using lots of images with short amount of text. You can save videos you like and download some to use without wifi. If you are someone who has children at home, or would like to download the app to the tablets at your school, I would highly recommend. Like I said, Cosmic Kids Yoga is a class favourite and I use it all of the time. Please check it out if you haven’t done so before!

The hardest thing about finding time to workout are the excuses we come up with to not workout. I have been learned throughout this project that consistency is key! I have tried morning workouts, afternoon workouts, and evening workouts. Trying to balance this and my new mom life is tricky as there is always a million other things that I could be doing around the house. Allowing myself to take time to focus on my own mental and physical health is important and necessary, following through is another story. It is said that it takes about 3 weeks to establish a routine. I feel like I am getting there, and allowing myself to practice yoga throughout my busy life is ok!

Last week I shared all about Bed Time Flow and how I have been absolutely loving my evening yoga sessions. Well there were a few times this week that it wasn’t going to work with my schedule so I had to make sure I set aside some time during my son’s nap to yoga guilt free.

This week I thought I would try to create another time lapse video on my iPhone. I uploaded it straight to YouTube using the Youtube app. I was able to edit my video, add music and filters with ease. I was super impressed with how slick it was to get my video up and ready. I was able to select whether I wanted my video public or private (I don’t need my students finding me on YouTube doing yoga, haha!). But you’re lucky, because I am sharing the link with you. Here is me doing some morning yoga in superspeed!

I have been finding that my mornings and days are very busy and the time of day I have the least amount of interruptions is the evenings. On the app, Yoga for Beginners | Mind+Body, I decided to try a series called Bed Time Flow and I have been LOVING them! These videos are about 10 minutes long so they are quick and easy to do prior to my unwind time in bed. They are geared towards beginners, slow paced and focus a lot on deep stretches to help relax the muscles before bed. I have been trying to use some of the breathing techniques that I learned last week and incorporate them into my yoga so I can begin working through a more mindful and spiritual experience. Who knew that I would like doing yoga before bed!?! What time of day do you prefer to do yoga or any type of workout?

Yoga can benefit sleep. It allows you to let go of the mental and physical aspects of your daily life that you carry with you into sleep. For people who have insomnia, night time yoga may be your answer to promoting a good nights rest. Yoga promotes relaxation which may help you fall asleep quicker and stay in a deep state of sleep for longer. Your yoga before bed could include meditation to add another element of relaxation to your experience.

When searching yoga for sleep, I found the term Yoga Nidra. This type of yoga is practiced in the corpse pose (laying flat on your back). It is a mental exercise rather than a physical exercise, similar to meditation.

As I was practicing yoga this week I suddenly thought… What is yoga?

So after a little research online, here is what I found out:
The word yoga was derived from the language Sanskrit meaning “union.” The practice of yoga originated in Ancient India for people to “still the mind.”

Yoga is all about uniting the physical, mental and spiritual (or mind, body, spirit) practice with a large focus on breathing. As I continue my yoga journey I have noticed that I am doing well with the physical aspect of yoga, but I struggle to “still the mind,” and lose focus on my breathing.

At the beginning and end of many of my workouts I hear or see the word Sanskrit. I have learned that this is the term used in yoga to focus on breathing. During this time, I am often sitting crossed legged, hands on my knees with my eyes closed while being instructed to take deep breaths in and out.

In future I am going to try to focus on my breathing throughout the whole workout. Am I inhaling through my nose to fill my lungs completely before exhaling through my mouth or nose? I am hoping that with this focus I will start to tap into the mental and spiritual aspect of yoga rather than just the physical portion.

Have you ever focused on your breathing? I find that it is so calming and it feels good to take deep breaths a couple times a day rather than our typical shallow breaths. Check out this video to practice your breathing with me!

At the beginning of this journey I created a goal to workout 2-3 times per week. This is a goal I have been able to obtain so far (even if some of my yoga sessions are cut short with my baby’s short naps), and I am proud of myself for sticking to this goal. With goal setting I think it is important to chose something that is realistic to your lifestyle and to make adjustments as needed. Setting aside some time for my mental and physical health has felt really good. I am looking forward to continuing down this path throughout the rest of the semester, and maybe even beyond!

This week I explored YouTube to find a channel that I could connect to with my yoga journey. While exploring, I stumbled upon Yoga with Adriene. She creates playlists of different yoga genres that are great for finding what works best for you and your body. Some examples being yoga for beginners, yoga for a sore back, yoga for bedtime, yoga for teachers, yoga monthly challenges, etc. I find that Adriene uses really positive language. Her videos are inviting and make you want to participate in her workouts.

I decided to share her Yoga For Teachers video with you all, given this is an education course. I hope to dive into some yoga tools to use in the classroom as I discover new yoga resources. If you have some time, you should try giving back to yourself and follow along to her yoga video.

After last week’s disappointment of app Yoga; Stretch Bend Sweat. I went through the Apple App Store and found an app called Yoga Down Dog. What I particularly like about this app is when you are beginning to set up your profile it asks you many questions about your goals, what areas you wish to focus on, what yoga level you’re at, and what pace you want your yoga workout to be. Everything is very customizable from the voice of the instructor, the music, the sound levels, the length of the workout. The app logs your yoga journey on a calendar and you’re able to look in your history to see what workouts you completed so you can reference them in

the future and repeat what you liked or avoid what you didn’t enjoy.

The workouts themselves have calming music, an instructor who guides you through the movement, and a video demonstration of each pose and how to move from pose to pose with FLOW (which we lacked last week!). The instructor is detailed with what muscles you should be feeling in each moment, she focuses on your breathing, and keeps you engaged all while allowing time to focus in silence.

This video is an example of the yoga workouts you can find on the app.

 

Since starting this app I have been more excited to do my yoga workouts knowing that I was going to get something out of the movement. I enjoy the flow of the positions all while working on my core balance and breathing (these were both things I chose to focus on when setting up my profile). I am beginning to get some momentum with my yoga journey, I can feel it!

 

I know last week I discussed an app called FitOn, however I chose another app to get started with called Yoga; Stretch Bend Sweat. I will be using this app for a week while I have a free trial.

To begin, the app asks questions to get to know you in order for it to create workouts that are suitable to your needs and abilities. I put in that I was a beginner with yoga (because I am) despite my dance background and barre workout history. I told the app that I wanted to focus on strength, mindfulness and relaxation with a couple workouts a week for about 20-30 each session.

The app showcases all of the yoga poses in the Pose Library. It has images, a description of each pose and a video of a person demonstrating the poses. This is a useful tool for me to familiarize myself with some poses and practice before I begin my workouts.

My first couple of workouts I found were semi-relaxing. It felt good to take the time in my busy day for just myself without distractions. I found the transitions from pose to pose shaky. Maybe this was just me not used to some of these poses but I didn’t feel coached into how to move from pose to pose with flow. As a retired dancer, I like flow in my body movement. Throughout the workout, there is someone talking with relaxing and motivating music. It shows images of each pose instead of video. With my background of dance I find it easy to look at an image and copy what is being done, however I know that this would be challenging for other people to imitate what is being shown without a video on how to get there. In order to have steady flow from pose to pose, I think I would benefit from video instruction so I can learn how to move from pose to pose instead of just getting there. Maybe I don’t understand what yoga is supposed to be like but I think there needs to be more flow than what I am practicing.

Anyways… I am looking forward to exploring this app further before I move on to some others, including the FitOn app. I would like to see if I can find some video instruction too to compare to what I have been practicing this week.

Thanks for tuning in!