 |
  |
 |
|
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
Site Areas  |
store | | | articles | | | forums | | | studios | | | vacations |
|
yoga | massage | fitness | wellness | meditation |
|
|
For future visits, link to "http://www.YogiSource.com/forums".
Make a new bookmark.
Tell your friends so they can find us and you!
Coming soon ... exciting new changes for our website, now at YogiSource.com.
 When to move on???Moderators: Moderators Jump to page : 1 2 Now viewing page 1 [25 messages per page] | View previous thread :: View next thread |
| Yoga -> General Yoga | Message format |
Empress Echo |
| ||
Well, as some of you know, I have social phobia (and no money for a teacher...) so I'm pretty much on my own here with my dvds to find my own path... thus I ask you all loads of stupid and annoying questions! LOL Hope you don't mind! Anyway, the dvd that I use most of the time is power yoga & has 24 workouts, 8 each of beginner, intermediate, and challenging. I've stuck with the beginner for a couple of months (as this was very different from my previous yoga experiences) and while some of the poses still present challenges for me (ie bakasana - grrr! LOL) others have become passe, and I've thought about moving on to the intermediate version of these. For example, there is the "Good Morning" workout, which consists of "Deep Tissue Warm-Up" (relaxed cobbler's pose, others stretches the names of which I have no idea...) and Sun Salutations. The Sun Salutations are modified for beginners & use a chair, instead of actually bending all the way down to the floor. Well, this is the part that doesn't challenge me or even make me feel as if I'm doing anything productive... I've viewed the "intermediate" version of the "Good Morning" workout, and while the "Deep Tissue Warm-Up" section is the same, the Sun Salutations are without props & I think might benefit me more. I don't want to rush things though and wondered what some of you thought. Is it okay to move on to intermediate with some workouts/poses and still stick with the beginner phase for others? What happens in classes - do people just go at their own pace? Edited by Empress Echo 2005-04-12 1:24 PM | |||
| |||
| jeansyoga |
| ||
| First you must break your DVD into 24 pieces and then FIND A TEACHER! Just kidding, I know you've heard that enough!!  Why not just try the other workouts and see if you like them? It's not as if the Beginner workouts self-destruct so you can never use them again if you don't like the Intermediate. You may find that one workout suits your body one day and another workout another day. A big part of your practice is just listening to your body and trying to do what it needs! I try to tell that to all my students, and in class I often demonstrate several modifications of a pose so they can select which version suits/challenges them the way they like. I'm overjoyed when I see a student respectfully (by respect I mean for their body, not respect for me) come out of a pose that they're not ready for and go back to a pose that feels right. I'm also happy when I see a student challenging themselves a bit more when they are past the beginner phase and know what to do. I'd rather people get what they need out of class than just follow me to the letter. I try to tell them, "it's your practice, I just provide a roadmap." Something you should consider doing, especially since you can't attend live classes, is try to read everything you can about the poses. Read books, magazines, go online, whatever you can do. I find that even when I think I understand a pose, I will read something that makes me go "Aha!!" and then I'll get something totally new out of it. Different teachers present things different ways (even if they present them through DVD's and books, they're still teachers!) and you never know what will set off the bells in your head. Take it all in and use what feels right! When your intentions are true, you cannot go wrong! | |||
| |||
| YogaGuy |
| ||
| |||
| Empress Echo |
| ||
Thank you both! That is exactly what I was looking for - and what I guessed what I should do - I basically just wanted confirmation Thanks again! | |||
| |||
| tourist |
| ||
Expert Yogi Posts: 8442      |  I just wrote a logn, detailed post and it disappeared!! OK - the gist was that you should look at challenging yourself in the most basic poses as well as trying some new stuff for fun. Do you know all the points to check for Tadasana, mountain pose? Start with the feet - spread the toes, activate the arches (there are 3 of them on each foot!) find the "4 corners" of the foot and have them each pressing into the floor evenly. Lif the kneecaps. Work on that for a while and then we'll move on to the thighs. That'll take a week or so...   And remember - there is a teacher out there somewhere for you! | ||
| |||
| Bay Guy |
| ||
Expert Yogi Posts: 2479 Location: A Blue State | |||
| |||
| tourist |
| ||
Expert Yogi Posts: 8442 | |||
| |||
| Empress Echo |
| ||
Thank you all for the advice! I think it makes a lot of sense to adapt the poses to my own level, so I am neither bored nor hurting myself. Perhaps the intermediate level of sun salutations & others will help me with other things on the beginner level workouts (ie, bakasana, grr! ...you might notice I keep adding the "grrr", and I think I will just rename it "bakasanagrrr!" Thanks again, oh wise ones! Echo | |||
| |||
| jeansyoga |
| ||
| Echo, I think you already have a good sense of where your practice is going . . . you look here for confirmation of what you already know. Your responses reveal that you are much wiser about your yoga practice than you may realize! The biggest part of your yoga journey (much bigger than the asanas you choose to practice) is going to be learning to trust yourself! Now you are learning the mechanics of the poses, but the real work will come when you are ready to sit down and go inside your own head, then trust and act upon the information you find in there. Building your own practice will be very fascinating for you! You may even find that trusting yourself will lead to trusting others and someday getting past your social phobia. But of course we never lack for *expert* opinions and advice around here! There are no stupid questions . . . only SPAM! | |||
| |||
| afroyogi |
| ||
| Echo, please excuse me intruding your private sphere, but you openly admitted to your social phobia for quite a few times here in the forum so I think it's okay for me to bring it up here. One question: Aren't you sick and tired already from that phobia and how it effects your daily life? Or let's better say, how you ALLOW it to mess you up? You know that you can be healed from that, don't ya? After all it's just a phobia. There is a cure for it! Today I was watching an old Dr. Phil show and, say about him what you want, he is a qualified psychologist and knows what he's talking about. Also, for a modern westerner he has quite a lot of common sense and makes it availabe to the public. A good guy. However, in his show today he said that most phobias can be healed in a matter of only 12 hours! I don't wanna sound rude but have you looked for professional help already? Don't place too much hope in yoga alone, it might help you deal with your problem but it's not the cure! As I said, there's a cure for your phobia. Just go see a shrink and let him help you get rid of it! After all there are now 6 billion people on this little planet and it's just not possible to avoid social contact all the time. Again, please excuse my obtrusiveness ... I just want to help.  | |||
| |||
| LoraB |
| ||
| Ooh, I have to argue this point, Stefan. This is of course from my own experience, but it's very dangerous trying to find a psychologist/psychiatrist. i say this because the various "professionals" that I was dragged to both for myself and for family therapy are the root of many if not all of my insecurities. Examples: One had my family sit in a room and assign percentages of blame to each individual for the problems of the family. One, in the course of 2 months gave my parents 7 different diagnoses and had me on as many medications. One had me locked up when I, being uncomfortable verbalizing my emotions in front of my verbally abusive step-father, wrote a letter expressing the way living in that family made me feel. A fourth stared out the window during every session. These are just some of the problems. It was pounded into my head over and over that not only were my feelings wrong, but that even if there was a chance that they were right then they weren't worth anything. (by the way, my stepbrother was a bipolar schizophrenic car-theving drug dealer and my stepsister a bipolar schizophrenic runaway who has had two coke babies in jail - but I was the problem largely because I 'isolated' myself in my room as a teenager. seriously) Thanks to these "professionals" I STILL have a hard time believeing that anyone is listening to a word I say, that what I have to say is either incorrect, invalid, or worthless, and I have a strange paranoia that there is something wrong or defective with me. But since I started practicing yoga I stand up straight, speak up despite the insecurites, and most of the time really believe that I have something valuable to contribute. Since I started practicing my level of self-doubt has become somewhat normal (who doesn't get a bit nervous during a presentation? or on a first date?) and it's not just me that's noticed the change. I don't think that they're all as bad as the ones I somehow ended up with. I think that in this case my parents went to people who would validate them as people rather than remain somewhat objective....But it's very dangerous. I lucked out and it only took me 10 years to recover from the damage they did...... So the moral of my story is to be careful when looking at that option. It's not always the best, and a lot of times we just need to find our own way by listening to our heart rather than waht some jacka$$ with a degree has to say. | |||
| |||
| afroyogi |
| ||
LoraB - 2005-04-14 10:08 PM I STILL have a hard time believeing that anyone is lis ... Sorry, I didn't hear you ... did you say anything?  No, honest, me I'm having no personal experience with pschodocs at all (although according to everyone who knows me it wouldn't do any harm to check me in), I think you're maybe confusing two different things here, Lora. The shrinks you and your family have seen are the special breed of family-analysts that seem to be so very fashionable nowadays. Especially in the USA people are looking for shrink's advice for problems that every normal thinking human being could solve on their own. As your example clearly shows! Where I come from, we solve these problems with confrontation. I just would've told my stepdad to shut the phug up. But from what I heard the healing of phobias nowadays is like a fool-proof method, more like painting by numbers for every psycho professional. I don't know exactly how they work, heck, I could do it myself then, but what I know is that they have very high success rates. Because the work with the same principle of confronting your fear! Of course you're not thrown into the cold water directly but have some hours of prep talk first. Then they take patients with fear of heights on a plane for a nice flight or have them abseiling from cliffs. They let people with fear of slimey critters handle snakes and so forth. Echo would've probably go watch a football game in a jam-packed stadium, or begin with shopping groceries or just walk down a street during rush hour. Depends on how bad the case is. However, I'm not trying to prove anything here, it's just an idea that might help our friend Echo getting rid of her problem. Maybe she's tried it already. Let's wait and hear what she has to say about it. | |||
| |||
| LoraB |
| ||
| True, true. And there are some good ones out there, like anything else. I just got the mother-lode of crappy ones! Can they cure my phobia of finishing up my final project and get me off the dang computer? | |||
| |||
| Empress Echo |
| ||
WHOA!!!! HOLY MOLY! LOL!!!!!! Okay, let me address a couple of things... Stefan, you're right on. What you (and Dr. Phil - wow, I didn't know Dr. Phil was in SA, I'm impressed! He certainly gets around - LOL) are referring to is immersion therapy, and there is gradual immersion or total immersion, and it works for some. You're right, I'm very open about my phobia, but I haven't fully explained here about it. It's caused in my case (certainly not in everybody's) by a long history of panic attacks, which can be very ugly. I take medication, I see a doctor and a therapist, and I'm not totally housebound or anything (although some with social phobias certainly are). I go shopping, though it sometimes makes me anxious. I visit family & friends & occasionally go to concerts I love to travel and do it even though I'm scared. But it's hard for me, especially in a setting where I'm "noticed" - such as a class, or a party, or any situation where I might have to talk to people - I'm very self-conscious. (I'm also 5'11 with waist-length hair - not usually able to fade into the woodwork! LOL!) My brother often gets me out socially & sometimes I manage fine and other times I panic & flee. Eh, you win some, you lose some. I just started with a new therapist who has me walking the dog around our neighbourhood every day for 15 minutes, and saying hello to the neighbours when they greet me - that way I'm getting out, getting fresh air, & doing something a little scary too. So far it's not easy but I'm trying & the dog is having a great time... LOL Lora, yes, there are bad doctors & therapists out there. I've definitely had my share over the years. But I've kept looking because I've had to. My current doctor is decent - probably the best psychiatrist I've had in a long while, if not ever. The therapist I just started seeing and I feel good about her - I quit the last one because he was just ineffective, and again, that happens sometimes. I think you have to find a rapport with your doctors, or at best it doesn't really work, at worst they do damage to the patient. I think yoga has helped me in the panic/anxiety area, and maybe even the social phobia area too. I feel both confidence and peace from my practice, and how can that not help? Doctor & therapist both agree that the yoga is good for me. (And I'm likely "preaching to the choir" here, but I believe it's also good for my spirituality as well as my mind & body - but again, I don't need to tell you folks that, do I?!) But I don't rely on yoga alone to help me out of my current situation. My new therapist had me set goals for what I want to be doing in 3 months, and they include going to mass and going to yoga and other classes as well. Namaste! | |||
| |||
| Empress Echo |
| ||
PS - I'm not handling any snakes!!! Edited by Empress Echo 2005-04-14 12:50 AM | |||
| |||
| Orbilia |
| ||
| |||
| Empress Echo |
| ||
Hi Fee Sure, a small class would probably be better for me, but right now I'm not ready - not only mentally but financially as well, which is uh, kind of important to the studios! LOL I have looked into several different studios in my area & hope to join a class by autumn. I'm working hard to overcome my fears & am confident it will happen! Hugs, Echo | |||
| |||
| afroyogi |
| ||
| |||
| loli |
| ||
I can't help feeling that it is such a shame that something like money prevents people accessing a yoga teacher...I have someone who comes to my classes who only pays when/if she can afford to. I have been in the same situation before, and I was fortunate to have a lovely teacher who didn't make me feel bad if I couldn't afford to pay for the class sometimes....she said that money shouldn't be an issue with yoga, it shouldn't stop a person from coming to class because they are struggling to pay....  I'd teach you Echo!!!!! Shame it is geographically impossible....Edited by loli 2005-04-14 4:51 PM | |||
| |||
| Empress Echo |
| ||
It's like big animal hordes, where every animal has a better chance of surviving the lion's attack in the big group. There's going to be LIONS?! ( I don't know what kind of class I'll wind up in when I finally do go. My options are slightly limited - we've got a couple of local studios & teachers, but I don't live in a large metropolitan area, so... I probably won't wind up with a large class. But we'll see! I do hope by autumn I'll be able to do that... I'll have to ask on the phone first if there will be lions... hee, hee Hugs! PS - Almost forgot! That's so kind of you, Loli! I have high hopes that I'll be able to afford a class one day soon - in the meantime, I'm practicing as well as I can on my own. The help of all of you here has been invaluable! Edited by Empress Echo 2005-04-14 4:58 PM | |||
| |||
| tigrsunam |
| ||
| |||
| Empress Echo |
| ||
You know, when I was in college (aside to Tiger - that's FURMAN, not CLEMSON - LOL) I was always one to sit front & center - I felt that way I didn't miss anything & wasn't distracted by other students. (I was also the one to answer every question, yes, I am a geek That might be a good option for me with yoga as well Edited by Empress Echo 2005-04-14 5:03 PM | |||
| |||
| tourist |
| ||
Expert Yogi Posts: 8442 | |||
| |||
| Bay Guy |
| ||
Expert Yogi Posts: 2479 Location: A Blue State | I always go near the front, so that I can see and hear well. I could care less about being looked at by the teacher, in the sense of getting attention, although corrections are always welcome. Put me in the back of the room and I'll just drift off into my own practice.  | ||
| |||
| Kabu |
| ||
| Sometimes our teacher will give out a particular direction, and we all look at each other like "Wha...? Put what where then?" I prefer to be in the middle of the class when stuff like that happens ~ I can see right away if others are as confused as I am, or I can zero in on the seasoned yogi who knows what the heck is going on. I've discovered that going to class is very good for practicing my listening skills. | |||
| |||
| Jump to page : 1 2 Now viewing page 1 [25 messages per page] |
| Search this forum Printer friendly version E-mail a link to this thread |
| (Delete all cookies set by this site) | |