Morning Yoga Practice

I've been practicing yoga for about 7 years now. I feel much calmer, more balanced and flexible, both mentally and physically, after a yoga session. For the most part I practice yoga in a class setting at my gym. I enjoy the variety I get from a teacher and the feeling of community I get from being surrounded by people who are all working on the same pose at exactly the same time. Sometimes we all accomplish what we set out to do and sometimes we accomplish something different, but at the end of the practice we all feel better than when we entered the room.

Unfortunately my gym doesn't offer a yoga class every day at a time that works with my schedule. So I go when I can, but would like to do yoga more often. I've done yoga on my own a few times, but I find that I cheat myself when I'm practicing alone. I'll do only one Sun Salutation rather than the 3 or 4 that I should, or I won't hold my poses long enough trying to hurry on to the next one. I hurry through everything too much in my life; that's why yoga's so good for me. It makes me slow down and breathe and just be present in the moment.

So after I got my nifty smarty phone I went searching on YouTube for some yoga videos that I could follow along to at home. I do have some yoga DVDs, but my DVD player is in the living room, which is carpeted. Carpet and yoga mats don't mix very well for me. My kitchen, however, is wood, which is the perfect surface for a yoga mat and a YouTube video. I don't really watch a video while doing yoga anyway since I'm usually upside down or facing away from the screen. So the small phone screen was mostly irrelevant, but a soothing voice of the teacher was crucial.

The video I tried this morning was called Morning Heart Expanding Practice - Intermediate Practice on YogaYak.com, The teacher is Dagmar Spremberg from Montezuma Yoga in Costa Rica. I was looking for a video that was about an hour in length, and this one lasted 49 minutes. There was a nice warm-up at the beginning, a few Sun Salutations, some warrior poses, floor stretches and a relaxing Savasana at the end all with the sound of the ocean in the background. I'm not sure I'd call it Intermediate level, though. It seemed like a slightly more advanced beginner level to me. I'm going to try the 44 minute Grounding Afternoon Yoga Practice at some point when I have a quite house in the afternoon...hopefully I'll get to do it before the kids are in college.

I really enjoyed these videos and found the teacher's voice very calming. My goal will be to add this practice to as many mornings in my week as possible. This along with my gym group classes will hopefully keep me a happy, centered and flexible Momma.

Namaste.