Overall Essay

For this project I decided to research yoga. I picked yoga because I have always been around sports as I was growing up, so I knew a lot of different types of exercise and what types of exercises help you with certain sports. A question on my mind though was what type of exercise was I suppose to do once I grew up and no longer participated in sports. That is when I decided to do my research project on yoga; it would be a great way for me to learn about yoga as a whole and see if I would be interested in becoming a yogi as I got older. I started off researching articles on all the different parts to yoga; I never knew there was much more than just exercising and breathing! Then I read a book called, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga, by Deepak Chopra and David Simon, and literally learned the seven law of yoga. To finish off my research I took a yoga class at Gold’s Gym to get an experience performing yoga. I enjoyed learning all about yoga, but my favorite part was definitely attending yoga class.

I learned so much about yoga that I was surprised at how stupid I was thinking that yoga was just a good way to exercise and relax. I found that yoga can be used spiritually, to become a better person, to go green, for flexibility, exercise, meditation, and even for pregnancy. Usually when you start to become a yogi you practice all of these parts of yoga, well except maybe not pregnancy yoga all the time, but you put the seven laws of yoga into your lifestyle that you live everyday. I also learned that for every day of the week there is certain yoga laws that you are suppose to follow, whether it is to talk nice to someone or recognizing your unique talents. I also learned in my first research assignment that yoga doesn’t just benefit the physical body, but it helps with the nervous and circulatory systems as well. The most surprising and interesting thing I learned about yoga is why some people take yoga for pregnancy. The people that do this are doing yoga because they want to know what the body goes through to give birth; these people are the ones that want to have a natural birth with no drugs. I just thought that was interesting how people care so much for their babies that they don’t want any drugs going to the baby while it was being born. Another thing that I thought was interesting was the "no snacking plan". People say that snacking usually keeps your metabolism going, but in the article I read it said that not snacking when your not hungry teaches your body discipline. It helps you to decide what your body needs and what it wants. I’m so glad that I researched yoga; it was actually pretty fun to learn something new for once. I like the idea of yoga a lot, but I don’t think I’m quite ready to begin yoga classes; I still just want to be care free and not have to worry about obeying yoga laws everyday. I definitely can see myself reconsidering yoga when I’m older though, I think it will bring me more use when I’m stressed out financially and fat. Overall though I can see why people enjoy being yogis, and I might even join the yoga club one day!

I think I researched this yoga project quite well. I liked how we had to have the small print sources and the multimedia, which gave me lots of basic information before I did the yoga class. I wish I had done a different video for the first multimedia post because I felt like I didn’t learn much from it. Also I loved going to yoga class, I wish I had signed up for the whole month of April that way I could’ve gotten a better view of the lifestyles the yogis lived. If I had gone to all the classes, I probably could have gotten an interview with one of the yogis that were in my class. That interview might have given me a sneak peak to a more personal view of a yogi. Overall though I’m happy with the way I did this research project, I still had fun while learning.

Small Print Source 5

For this week, I wanted to learn how yoga and the Earth really connect, and I got a better understanding fo that when I read, "Get Your Green On", by Allison Wellner. This article was a list of descripitions on how a part of yoga can help the eniviroment. It also gave examples and stories from yogis. Recycling which is very popuar for those who live a green lifestyle is also popular for yogis, because they can pracitve greedlessness, and nonstealing. Astyea, one of the yamas, is referred to as nonstealing because it teaches you to use only as much as you need and to make good use of the leftovers. The greedlessness, Aparigraha, reminds us to respect others' rights to sare a clean enviroment. For most people that take yoga, they find that they suddenly have an urge to save the planet, because they can realize how deep the connection is between humans and nature. Others can feel like the world is changing in class, because they can, "Feel everyone breathing and moving through the postures. There are people in my class I may never talk to, but I feel bonded to them. I realize that if I do my part, and everyone else does their part, then together we can create change" (Wellner). This bond that you can get in a yoga class is motivating, maybe not in changing the world, but to get you to do something. It also mentions that way back in the day, yogis use to go to deep extremes to take care of the environment, such as not doing the followoing things: mold lumps of clay, disturb a puddle, dig in soil, or anything that might cause a bad affect to any organism. They would sometiems even wear mask to make sure they didn't breathe in tiny bugs. Nowadays no one is likely to go to such deep extremes, but by liviing in a no harming lifestyle then you can affect greener daily choices.

I've never been involved with too much go green projects, but I have bought some things that were 100% recycled. I really like the way Wellner did thsi article; it was filled with information and stories. She had it all divided up into sections and then under each section, she had people's stories that told you how they got involved with helping the planet through yoga. Since I've started thsi project I've been ready to take a yoga class, but now I'm pumped to try out a class. I don't think I'll be one of those tree huggers that are all about saving the planet. I think I'll stick with the idea of going green though; I might just end up changing into eating less meat a week, or just buying recycled notebooks.

Wellner, Allison."Get Your Green On." Yoga Journal. Web. 20 April 2010.
http://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/2586?utm source=DailyInsight&utm medium=newsletter&utm content=b&utm campaign=DI 2010-04-16

Live Interaction

For my live interaction, I went to a yoga class at Gold's Gym taught by Erin Yost. It was power yoga, which is an intense workout of the body for a solid hour by doing positions and exercising at the same time. We always kept our heart rate up, there was two two-minute breaks throughout the whole hour class. In this class there were all ages groups of women going from sixteen to fifty. Erin taught certain positions before we started working out a certain part of our body. She also gave us a variety of choices to choose from so we could stay at our own level and not under or over work our body. However, we did end the class sitting quietly on our own mats, as she taught us how to breath correctly so we could absorb as much oxygen as our lungs could hold.

I'm really glad I decided to take a yoga class for my live interaction instead of doing an interview with a yogi. I loved the feeling I got after I left the class, it felt like I had given my body a good exercise that my body was asking for. This class was definitely not as easy as I thought; some of those forty year olds seemed to be in better shape than me (I think it's just cause they knew how to breathe correctly while exercising :] )! It was definitely challenging though, and I loved that! I think if I wanted to get a better view on yoga positions I probably shouldn't have picked a power yoga but maybe a flexibility yoga class instead. This class reminded me of jazzercise but with a yoga mix in it. Overall, I had a good time pretending to be a yogi. I also had a good laugh at how uncoordinated I was.

E. Yost. Power Yoga Class Director. 3 May 2010.