Week 6 Post!

Reading Response: 
I found the discussion that we had over yama (moral injunctions) to be very interesting.  I guess its because there are so many couplets/groups in the practice of Yoga that make it easier to understand and keep it from being too overwhelming.  It was really easy for me to relate the eight limbs to the eight fold path. I know the concepts are a little different but I found that they have a lot of similarities.  Like the internalization of the senses toward their source (prathyahara) is like right mindfulness, and concentration (dharana) is the same as right concentration, and moral injunctions are like right livelihood.
I also found the ending of the book "How Yoga Works" to be so fitting.  I wish we would have read it last this semester so that the completion of our course could also be the completion of the book.  However I don't think that I would have understood the big main points of Yoga if it hadn't been for the  journey of the Captain.

Practice Response:

My hamstrings and legs feel so sore for some reason but I think its unrelated to Yoga, but its definitely affecting my practice.  If anyone has any advice that ISN'T DOWNWARD FACING DOG to help loosen up hamstrings, I'm all ears.  On another note I really enjoyed the breathing exercises that we did on Thursday.  I wish we had more classes where we could really focus on breathing.  Growing up my mom used to practice this breathing yoga, it was called Kapalbhati.   In it you would exhale repeatedly and take out all the toxins from your body through exhalation.  It actually used to come on an Indian channel my mom watched everyday and the yogi that was in charge had thousands of followers watching him while he conducted the yoga.  Anyways, the pranyama that we did the other day reminded me a lot of that practice.  If anyone has the time look up Kapalbhati and see the difference in the practice.