Week 2 Post!

Reading Response: I found there to be multiple 'sets' or categories that Patanjali created that made the reading go by much quicker. It also made it easier to comprehend and see the different aspects of yoga. What I especially liked were the distractions and obstacles in Yoga that were spelled out. They reminded me a lot of the 7 deadly sins. For example, Alasaya, or removing the obstacle of laziness would be sloth, Pramada or a person suffering from self importance would be pride and Avirati, the tremendous craving for sensory objects would be lust in a sense. Those were the closest things that I could relate it to but it was also interesting to see how many more 'obstacles' there were in life aside from our generic 7 deadly sins. I thought it was interesting how the pupils were categorized according to their interaction with their gurus. I guess I didn't agree so much with the point that the author made. I think you can still be a good learner of yoga or a practice in general without being a good student or a pupil. Some people are just intrinsically gifted when it comes to certain subjects or practices.  Lastly something that I didn't agree with Patanjali on was the four remedies that he had to overcome obstacles which were Maitri or friendliness, Karuna or compassion, Mudita or delight and Upeksa or disregard. Quite honestly, I do not believe that all the obstacles and hurdles in life that he listed can be solved through friendliness, compassion, delight and disregard. There is just no way that is practical.  It might be nice in theory but not everything is solved with cupcakes, rainbows and butterflies, we live in the real world. Maybe that's what he was trying to get at....we live in a material world, the 'real world' but we forget what really matters, what really can make us happy? I don't know but in my world compassion, friendliness, delight and disregard don't pay the bills, put food on the table or change diapers, just sayin'.

Practice Response: Is anyone else extremely sore from yoga on Tuesday? My calves are killing me. I tried practicing downward dog and for some reason I feel like I'm getting worse at it. Maybe I was just doing it wrong before Tuesday and wasn't paying attention to the technicalities of it. One of the poses that I think I've gotten really good at is the tree pose. I think it's because we advanced to the supta virasana and I'm so much worse at that pose than the tree pose. But still I enjoy doing it and I think I've really improved a lot on my balance. I need to work on my leg and hamstring flexibility. I was having no trouble contorting my arms, hands or upper body but I think that legs are what cause me the most annoyance during the poses. Especially when it involves any sort of leg stretching.  I like the pose that stretches out our backs and hips, Ardha Matsyendrasana, I think that's what it's called, at least that the one I saw on the internet. That really helped me a lot with some of my lower back problems that I have after ROTC workouts.  I hope class tomorrow isn't too rough, I'm really feeling the burn from all that stretching.  :)