Mukta (Post 2)

Post 2

Let’s start off with how relaxed I feel. I did yoga for about an hour today, going through a cycle of about 10 poses a few times. Throughout my yoga practicing today, I decided to listen to a meditation playlist on Spotify. While I was going through the poses (all of which I will explain a little later in this post) I felt as though everything around me had stopped. The whole world just stopped and the only thing I was thinking about was me; not school, or homework, or friends, or parents, nothing. Honestly, that was the first time I have ever not been thinking about any of those things, and let me just say, it was so nice to have an hour to myself where I didn’t have to be worrying about if this specific assignment is due tomorrow, or if I failed that one test, or if my parents are gonna let me hang out with my friends this weekend. Everything was stopped. Everything was quiet (except for the meditation music, obviously). I am going to really enjoy this experience, I can already tell. I’m a very stressed, uptight person, but today, the yoga made me take a break from life and just forget everything I was stressing about in the upcoming week. It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, and I’m so excited to continue with it. Alright, enough about tranquility and peacefulness. Let me teach you all about the 10 poses I learned. First of all, here is the video I watched today that helped teach me some of the most basic and most common poses for Yoga. Not all of the poses I am going to mention later are from this video, but they are all regarded as the most common yoga poses.

Now, I am only going to highlight and explain a few, as I'm sure most of you would be overwhelmed with all 10 poses. I will include many, though, so if you want to research them, be my guest. 

Mountain Pose

With this pose, you will stand with your feel directly under your hips and your weight distributed equally on your feet. Be sure to keep your arms at your side. Keep your neck aligned with your spine. Breathe deeply and stretch your arms gently upwards. Stretch your arms as high as you can and keep a fluent inhale and exhale breathing pattern. 

Tree Pose

With this pose, stand straight with your arms at your sides and looking straight ahead. Bend your right knee and place the sole of your foot on your left thigh. Then, raise your arms over your head and place your palms together. As you continue to breathe, make sure your body is straight. Bring your hands back down to your sides and lower your foot to the ground. Repeat with other side.

 Downward Facing Dog

With this pose, begin on the floor on your hands and knees. Spread your fingers out and walk towards your hands as you move your hips up into the air until your body forms an upside-down "V" shape. Keep your feet flat on the floor about shoulder width apart. If you can't keep your heels on the ground, that is fine, just bend your knees a little, but be sure to keep your back as straight as possible. 

Here, I am just going to list the other poses I learned, along with a picture. Feel free to google the poses to find links and videos on how to successfully complete these poses. (Yes, a few look very difficult, but if you have confidence and breathe while you try, I believe that all of you can complete all of these poses). 

Eagle Pose 

Child's Pose

Pigeon Pose

Reverse Warrior 

Upward Facing Dog 

Warrior One

Extended Side Angle 

Dead Man's Pose

On a side note, this weekend, I went to a spa down the shore with a couple of my family members. I got a full-body Swedish massage, which I must say, was amazing. After my massage, I felt relaxed and rejuvenated. And then, coming home the next day and spending an hour on yoga really kept that feeling going. As I sit here typing this, while I would normally be stressing out about the large amount of work I have to complete in addition to this before I go to bed tonight, I am not really worrying about all of that. The spa itself was amazing as well. When we first got there, we were taken back to this room with dim lighting, candles everywhere, a little water fountain, and meditation music softly playing the background. One by one, we were called into our sessions. The room where I got my massage was just like the waiting room we were placed in, having dim lighting, lit candles, and a sweet smell of some type of incense filling the room. My mind has drifted off into a state of complete relaxation, only focusing on breathing. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Nothing else mattered but my breathing. And for an hour, I laid there while I was pampered with hot rocks and wonderful exfoliating lotions. Even after it was over, I was still in a state of relaxation, which is a feeling I hadn't experienced in a very, very long time.  

As I explained in my last post, I am going to choose one Sanskrit word that represents some aspect of my journey with yoga, which I will make the title of each of my posts, For this post, I have decided to title it mukta. Literally translated, mukta means liberation or freedom. Interpreted, it means relaxed, or freed from thought. This word clearly represents my feelings over the past couple days after my visit to the spa and then doing my yoga. Everything that I had been stressing and worrying about the past couple days has simply gone away, and all I am thinking about is me, nothing else. 

Starting now, I will include my anxiety and stress rating at the end of every post. I will give a rating for how stressed I was before I started my yoga session (and in this case, before my spa experience) and then compare it to after. The rating will be on a 1-10 scale, 1 being not that stressed or anxious and 10 being very stressed and anxious. Along with that, I will given an explanation for each rate. 

Stress before yoga: 7 (I'm pretty stressed about all the school work I have to complete this weekend, including this blog post, reading Les Mis, a good deal of biology homework, and some math to finish all before the school week starts)

Anxiety before yoga: 5 (Softball season just started up again, which means I have practices every day after school for a solid two to three hours, which means two to three hours less of homework time, which means generally less sleep on school nights because I will have more work to do in less amount of time) 

Stress after yoga: 2 (Once I really thought about it, there isn't that much work due tomorrow, as it's really only this blog post that MUST get done before tomorrow. The rest of that stuff I mentioned is due on Tuesday, which gives me a whole extra day to work on it)

Anxiety after yoga: 1 (School is my first priority, so if I feel like I have too much work one night, I can simply skip on of the open gyms. The coach even said that if we know we will have a lot of work a certain night, skipping that day is fine, so I shouldn't be worrying about all of that)


Namaste. 

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Avery Ryan (Brown)
David Weiss (Red)
Sarah Kollender (Yellow)