My Yoga Goal For 2010
>> Monday, January 25, 2010 –
Experiments
I have been thinking about what should be my Yoga goal for this year since the past few weeks. I had thought of few alternative courses but was not able to decide. Yesterday I finally closed down on this and I want to share that with you all.
This year my goal is to complete Basic course of Yoga Poses as prescribed by BKS Iyengar. It starts with around 7 to 8 poses in the first week and goes on to finish with around 50 poses. There needs to be a push or a pull which can drive the practice. Usually most people are driven by external push for most work.
Purpose of Writing Down my Goal
Regular and dedicated practice of Yoga is very difficult. There are days when due to certain circumstances of sheer laziness it is difficult to practice. Writing down your goals is a excellent way to ensure that we stay on the course of our desired actions. I experience it when I wrote in my blog about completing 21 Sets of Surya Namaskar for 30 days late last year. The results pleased me a lot and more than that I felt that even on days I did not feel like practicing the power of written commitment pulled me towards the practice.
Similarly I feel that this time announcing this on the blog will help me to reach the goal and at the same time act a guide for my Yoga practice this year.
Another aspect of announcing this is for me practice of yoga is now a important part of my life. All the posts which I write, I try to include my personal experiences also, and that can come only from practice. This goal will provide me hundreds of ideas which I can convey to other and lot of people will benefit from this.
More details of my Yoga Goal for 2010
I follow quite a few schools of Yoga. For this year I want to follow Iyengar methodology. I have been thinking of doing this around 2 years now, but lack of commitment or self belief to this routine has been the reason that I never did this. I feel I have the courage now to attempt this.
I follow the "Light on Yoga" book from Iyengar. It is very comprehensive and contains huge list of poses. At the end of the book there is a prescribed course for practice. I am going to take up the beginner's course for this year. That is a minimum of 32 weeks course. Of course I will allow myself to finish that by the year end. At present I am in the 5th week and there are 12 poses and one pranayama. By the time I reach the 30th Week it will reach 50 poses in the session. One I complete the 30th week, the practice will divide the poses in three parts to be practice on three days and then repeated again. Realistically I feel I will need more than 32 weeks and for me if I am able to finish the course by year end that would be great achievement.
The benefits of this goal
Let me confess something. Though I quite practice regularly (Around 4 to 5 times a week) still my body is not strong enough to do this at this moment. I still have fat layer around my waist though it has reduced considerably after the 30 day Surya Namaskar practice I did as an experiment.
My aim is not to concentrate on fat reduction specifically, because if it was so, I would have continue to practice Surya Namaskar for 2 more months and I am sure would have lost the required amount of fat. My aim is to explore yoga more thoroughly and while doing my regular practice the body would automatically reduce fat from the wrong places. I cannot do that if I practice Surya Namaskar alone as that will take major chunk of my yoga time. I also want to explore to what height I can reach. This will be difficult journey and I look forward to this.
Another thing which will be good are the twisting poses like the matyendra asana where there is a spinal twist. Presently I rarely practice these poses. At the end of the course I will be doing all the types of poses like forward and backward bend, twists, sitting and standing pose etc. This will enhance my knowledge by many folds.
I plan to update my blog with my progress and experiences from time to time on this blog.
This will be hugely challenging year for me and I am also not sure whether I will be able to complete this. But there is no harm in trying and I am sure I will come out a better person. I am excited about this venture and particularly so after announcing this on this blog. This will make my commitment stronger than before.
Those who already are at the next level would be smiling at me, because it is a small step which I am about to take, but for me it is going to be a giant leap.
Related Posts
Managing Laziness in Yoga Practice
6 Habits Which Enhance Your Yoga Practice
4 Common Yoga Myths Busted
Utthitha Parsvakonasana - Yoga For Legs
This year my goal is to complete Basic course of Yoga Poses as prescribed by BKS Iyengar. It starts with around 7 to 8 poses in the first week and goes on to finish with around 50 poses. There needs to be a push or a pull which can drive the practice. Usually most people are driven by external push for most work.
Purpose of Writing Down my Goal
Regular and dedicated practice of Yoga is very difficult. There are days when due to certain circumstances of sheer laziness it is difficult to practice. Writing down your goals is a excellent way to ensure that we stay on the course of our desired actions. I experience it when I wrote in my blog about completing 21 Sets of Surya Namaskar for 30 days late last year. The results pleased me a lot and more than that I felt that even on days I did not feel like practicing the power of written commitment pulled me towards the practice.
Similarly I feel that this time announcing this on the blog will help me to reach the goal and at the same time act a guide for my Yoga practice this year.
Another aspect of announcing this is for me practice of yoga is now a important part of my life. All the posts which I write, I try to include my personal experiences also, and that can come only from practice. This goal will provide me hundreds of ideas which I can convey to other and lot of people will benefit from this.
More details of my Yoga Goal for 2010
I follow quite a few schools of Yoga. For this year I want to follow Iyengar methodology. I have been thinking of doing this around 2 years now, but lack of commitment or self belief to this routine has been the reason that I never did this. I feel I have the courage now to attempt this.
I follow the "Light on Yoga" book from Iyengar. It is very comprehensive and contains huge list of poses. At the end of the book there is a prescribed course for practice. I am going to take up the beginner's course for this year. That is a minimum of 32 weeks course. Of course I will allow myself to finish that by the year end. At present I am in the 5th week and there are 12 poses and one pranayama. By the time I reach the 30th Week it will reach 50 poses in the session. One I complete the 30th week, the practice will divide the poses in three parts to be practice on three days and then repeated again. Realistically I feel I will need more than 32 weeks and for me if I am able to finish the course by year end that would be great achievement.
The benefits of this goal
Let me confess something. Though I quite practice regularly (Around 4 to 5 times a week) still my body is not strong enough to do this at this moment. I still have fat layer around my waist though it has reduced considerably after the 30 day Surya Namaskar practice I did as an experiment.
My aim is not to concentrate on fat reduction specifically, because if it was so, I would have continue to practice Surya Namaskar for 2 more months and I am sure would have lost the required amount of fat. My aim is to explore yoga more thoroughly and while doing my regular practice the body would automatically reduce fat from the wrong places. I cannot do that if I practice Surya Namaskar alone as that will take major chunk of my yoga time. I also want to explore to what height I can reach. This will be difficult journey and I look forward to this.
Another thing which will be good are the twisting poses like the matyendra asana where there is a spinal twist. Presently I rarely practice these poses. At the end of the course I will be doing all the types of poses like forward and backward bend, twists, sitting and standing pose etc. This will enhance my knowledge by many folds.
I plan to update my blog with my progress and experiences from time to time on this blog.
This will be hugely challenging year for me and I am also not sure whether I will be able to complete this. But there is no harm in trying and I am sure I will come out a better person. I am excited about this venture and particularly so after announcing this on this blog. This will make my commitment stronger than before.
Those who already are at the next level would be smiling at me, because it is a small step which I am about to take, but for me it is going to be a giant leap.
Related Posts
Managing Laziness in Yoga Practice
6 Habits Which Enhance Your Yoga Practice
4 Common Yoga Myths Busted
Utthitha Parsvakonasana - Yoga For Legs
Hi,
I came across your blog while searching for benefits of padmasana. I find all the your writings very interesting, specially "yoga goal for 2010". It really encouraged me to achieve more. I would like to know where you learned yoga from an dhow many days a week and for how long you practice it.
Hey Yashika,
Thanks for visiting my blog. I have been practicing yoga for quite some time in fact for so many years. What I found was unless I have a goal I was restricted to the small set of poses. Therefore I decided to expand the asanas I practice. This goal is helping me in this. I was practicing 6 days a week, but since I am in 16th week I practice around 4 times a week and at present it is quite strenuous for me. As I gain more strength I will again increase it to 6 days.
As regards learning, I was inspired mainly by Swami Ramdev to start pranayama and then moved on to asanas. I also attended classes run by Bihar school of yoga at Indore, MP, India. At present I am following Iyengar yoga and my reference in the master piece "Light On Yoga".
Regards
Nilendu