Yoga Challenge, Day 24: Into the Home Stretch (ha!)

Only a week left in my challenge now. And I'm definitely feeling better than I did on Sunday, now that the end is in sight. I'm still enjoying myself, but I'm looking forward to moving on to other things as well - more on that later.

In the meantime, I think now would be a good time to review the DVDs I've been using.

AM Yoga for Your Week, by Rodney Yee.

This one is by far my favourite, and the one I have used the most. It has five different 20-minute segments - I love the twists and the hip openers, like the standing poses and the forward bends, and could live without the back bends.

My only complaint is a minor one. There is no advance notice of the props he's using, so all of a sudden he'll say "pick up your strap", and I'm sitting there thinking "What strap? Where did that come from?" and then I have to either scramble around or modify the pose. Obviously, this problem disappeared as I became more familiar with the series, and as I remembered to plan ahead for my practice each day. :) But even so, a note somewhere indicating which props are used would be helpful.

This is a pretty easy series, and I don't think it will be too long before I outgrow it. But it will be good to keep around, for those days when I just need a quick twenty minute stretch break at some point.


Warrior Yoga, by Trudie Styler and James D'Silva

This DVD includes two vinyasa sequences, which are identical but for length - one is 50 minutes, one is 25.

I find this one a bit more challenging, for a couple of reasons. I do struggle with vinyasa a bit - I tend to like a bit of a slower pace, with more time to settle in to a pose before moving to the next one. There are also a couple of poses that are completely inaccessible to me, such as the Standing Splits, and the Marichyasana (never mind impossible, that one just looks painful!).

But on the whole, I'm really enjoying it. Apart from those two poses, the rest of them are right within my skill level, and I am getting better at the flow part, as much as I grumble about it. Clearly, the challenge aspect is good for me. There are also a couple of meditations on this DVD, which I'm looking forward to trying once the 30-30 challenge is over.


Yoga Burn, by Rodney Yee

I was really nervous about starting this one - the word "burn," and the language in general, seemed very aggressive to me, and a bit more yang-ish than my usually yin-ish self would prefer. But I tried it, and you know, it's not that bad! :) More vinyasa, but again the poses themselves are not too difficult for me.

The DVD itself is a bit of a nuisance, though. The only menu options are English and French, and for some reason the practice itself starts in the middle of a "chapter" after the introduction. So you can't skip straight to the practice, you have to scan through it and watch closely for the point where the sample poses end and the practice itself begins. Again, it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but there certainly would have been easier ways to set things up.


Yoga for Urban Living, by Hemalaya Behl

This was the first yoga DVD I ever bought. It has three sessions: Morning Quickie, Evening Bath, and Daily Connection. The morning and evening sessions are about 30 minutes each, and the Daily one is an hour.

The morning session starts with some breathing exercises, then some very gentle "opening" of the joints - roll your wrists, roll your ankles, etc. The sun salutations start about fifteen minutes in. The beginning is a bit too slow even for me, but on the other hand there's no reason I can't skip ahead to the good part if I want to. This is something else I struggle with - I tend to feel that the practice is set up a certain way for a reason, and therefore I have to follow it as written. Next time I'm going to be all rebellious and go straight to the sun salutations - look at me go!

The evening session is designed to be relaxing, and it certainly is that. It's a series of seated postures and twists, followed by a good long Savasana with a blanket. I love it. Again, this will be a good addition to my regular practice, once the challenge is finished and I have a bit more flexibility with my routine.

I did the Daily Connection session on Day 4, and I have to confess I don't remember much of it - there has been a lot of yoga in the meantime! I'm deliberately saving my second run-through of this one for the end, as a bit of a benchmark to see how far I've come in the past thirty days. I do remember that she wasn't always consistent with her lefts and rights, so there were places where the soundtrack didn't match what she was doing on the screen. I'm easily confused, but I'm sure I can figure it out. :)


What's up next? Well, I'm pretty sure I'll need some more videos, before I get too familiar with the ones I have. More vinyasas might be a good idea, to keep pushing out of my comfort zone a bit. And I'd like to find a good yin yoga DVD as well, and push myself in the other direction, towards holding poses longer than I normally would. The great thing is, once the challenge is over, I'll have the whole world of yoga open to me again, and be able to try all sorts of new things!