/ 1st try at yoga

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, I'm thrilled that you picked these up and are being gentle with yourself on your first yoga practice. I remember when I first did it at 235 lbs and couldn't hold down dog for very long; I spent quite a bit of time in child's pose, but over time was able to do more and more poses. I remember how thrilled I was when I finally was able to do plough! And every day is different. Some days I can do plough, other days my feet don't touch. It's the act of doing it and honoring your mind, body and spirit that counts."Namaste" roughly means the light in me honors the light in you and in all beings. It's a Hindu greeting. Namaste to you, ! Please keep reviewing these workouts as you do them and let us know how it goes!nancydewolf <nancydewolf@...> wrote: Good Monday Morning Everyone! Over the weekend I found a set of 3 yoga tapes for $10 all from Yoga Journal: Yoga for Beginners, Total Yoga and Yoga for Weight Loss. They were $4 each or all 3 for $10 so I grabbed all 3. Got a chance to try out Yoga for Beginners this morning. This was my very first time ever in my life trying yoga. I am usually characterized as physically not very flexible and definitely not graceful so yoga always seemed like an impossible kind of thing but this group got me thinking

about it and when I saw this deal I snatched them up! (My DH thought I was nuts to try yoga but I figure if I don't like them I can always resell them myself.) Walden is the teacher on Yoga for Beginners and she leads you gently through all the various positions with lots of instruction. I found I was actually slightly more flexible than I figured I'd be for some and as stiff as I figured I'd be for others. I also found it very relaxing and enjoyable. I wasn't confused or overwhelmed at all as I am with aerobics video choreography. She shows how to modify the moves if the actual one is too difficult for you and encourages you to listen to your body and do what it says you can do. I wanted to say my body said "not much" but it actually did more than I thought it would so I was pleased by that too. The only thing I found confusing was the breathing only

because I'd heard breathing is very important in yoga but she didn't really explain it very much except during the last pose (Relaxation Pose). I breathed normally most of the time and tried to inhale and exhale when she gave instructions to do so. So, if anyone has any yoga breathing tips I'd appreciate them. The tapes came with a booklet for the beginner video and I'd suggest reading that and possibly watching the tape before trying the poses for the first time. It, of course, recommends that and I ignored it but now wish I hadn't. I'd have been more prepared with props and placement of my TV so that I wouldn't have had to move around so much to get things or so that I could use a wall (kind of breaks the relaxing feeling a bit when you start scrambling for things and repositioning yourself and your TV in another part of the room). Anyway, I'd definitely

recommend this to a yoga newbie. Also, she doesn't go into "spiritual stuff" like I'd been warned about yoga years ago. Her voice and the music was just very quiet, calm but strong and relaxing so it was very comfortable from a spiritual perspective as well (not that I really know much about what kind of "spiritual stuff" she could go into or why it might bother someone, I do have a very basic knowledge of Hindu and other Eastern religions and find them interesting and not at all threatening to my own spiritual foundations, but if that is a concern for anyone you don't have to worry about it at all with this tape). Last thing on this... she says "namaste" at the end and I've seen, I think , use that as an ending for some of her postings... what does it mean???