Looking back on years of yoga practice has brought me many changes. Not only physically, but also mentally.
My first understanding of yoga was that I saw some pictures in a yoga brochure. Yoga practitioners did many difficult body stretching or bending movements. I think yoga mainly improves the flexibility of the body through training.
I changed my mind when I really started practicing.
I am glad that the first yoga instructor was a practitioner with profound accomplishments after strict professional training. Under her guidance, I have a correct understanding of yoga practice.
I was born with a lack of physical flexibility. When I first started practicing, many postures were out of reach. The coach told me that it is good to do my own physical limit, and there is no need to force it. You don't have to compare with others when you do it, just make a little progress with yourself every day and feel the changes brought by yoga practice.
Enhanced flexibility
After a period of practice, my body slowly opened and my flexibility increased. For example, at first, straighten your legs, bend down, and your hands can't reach the ground. Slowly, not only the hands can land, but also the palms can land. Another example is sitting on the ground, straightening your legs, and your forehead gradually touches your legs when your body closes to your legs; When the body twists backwards, one hand can pass under the bent knee and the other hand can be buckled behind the back.
Balance of the body
The balance ability of the body is also greatly enhanced. For example, standing posture, one leg upright, hands folded, body slowly stretched forward, one leg raised and extended backward until it is in a straight line with the back of hand. There is also a standing posture with one leg, one leg standing, the other leg bending, the sole of the foot stepping on the inside of the standing leg, hands folded and upright. I didn't stick to these balanced poses for a few seconds at first, but now I can stick to them for a few minutes.
Posing is not important.
I gradually realized that posture is not the most important thing, but the feeling of the body is the most important thing. When doing stretching poses, you can feel the stretching of muscles, and different poses exercise muscles in different parts. Slowly, some stiff parts become soft, and the pain caused by stiffness is also alleviated. When doing the balance pose, a seemingly simple action actually needs to tighten the muscle group at the core, and at the same time it can be completed with great concentration.
After a period of practice, I found that yoga is not only a physical exercise, but also a spiritual practice.
Body-mind dialogue
Before practicing yoga, I seldom pay attention to every part of my body. Unless there is something wrong with an organ or a certain part, when I feel sick or painful, I realize that my body still has this part, and I have never paid attention to it. During yoga practice, you need to calm down and feel the changes in your body quietly. Before yoga practice, you will close your eyes, sit in a comfortable sitting position, observe your breathing, calm your impetuous mind, and then start asana practice.
In the process of asana practice, complicated work and life are temporarily abandoned outside the mind. Where the body practices, the mind is concentrated. Through the dialogue between body and mind, I slowly feel the existence and changes of body and muscles.
Relax tension and stress.
Rest is a necessary procedure after yoga practice and the essence of yoga. A yoga teacher said that after a yoga class, it can be said that the exercises done in front are all preparations for rest. A good yoga teacher will guide the practitioners with a gentle voice, from toes to ankles, calves, thighs, buttocks, abdomen, head, upper arms, forearms … all the way to fingertips. Under the guidance of the guiding language, the whole body is relaxed from the inside out. Inner tension and pressure have also been put down. Yoga teachers will also paint a peaceful picture, either a calm sea or a warm grassland. After the rest, my heart is quiet, peaceful and relaxed.
Improve attention
Yoga can also enhance inner concentration. Because in practice, I put aside all the complicated things outside my body and only focused on physical practice and inner feelings, which virtually trained my concentration. When studying and working, it is easier to calm down and concentrate on the matter at hand.
Thanksgiving life
By practicing yoga, I feel more keenly about the things around me and feel more grateful for everything that happens in my life. Although in the process of practicing yoga, I only pay attention to the current physical and mental changes. But through yoga practice, you can find the beauty of things around you. Sometimes the sprouting green of a tree and the blooming of a flower will make me feel deeply moved and happy. Sincerely appreciate nature and appreciate everything you can feel. My life is not necessarily happier than the people around me, but I often feel the happiness of life and the gift of nature.
It is difficult to face setbacks.
Strange to say, yoga practice brings not only physical flexibility, but also mental toughness, which can cope with difficulties and setbacks in life and work more calmly.
Through yoga asana practice, when you exercise to parts that you can't exercise normally, you will feel very painful and sometimes unbearable. Through practice, learn not to refuse the feeling of pain and live in peace with it. Slowly discover that the pain is not so unbearable, and you can even enjoy the feeling of pain, as if you felt the existence of life through pain. With the increase of exercise times, the pain becomes lighter and lighter until it disappears completely.
Thanksgiving yoga makes me grow physically and mentally, and I will continue to practice.