Weekly Journal Entry #7: Yoga as a Lifestyle and Culture

            Yoga as a "pop culture" is a new, evolving concept in the West. From what I have observed, yoga in the West is a physical exercise, a spiritual outing, as well as a lifestyle-altering practice. Yoga in the West comes with various connotations and stigmas, some of which we discussed in class. One area where yoga affects "pop culture" is in dieting fads. The stigma attached to the life of a disciplined yogi is that of a low-calorie, "clean" diet. Yogi's in the West assimilate themselves to the western culture of yoga that desires a slim frame and a lower body weight for better movement and flexibility. Many aspiring yogis beginning their yoga journey in the West start their journey wanting to be the stereotypical Western yogi, a skinny, fit human being with fantastic flexibility and range of motion.

           Yoga in "pop culture" has also changed the attire of people in the West, specifically women. It is my understanding that 20-30 years ago women weren't wearing yoga tights on a daily basis in public. Yoga has also started a fashion movement where women are comfortable wearing attire that is designed for yoga practice outside of the practice room. I think that this is important to note because yoga pants are not a popular thing to wear in public in other areas around the world, this is purely a western-centric concept.  

           The effects of yoga on the West are widespread. In a way, I am happy for the presence of yoga in the West as I feel that in moderation, it does promote a lifestyle that is far healthier than the lifestyle that most people in the West adhere to. I believe that yoga has many health benefits and these are being revealed at a faster rate now that yoga has gained popularity in the West. I believe that long term effects of yoga will include reductions in obesity, stress, and an increase in spirituality. 

Weekly Journal Entry #6: Yoga as a Healing Practice

             Yoga is a healing practice that is essential in speeding up physical recovery and flexibility as well as enhancing your mental state when it is in disrepair. In my practice space, yoga is used and taught primarily as a healing art. Myself and my fellow trainees use yoga to cool down and speed up our recovery process after a hard day training various martial arts and weight training. Yoga is communicated to me as a holistic method of treating your body to relaxing exercise after an intense workout.
             This yoga practice is performed and viewed the same by all members in my class. My fellow yogis all use yoga as a way of emptying an decompressing the mind, as well as to improve flexibility and physical recovery speed of the body so that they may return to more intensive training sessions sooner. After doing yoga, I feel a sense of inner calm and physical relaxation of my bones and muscles. I feel like my body is lighter than when I started my morning after I finish a yoga session. My body feels like it can bend and move in ways that it could not normally do previously because yoga acts as a method of expanding my bodies horizons past what my mind originally believed it to be capable of.

Journal Entry #5: Yoga Practice as a Community

             My practice space for yoga promotes a strong sense of community through practice. My teacher establishes common goals for the group to achieve while not interfering with the personal goals of the individual that vary from person to person. Through achieving common goals we build relationships through hard work and training and grow stronger as a community. It also helps that many of the people that I practice yoga with are not yogis in the traditional sense and are using yoga as a supplement to other methods of training in order to enhance certain qualities of their workout regimens.
             This sense of community can only be defined as a team mentality. The group that I train with achieves goals together, fails together, and tries again as a group. The yoga room in which I train is a team of developed athletes looking to improve themselves using an alternative method such as yoga. The purpose of a team mentality is to instill a sense of belonging and oneness with your training partners. We believe that suffering together is much more enjoyable than suffering alone and that yoga is a great way to build stress-free, meaningful relationships between each other.
             I feel a strong connection to this community and have no trouble belonging. The group that I train with is very intense and goal-oriented, much like myself, and they are there to work hard and never give up. The sense of belonging that I get stems from a commonality in the goals and values of my training partners. It is much easier to feel a sense of belonging with your training partners when your values overlap both in the training room and in life. My teacher always tries to establish bonds between himself and the students as well between other students in order to strengthen the sense of camaraderie in the room.

Weekly Journal Entry #4

                In regards to the Nevrin article, my practices involving yoga can be seen as ritualistic. There are two times in which I habitually practice yoga, either before or after other forms of training or physical activity. A primary use for yoga in my life is to warm up before training or to cool my body down and stretch after a hard workout. Rarely do I practice yoga and just train yoga in any given day. Other habits in my yoga practice include a constant attentiveness to breath as well as always including a variety of lower back stretches. My yoga practice revolves around physical recovery and rehabilitation. Since I experience a lot of lower back pain due to my years of training in other martial arts, I always use yoga as a focus for my back rehabilitation in order to ease pain and work muscles that I do not use often. Furthermore, breathing exercises are also a staple in my yoga practice. As I mentioned in a previous journal entry, a similarity between yoga and the martial arts is in their practices on proper, calm breathing. I recognize this connection and always use a segment of my yoga practice to just breath normally because of its applications to my martial arts practice.
                These ritualistic behaviors increase the intensity of my yoga practice because I enter the practice with goals in mind that I feel need to be accomplished before I can finish my yoga session. Having these goals in mind of improving my breath and healing my lower back change the impact that the yoga class has on me. I feel that entering anything, including a yoga session, with goals in mind leads you to having a greater sense of accomplishment at the conclusion of the session. These goals also create a more intense nature to my experience because I feel that if I am not able to accomplish these goals during my yoga practice, my practice is not a successful one. All of this being said, breathing and lower back stretches are the only two constants in my yoga practice. My instructors like to mix it up each time when training yoga in order to hit different parts of the body before or after training depending on what we are doing before or what we did previously in training.