Warrior Pose

In order to see what the warrior pose is all about, the first thing I did was do the warrior pose in my room. For about five minutes, I did different configurations of the warrior pose. The first being with my arms paralell to the ground, the second being both arms straight up, and the third being with one arm up, the other arm down.

As a sat down at my computer, my whole body felt much better. I now feel my work is doable, and I am sitting up straight in my chair.

Why is this pose called 'Warrior pose' when yoga is supposed to be peaceful? Well, Yoga is not peaceful. While we don't harm others, we are doing battle within our bodies. We are fighting the bad energy with us. We must resist and embrace the pain. We are fighting the daemons and the negative energy. The warrior pose, while not particularly complex is hard. My quads burn, but it feels good. After, several minutes, I have cleared my brain, and prepared my body for what lies ahead.

Upon doing a little research, at http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/1708 . I find the real name for warrior I pose is the Virabhadra pose. It was named after the two revered warriors in the Bhagavad-Gita. The text goes onto say that we must fight the true enemy: self-ignorance.

This "self-ignorance", or not knowing one's self is often cured by meditation and consciously stepping back from yourself and objectively looking at your thoughts and actions. In my experience the more one knows about themselves, the better control they have. The more I do Yoga and the more I meditate (which is not enough), the better I become.

The History of Yoga.

I've been looking into the history of Yoga, and I've been amazed. The wikipedia article for Yoga has 40 sections, so it's quite a read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga. I find it amazing how many different generes of Yoga there are. It sounds like in our class, we are mostly practicing the Hatha yoga, which itself is hundreds of years old. Other types of Yoga have their origin thousands of years ago in India  Various seals depict Yoga positions and meditation that are more than 5000 years old. It's pretty neat to think that we are practicing something that came from a time so long ago.

Yoga for Skiiers

I want to go skiing. However, I also want to do Yoga when I'm not skiing to make my skiing better. Tonight, I found a cool link about what Yoga poses are good for skiing. Here it is: http://matadornetwork.com/sports/6-yoga-poses-for-skiers/ . The other day, during class, we did the chair pose. I could feel my quads, already fairly strong from skiing engage. They seemed happy to be used again.  I'd like to see us do a few of these poses listed in the link, particuarly the Ustrasana, or Camel pose and the Marichyasana pose. 

-Ted

Vipassana Meditation

Tonight my good friend Marty introduced me to Vipassana Meditation. Several years ago, he went on a 10 day meditation trip that he claims changed his life. For 10 days, he did nothing but sit quietly, thinking about the sensations in his body. For the next few months (until he got hit by a truck while bike riding) he said he was the happiest he had ever been. He encouraged me to try it. Perhaps this summer I can make a trip to Oregon or Montana to meditate amoungst the trees and mountains for 10 days. It made me realize how important meditation practice is; I'd like to practice for a little bit every day to prepare.

http://www.dhamma.org/

First Yoga Post

Chris Sharma Tries YogaChris Sharma is one of my heroes. His one of the top climbers in the world, has a great and positive outlook on life, and lives with his beautiful wife in Catalonia, Spain, where he practices his climbing. As a climber myself, I thought Yoga might be helpful. However, being one of Chris's first times, I couldn't help notice he seemed a little awkward with some of the more... spiritual aspects. Sometimes I feel this way too, and just want to do the nice stretches.