Yoga for Beginners 101: Spring Break for Weeks 25-26

Two weeks ago, I’ve sprained my knee during yoga class. Since then, I’ve stopped during my home practice for yoga, due to throbbing knee pain and nausea with headaches. My doctor have ordered me to rest my knee and taking anti-inflammatory medicines, until I’m feeling better. I hope to return to my home practice and gym sessions in 1.5 weeks to resume my yoga, Stretch-lates and Yoga-lates classes. So my next Yoga hub will be at the end of this month.

For last Wednesday yoga class, we had the same (Unexpected) sub we had back in January. Our class sizes was normal with one new yogi to the class. We’ve started out with some meditation and deep breathing exercises, and then did our spine stretches to warm our bodies up. As I recall from January, we did the sun salutations in the same flowing pattern and rhythm of cat-cow, down dog, forward bend, lunge, mountain pose, tree pose, the warrior trio of poses with the triangle and side angle poses. We did it a few times and gradually progressed to the sun salutations with the up dog to the mix with the mountain and a couple of folds. We did a full forward, a half fold, a wide-legged forward stance and the bridge pose, along with a couple of other new poses to the routine: the camel pose, the star pose, the goddess pose, the happy baby pose, the reverse table pose, the kneeling and standing dancer poses. All of them were hip opening poses, before we closed the class out.

During last Thursday’s Gentle Yoga class, we had a pretty small and light class with plenty of space for room. We warmed out on our backs and rocked on our tailbone back and forth and side to side. Then we’ve opened the class with hip flexor stretches to warm up the spine and lifted our legs up into the air and flexed our feet. We did a couple rounds of cat-cow and down dogs, which was followed by child’s pose and extended child’s pose. We’ve also used the blocks to do the triangle pose on both sides. We did a couple of planks and then prepared to do the swan dive, when we lifted our arms in the arm as one arm went to the side and back, the other arm did the same thing, meeting at the top to do the swan dive. We’ve did a few rounds of that, which was followed by a forward fold with the block, and the monkey pose, and finished the session with a few crescent lunges.

As for last Friday’s yoga class, we had the same sub I had back in January. She handed out yoga blankets for our knee and back support for the exercises, which was very nice of her. We started out with the opening meditation and mantra and followed it up with some stretches for our backs. From there, we’ve gotten ready to do the cat-cow pose, the downward dog, the plank, the forward fold and some lounges. We also tackled the warrior 1 and 2 poses with the reverse warrior, the side angle and triangle poses, the mountain pose, and the bridge pose. We also tried some new poses like the one-legged frog, the reverse table, the wheel and bow poses, the three-legged dog and the three-legged plank, and the hero pose as well. Then we’ve finished it with the corse pose, too.

For my third Stretch-lates class, we warmed up with the same spinal stretches on our back and then the full twists and turns. We stretched our arms and legs up in the air and did a half fold, a full fold, the jackknife and hitchhiker poses, too. For the stretches, we did a bunch of them we’ve did the past week, by stretching our legs to the side, and then lifting our arms up in the air and lowering down and went in and out. We also did the V sit, when we pulsed our feet apart and then pushed them together a few times. We also reached our arms to the air and puled our legs in and pushed them outward, followed by the last one by raising and lowering our hands in front of us, too. We did the bed bug and lunges, followed by a wide-legged stance in the end.

For my 4th Stretch-lats class, we warmed up with the exhale stretches, obliques by twisting our waists and later swinging our arms. We also did some arm circles and some side stretches, like a leaning plane with our arms and tilted our bodies from side to side. We also did a couple of down dogs, the highway pose, the hug pose (arms wide open, up, down and closed), and a couple of bird dogs. For the strapped stretches, we used them in the beginning as an option for the shoulder circles, and later to pull ourselves forward for a stretch, by moving our feet away and back together, and then by pulling our legs above our head and lower ourselves back down to the floor, and stretching our arms to the side to finish.

For my third Yoga-lates class, we had a pretty much average size class. We started out in easy sit and did some stretches for our back, rolled our shoulders and did some shoulder shrugs. From there, we followed the daily stretch routine of cat-cow, down dog, the plank, the Warrior poses, side sashays, bicycle and backpedal, single and double leg taps, roll-ups, the chair, the highway pose, the reverse table and bridge poses, the three-legged dog and three-legged plank poses. We also did the jackknife, the sunbird (another new pose), the star pose, the triangle and side angle poses, side stretches, the forward and half folds, too, before we finished the session with a corpse pose.