Yoga for Beginners 101: Summer Cool Down for Weeks 42-43

During this late summer season, I’m still going to my yoga classes, while I’m still regaining my strength. I hope to resume my home practice for yoga, hopefully during Labor Day Weekend, next weekend. I guess you can say I took a hiatus for doing it for the time being, while I’m still having my ongoing summer cold with low energy.

During last Wednesday’s yoga class, we’ve warmed up with the easy sit and proceeded to do some various spinal twists and side stretches on both sides. From there, we’ve started the Sun Salutation sequence with a few rounds of cat-cow, down dog, mountain and back bend, forward fold, plank. We’ve added the knee-chest-chin, up dog, down dog, awkward chair pose with the shoulder stretch of another forward fold. We’ve moved onto the warrior one and two sequences with the reverse warrior, triangle and side angle poses. Besides the tree poses, she added a couple of new poses for that routine: warrior 3 pose/Airplane pose, the twisted side angle pose, and the camel. Before we’ve finished the session with the corpse pose, we’ve returned back to the plow pose, (something I could do), and the headstand, (something I couldn’t do).

For this Wednesday yoga class, we’ve sat in our easy sit and performed some warm-up exercises with the various spinal twists and side stretches on both sides. Then we’ve went to the Sun Salutations with the cat-cow, down dog, mountain with back bend, forward fold, plank, knee-chest-chin, up and down dog with the cobra, the forward fold with a shoulder stretcher, and back to mountain. From there, we’ve went through the Warrior poses of Warriors One and Two, Reverse Warrior, triangle pose and side angle pose. The new poses for this week’s class was a variation of cat-cow, when I call it the titled cow, and the child’s pose a few times. After the tree pose and before we ended the session with meditation, those fellow yogis who had straps or didn’t have straps had done two variations of spinal twists and side stretches, and went into the corpse pose. Someday I hope to get a strap.

Last week in Thursday’s yoga class, we’ve laid down on our backs and worked on some spinal twists to warm our bodies with side stretches. We’ve done some hip opener exercises with our legs. We’ve began with the swan dive, and proceeded to the knee-chest-chin pose with the inchworm, the plank and side planks, the cobra, a few up and down dogs. After we reversed the swan dive, we went into the crescent lunge and went back to down dog for the three-legged dog pose, and with the kneeling dancer. We’ve done some forward folds and wide-legged straddles along with the warrior one and two poses, the triangle and side angle pose, and a child’s pose. Before we ended the class, we’ve done a couple of bridges and finished with the frog pose.

For yesterday’s Thursday yoga class, we’ve started out with the corpse pose, some spinal twists and side stretches with our legs to warm up the session. We’ve used some hip opener exercises and stretched with the cat-cow and a couple of down dogs and child’s pose. We’ve proceeded to do the forward folds after the knee-chest-chin pose, the inchworm pose, and a few planks. We’ve did a few crescent lunges with the up dog, cobra pose, and the three-legged dog pose. We’ve went through the warrior one and two sequence with the side angle and triangle poses and finished with the big toe lock poses on both sides. We’ve finished with the camel pose, the shoulder bridge pose, and then the locust pose to end the session.


Note: My Friday yoga class, my Stretch-lates and my Yoga-lates classes return to the gym in over a week. Depending on how I'm feeling in a week, I might alternate between my Stretch-lates and Yoga-lates classes, until I'm stronger. I'll still keep my Friday yoga class though.