The Art of Yoga and Relaxation; Yoga in Practice and in Groups

I attended a yoga class instructed by my onsite adviser, Maria Mendola, on Monday the 20th of February. This class she had designed for the senior citizens of Sun City. Throughout the session she would occasionally say something along the lines of “practicing yoga in a room full of other people is harder than practicing alone,” like anything else when you try to do an action that requires any amount of skill in front of people it is immediately harder. This also applies to something as meditative as yoga. Despite the judgement free environment, warm demeanor, and friendly attitude of class, I found myself feeling the need to do as best as I could,. As a result, I lost myself in the act of doing the poses, all of my concentration and effort put into one task, all of my other thoughts and concerns washed away. When going through many yoga poses your movements are linked to your inhales and exhales. Since you must think about coordinating your actions with your breathing what you are doing with your limbs and your lungs become the sole focus. Meditation is often a set of breathing exercises designed to allow you to lose yourself in the act of breathing to leave the individual engaging in meditation in a calm, relaxed state. Yoga adds in another step to meditation, body movements, this second stage over rides the possibility to think about anything but the current moment at hand. Thinking only about the current moment is incredibly freeing and puts any other issues into perspective and shows that they are not worth causing yourself any undue stress. When this aspect of yoga is combined with the mentality of performing with a group of people watching allows for you to lose yourself in the moment and be completely worry free. Afterwards you will feel relaxed and ready for the day, with everything in perspective. For this reason doing yoga in a group is easily the most calming thing I have done. Losing myself in the act of breathing and moving and doing my best without judgement left me relaxed and prepared for any challenges that the day might throw at me.