Hey! I'm new to the forums

Community Welcome New Members
#1

I’m new to the forums, my name is Christy and I’ve been really into Yoga for about 2 or 3 months. I hope to one day be a Yoga Dancer.

Thease are two videos I found to be the most inspiring for me.

Astounding Gymnastics - Yahoo! Video

and there is one more

YouTube - Amazing Flexible Contortionist/Gymnast doing a Yoga Dance

I don’t exspect to be this flexible in a day or anything, I’ve become really far over time and have been practicing for 2 to 3 months so far. And I’m still going strong, the only thing is, though is that, I know I have PTSD so people with PTSD tend to have this naturual stiffness about them that builds and builds and builds if they don’t do anything about it. Most of my life I was very stiff person and one day I was like, I’ve had it, I’m gonna take out my OM Yoga in a Box and start using it. I still use it, only, I can memorize the whole routine within a week or two of practice and then I don’t use the cards or instruction cd anymore, but I do use it, when I feel like going on to the next level, to test myself and see how well I do, before I move on. I’m still on a basic level of yoga, but have almost masterd the whole OM Yoga thing. Not that I’ve masterd all of yoga, I’m not saying that. I know that there is always something to learn about Yoga throughout my whole life.

I’ve noticed that
I’ve recently started feeling sick at my stomache whenever I eat junk food and I begin to feel tired, dizzy and I start to have a headache, this feeling will last for the ramaining period that I’ve eaten junk food until it is out of my system and part of it even adds to the stiffness in my body. I don’t want anymore junk food and I’m not sure if Yoga is actually making me aware of this or not? And if it is, what is a good way to explain this to my Mom? Since she is the one who buys all the groceries, I keep telling her I’d like to start eating healthier, not as a diet, but as a life style, she has began to buy healthier foods, but assumes that I still like Pizza and I feel like I have no option to eat junk food. It’s ok to eat a little. I understand that, but I feel like it seriously tears up my stomache when I eat it and I can’t stand it anymore. So I try to avoid it to my best ability and don’t get mad at myself if I do once in a while. I don’t want her to be like OMG Christina. And start telling me to stop practicing yoga and saying how it’s making me all paranoid and stuff, which isn’t true. Infact it is helping me with the total opposite.And it gives me a sence of who Iam as a person.

Anyways, I don’t exspect to be like the girls in those videos but I hope to one day reach that kinda flexibility.

And as I started pracitcing I didn’t notice anything, but 2 or 3 months later I noticed a whole bunch of stiffness which is obviouse, but I can’t tell if my body is hurting becuase my body is now starting to loosen up, or if I’m doing something wrong, the pain is in my arms when I wake up, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t sleep becuase I have pain in my arms and in my left legg, it’s like ow my legg hurts and same for my arms. I practice yoga all the time, becuase I just love it and Iam hardly aware of the fact that I’ve spent about 4 hours in yoga, I don’t even finish my routine half the time. I get called away to do something else, after about 4 hours or so. LOL. Not to bragg or anything like that.

I’m not sure if I should get someone to see what I’m doing wrong,and if I’m doing something wrong, that, that would cuase pain in my body or is it becuase my body isn’t used to all this loosening up stuff, so I’m starting to realize how stiff my body is? It feels like, or if I should just keep practicing and not worry about it?

If you have any advice for me, I’d really appreciate it. Thank you in advance. :slight_smile:

#2

Hey Christy !

It is wonderful to have a practice of yoga, and you are indeed lucky that your interest towards yoga has awaken.

As a young person, you are blessed with great capacity to learn and love (these are in fact the same) and with strenght to accomplish whatever you desire. You are lucky to meet yoga so early !
What you lack is experience of bad things, something learned through time by us, older people and by what we are more cautious and perhaps, inflexible in thought. But these things thought us patience, acceptance and compassion.
You have the qualities of young people: energy, joy, openness, frankness and trust. What you need to learn, without losing the above, is patience, acceptance and calm.

Apply these to your practice. I think it is time to slow down a bit.
The pains you write about are not to be neglected. In fact I am a bit scared to hear about them, because I suspect their origin to be in the spine. Perhaps I am wrong (let it be so), but even the possibilty is scaring. I would visit the nearest person who has expertise in sports, physicoteraphy, or yoga, anyone with a certificate.
Do not see this as a setback. It is just another station of the journey.

#3

hi Christy,

with regard to the ‘junk food’ what do you classify as junk food? also, what are the foods you would want to eat that are ‘healthy’? in my experience practicing yoga regularly will make me think differently about what i’m putting into my body. with regard to a healthy diet and your family, no one should resist eating ‘healthy’ food and certainly yoga can’t be blamed for wanting a healthy diet. do you go shopping with your mother? perhaps you could find a recipe of something you think will make you feel better after you eat it and shop with your mom for ingredients. or make a list of what you will eat and have you mom add that to her list. in any case, participating more in meal preparation may help to ensure you are eating the stuff that’s good for you.

with regard to the links you posted to youtube. i too find acrobatics amazing and am in awe at what some people can do with their bodies. what strikes me most about these videos is not the flexibility of the acrobats but the [B]strength[/B] and [B]control[/B] that they have developed in order to practice these moves. though others here can comment i have not heard of yoga dancing and think the title of the video may be misleading. Yoga in it’s simplest sense means union of body, mind, and spirit. i’m not sure what this dancer is doing other than demonstrating her flexibility. i agree with Hubert, maybe it’s time to sllloooooowwwwww dooowwwwwnnnnnnnnn. when i was young i did do gymnastics and other sports and i was too interested in the goal and not the process and i ended up with injuries that i still feel today. if you know the yoga routines you are doing by heart, perhaps take some time in the individual poses to explore, not just the physicalness of the pose, but where your mind is, where your brain is, where you heart is.

keep posting and asking questions here, there’s lots of knowledge and you are like a sponge waiting to soak it all up.

sarah

#4

Thanks for the advice. Yeah, I’ve taken a few days off, of practicing becuase of the pain and , I was told that if you practice yoga, it helps with the spine and other muscles to form back together. And release stiffness. But I guess if you do too much yoga, you can hurt yourself , rather then helping yourself. I tend to push myself too hard sometimes and don’t notice it.I’m thinking about maybe practicing yoga, every other day or something. I’ve noticed also that I ended up with a crick in my neck and my side was sore becuase I was too hard on myself. So yeah, Yoga can hurt if your too hard on yourself and can help you if you learn how to use it correctly.
I’ve noticed that when I eat junk , my balance is really bad, and it puts me in a bad spot, cuase when I don’t eat junk, I can do certain poses , that I couldn’t do when I do eat junk. I’m not really into acrobatics anymore I guess, I just thought that was awesome, but I do love the flexibility they show. I started practicing yoga becuase I can’t see anyone for help on my back or anywhere like that and I rather not, becuase it’s not worth it, they might tell me to just stretch anyways. LOL. And I hate surgery.