i'm really trying to start yoga...but...

[skuff]

Since I started this thread I haven't made it too far with the yoga thing. I started videos just to try an loosen up the tightness before actually joining a legit class.
For the most part I do these videos. https://www.doyogawithme.com/

A good reason for a beginner to use a studio is the alignment assists you get while there. The beginners class will give you the basic alignment concepts and get you comfortable moving through various postures while following your breath. A home practice is an excellent idea but it's often difficult to feel when your body is out of alignment.

again finding a good yoga instructor makes all the difference

qft

[XXX-er]

The jist of this thread is "I can't get into it"

so if you had a really great instructor they would be saying shit like "ok you should feel your neck lengthening as if your head trying to touch that wall" or some kind of instruction like that to really make you do the practice correctly which would really feel great ... which would make you get into it

At the local studio a wanabe instructor has to apply for the job, they are interviewd/tested for correct practice and they might be told to keep practicing so ... they go somewhere else

Also a really great instructor might look pretty ordinary

[strawjack]

I've recently embraced yoga literally ... dating the instructor

Rog, is that you! Wait, you said you 'married' the yoga instructor.

[XXX-er]

No!

Its just a relationship

I'm only into it for the free yoga

[Hott Butt Mud]

Anyone know of some youtube channels for at-home use?

[basinbeater]

[XXX-er]

Anyone know of some youtube channels for at-home use?

Yeah redtube

[Angle Parking]

.... but here's the thing. If all the hours of my life were displayed in circle graph form, one would notice that a certain percentage or piece of the pie would be labelled recreation. Others might label their comparable piece exercise, fun, sport, or any other manner of metaphor pertaining to the feeding of the soul and / or spirit. As is the case with many people, my recreation hours are capped. While I completely buy into every pro yoga argument you could ever make, the blunt truth is that I have better things to do, like skiing, lots of skiing, and other outdoor pursuits. Perhaps OP, the reason your having trouble getting into yoga is because you have better shit to do. Like skiing, mountain biking, climbing, paddling, have I mentioned skiing, skateboarding, hiking, back packing, swimming fishing, running sled dogs or just generally hanging out outside.

[strawjack]

^Well, since you put it that way...

It's true. I don't 'exercise' to exercise. I do not like gyms. I have fun and fuck off, which happens to be my exercise. The problem is I'm starting to get old and it would be prudent of me to limber up and strengthen other muscles that I typically don't touch.

[sb]

We invented "off the couch class V" although we sumtimes watched the 20min workout for inspiration, appropriately with beer in hand.

The best thing bout yogurt is da hot chicas.

[Edgnar]

.... but here's the thing. If all the hours of my life were displayed in circle graph form, one would notice that a certain percentage or piece of the pie would be labelled recreation. Others might label their comparable piece exercise, fun, sport, or any other manner of metaphor pertaining to the feeding of the soul and / or spirit. As is the case with many people, my recreation hours are capped. While I completely buy into every pro yoga argument you could ever make, the blunt truth is that I have better things to do, like skiing, lots of skiing, and other outdoor pursuits. Perhaps OP, the reason your having trouble getting into yoga is because you have better shit to do. Like skiing, mountain biking, climbing, paddling, have I mentioned skiing, skateboarding, hiking, back packing, swimming fishing, running sled dogs or just generally hanging out outside.

Heres the thing, yoga has made me better at all of those things. Its not an either/or choice. Its "both, and". Yoga made me better on my snowboard (at least when I still lived in Colorado) because I was stronger and could stabilize better when I jumped off of shit, meaning I could land things where I might have crashed before. I'm a stronger biker because I have a stronger core and I can comfortably ride further than I could before.

I can go to a class for an hour on a Wednesday night (when I wouldn't be skiing or biking anyway) and get a good workout, check out some hot girls, and do the other shit I have to do that day. Besides, its fun to do yoga once you've got the poses figured out. The first time you stick a handstand is fucking cool, as are all the other hard balance poses. When you get into something you never thought you could do, thats fucking cool. Just like sending pillow line or something, but with out the freezing your ass off part.

[Dantheman]

.... but here's the thing. If all the hours of my life were displayed in circle graph form, one would notice that a certain percentage or piece of the pie would be labelled recreation. Others might label their comparable piece exercise, fun, sport, or any other manner of metaphor pertaining to the feeding of the soul and / or spirit. As is the case with many people, my recreation hours are capped. While I completely buy into every pro yoga argument you could ever make, the blunt truth is that I have better things to do, like skiing, lots of skiing, and other outdoor pursuits. Perhaps OP, the reason your having trouble getting into yoga is because you have better shit to do. Like skiing, mountain biking, climbing, paddling, have I mentioned skiing, skateboarding, hiking, back packing, swimming fishing, running sled dogs or just generally hanging out outside.

Yoga/stretching/etc. can be done at night after you've spent the day skiing/riding/etc, or when you're simply whipped and need a day off. It's not really an either-or scenario.

That said, there's nothing magical about yoga. The RCTs out there are a bit limited, but generally show that yoga is no more effective than stretching and other more traditional exercises (see PubMed links below). The best results will come from figuring out where your own particular weaknesses and inflexibilities lie (particularly the ones that are likely to be hindering performance in your sport(s) of choice) and targeting those specifically, be that through yoga poses or something else. You won't get that in your average yoga class or instructional video. Also, this: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/ma...your-body.html

Yoga no more effective than stretching classes for lower back pain
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3279296/

Yoga no more effective than traditional stretching-strengthening exercises in improving functional fitness outcomes
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26297940

Stretching classes improve physiological and psychological stress indicators better than restorative yoga.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25127084

[XXX-er]

Thats cuz the kid^^ is still young, still able to walk it off and has no time anyway, but "your time is gona come"

[Ottime]

.... but here's the thing. If all the hours of my life were displayed in circle graph form, one would notice that a certain percentage or piece of the pie would be labelled recreation. Others might label their comparable piece exercise, fun, sport, or any other manner of metaphor pertaining to the feeding of the soul and / or spirit. As is the case with many people, my recreation hours are capped. While I completely buy into every pro yoga argument you could ever make, the blunt truth is that I have better things to do, like skiing, lots of skiing, and other outdoor pursuits. Perhaps OP, the reason your having trouble getting into yoga is because you have better shit to do. Like skiing, mountain biking, climbing, paddling, have I mentioned skiing, skateboarding, hiking, back packing, swimming fishing, running sled dogs or just generally hanging out outside.

Great. Your young or healthy or both. For those of us who age, yoga is one of the best things you can do to slow the progression toward tired, sore, weak and broken bodies. So we can do the shot we like to do. In my case ski off cliffs, drop into triple overhead tube and throw my kid around.

Sure, once practicing, yoga can offer up a bunch more than flexibility, strength and and recovery. But that is not what brought me to it. Age did. And a pinched nerve due to a fucked back that made it so I could not walk across the room without pain. Did not ski much that spring. Or surf. Or throw. Or walk.

[XXX-er]

Great. Your young or healthy or both. .....

Buddy has a massive motor and IME he is fucking nuts

[bagtagley]

Yoga/stretching/etc. can be done at night after you've spent the day skiing/riding/etc, or when you're simply whipped and need a day off. It's not really an either-or scenario.

Fuck that, Dan. You can't have the hour of non-work, non-Dad time I'm lucky to occasionally get on weekday evenings.

I'm eyeballing a walking desk setup for my new office. I have a hunch that it will eliminate a lot of the need for strengthening/stretching.

[Angle Parking]

It's not really an either-or scenario.

Agree to disagree I guess. My point is that it is indeed is an either or situation. If I want to get 100 days a year while being a good father and performing well at my job, then all fat must be trimmed (within reason of course). That means no hanging out with the boys watching hockey. No late parties or benders. In general, no frivolous BS that cuts into my ski time. What I am saying is that the 2 hours I am out of the house or otherwise spending on yoga on a week night incurs a future cost on the ski front. Two hours spent on yoga is two hours where i could have been hanging out with my family or doing work stuff. It is two hours where i could have been taking care of my wife's needs. Investing these two hours in this non yoga sense has, in my estimation, tremendous benefits. Foremost of which is some serious time in lieu on the ski front. If I took care of the kids, did the laundry and cleaned the house while the Mrs. was at her book club then this means that come the weekend, the favour will be returned. And in a more direct sense, that two hours I spent at yoga on a week night I could have been spent skiing thanks to the miraculous invention known as the headlamp. 200 lumens and the world is yours! (not to mention those dudes with the 1000+ lumen mountain biking lamps) And while I agree that yoga undoubtably has benefits on ski performance, i am fairly certain that equal if not greater benefit is gained from more skiing. Call me old fashioned, but my path to ski improvement is laden with a massive dosage of more and more skiing. Not to mention the fact that I will take a starry ski, wind in my face and some tasty turns over yoga any day (or night as the case may be).

[I've seen black diamonds!]

Call me old fashioned, but my path to ski improvement is laden with a massive dosage of more and more skiing. Not to mention the fact that I will take a starry ski, wind in my face and some tasty turns over yoga any day (or night as the case may be).

If you can ski 100 days a year, even if you're getting old and creaky, your body will adapt, including developing the requisite flexibility. But as soon as you take on something physically strenuous that isn't skiing, it can put some hurt on you. I've cut back on lifting in the last year because being a little stronger doesn't help that much and my ever slowing rate of recovery was keeping me from doing other things. A little more stretching and more long (for me), slow running have me feeling pretty good. At the moment I lift 2 days a week, do yoga (at home) 2 days a week, and run 5-6 days a week. I'll cut one of the lifts (but not both) if I go climbing or to a wrestling practice. Sometimes I replace the gym with hill sprints, pullups, hand stand push ups against a tree. I'll cut 2-3 runs if I can go swimming or hiking. In the winter I'll cut all the runs if I can go skinning, but that doesn't happen as much as I'd like on a weekly basis. I try hard not to cut the Yoga because it really is like medicine, especially when I break routine.

[cat in january]

For me the stretching in yoga was a lesser aspect relative to the body awareness I developed. Yoga made me much more aware of muscular skeletal system was connected and worked together. I believe my improved posture had at least as much impact as my improved flexibility.

[Danno]

Agree to disagree I guess. My point is that it is indeed is an either or situation. If I want to get 100 days a year while being a good father and performing well at my job, then all fat must be trimmed (within reason of course). That means no hanging out with the boys watching hockey. No late parties or benders. In general, no frivolous BS that cuts into my ski time. What I am saying is that the 2 hours I am out of the house or otherwise spending on yoga on a week night incurs a future cost on the ski front. Two hours spent on yoga is two hours where i could have been hanging out with my family or doing work stuff. It is two hours where i could have been taking care of my wife's needs. Investing these two hours in this non yoga sense has, in my estimation, tremendous benefits. Foremost of which is some serious time in lieu on the ski front. If I took care of the kids, did the laundry and cleaned the house while the Mrs. was at her book club then this means that come the weekend, the favour will be returned. And in a more direct sense, that two hours I spent at yoga on a week night I could have been spent skiing thanks to the miraculous invention known as the headlamp. 200 lumens and the world is yours! (not to mention those dudes with the 1000+ lumen mountain biking lamps) And while I agree that yoga undoubtably has benefits on ski performance, i am fairly certain that equal if not greater benefit is gained from more skiing. Call me old fashioned, but my path to ski improvement is laden with a massive dosage of more and more skiing. Not to mention the fact that I will take a starry ski, wind in my face and some tasty turns over yoga any day (or night as the case may be).

so for you it's an either/or situation. There's no agree to disagree here; for you, this is your reality. But you seem to assume that it's the same for everyone.

I would never do yoga in place of skiing or biking, NFW. But in my world, biking or skiing take up much larger blocks of time and so are always part of the delicate negotiation of work and family life, and yoga (or any other 1 hr exercise) doesn't take up the same amount of time and so isn't subject to the same constraints.

[Dantheman]

...the 2 hours I am out of the house or otherwise spending on yoga...Two hours spent on yoga...

2 hours? I'm talking about 15-30 minutes of simple stretching that can be done while you watch hockey and drink beer.

[Angle Parking]

All my comments are directed at the time expense and opportunity cost of taking a formal yoga class. As for simple stretching of the 15 minute persuasion, this is something I most certainly do.

[danmelon]

Yoga is my boring steady girlfriend who treats me way better than I deserve. I don't always want to be with her, I probably don't appreciate her enough, but damn she is nice, caring, sweet and makes me feel so much better when I'm down.

Skating/riding is the crazy ass, super hot, super kinky side bitch that I just can't get enough of. She's abusive, temperamental and likes to beat the hell out of me, but something about our relationship just hurts so good.

[sb]

^^^ this

[Marshall Tucker]

finally made it to a class today and sweet jezus I hurt everywhere. I got through the 90m program ok with a coulple of 2-3m breaks that were...unscheduled...but what a workout. I'm in pretty good cardio shape, but this was something totally differnet.

Some serious tightly clad talent in the room, though I did a pretty good job of just staring straight ahead.