The great yoga adventure

Yay for pigeoning today @Ant7. I would super love to see you be a tree or something on your surfboard. That would be super impressive.

Just home now after walking back from the yoga studio @Phoenix_Rising et al. The full moon looks incredible tonight. I went to a later session so I could go straight into the Meditation workshop that I booked into for the next six weeks.

Anyway, the Yoga style of my class was called Vinyasa and was a lot more challenging than ones I have previously done. We did heaps of tricky stuff but no head standing fortunately. Lots of Trees and Warriors, Downward Dogs and Planks as well as the Pigeon.

The Meditation class was interesting. Here I thought we'd be sitting cross legged trying to clear our minds but the instructor said that was developed for Monks who don't live in the real world. We do, so we have to embrace our thoughts and channel them away from negativity to something that is going to be useful for us. So often, especially when we are feeling depressed and/or anxious we don't believe we are entitled to feel and enjoy the good stuff.

For our homework, we have to think about where we feel most at home (not necessarily at home, just the place we are most comfortable), what puts us at ease, the things that give us pleasure and something that thrills or excites us.

Hope you all have a few moments and can tear yourself away from the baby goats and act like a pigeon.

Ohhhh @Phoenix_Rising, my siactia did not like doing the pigeon tonight , I did it but OUCH

Good evening everybody, I have pigeoned today, have you?

@soul That picture made me laugh. Your meditation class sounds really cool. I think people do tend to think of meditation as clearing the mind. I think that is one of the stumbling blocks in encouraging people to try mindfulness - they tend to think of it as emptying the mind rather than focusing the mind.

@TheVorticon I am super impressed that you have a greater than 50% success rate of pigeoning without the extrinsic reward of a baby goat. When I have a bit more time in a few weeks we may perhaps have another give-away - so you definitely want to keep up your yoga-ing.

@Shaz51 Rule number one of yoga is that it isn't supposed to hurt!!! You are meant to listen to your body and only do what you can do (plus I don't want to get sued for any injuries incurred in this virtual yoga group ).

I will be yoga-ing again tomorrow - I super hope everyone else will too.

Good on you @TheVorticon and especially @Shaz51. I pigeoned at my Vin Yoga class today. The focus was on our spine and we did spend all of the time on the floor. Didn't stand up once actually. Hopefully my back has reaped the rewards and won't feel achy tomorrow. We did a lot of hip opening exercises too.

I was impressed with the Meditation teacher from last night. As promised she sent us a recap of the session in a very chatty email. Looking forward to next week's session. Hope you found time to be a pigeon in between your marking today @Phoenix_Rising. This is @TheVorticon and @Ant7

Ok @Phoenix_Rising , will do tomorrow

I did better today @Phoenix_Rising, thank you for that tip

Hi @Phoenix_Rising and everyone,

Again, it's been a while... but today I again treed. That makes four tree poses in all so far for me. I intend to continue treeing until I have counted 7 trees. Only after I've made 7 trees will I go on to another pose. I like trees. I like ultra basic yoga.

I didn't make it to my first actual yoga class in the really real. But have put my name down on a list for one that might be coming up at the local community mental health centre I go to. It's specifically a gentle yoga class for people with mental illness. I'm almost part of the furniture at that place, have been going to different groups there for about 2 years now. I will feel happier and more relaxed doing yoga there.

Cheering you all on from the back of the field!