Discover the Joy of Stretching (Yoga Video Included)

I’ve been very inflex­i­ble all my life and one of the things that really make it obvi­ous, among other things, is that I can’t touch my toes with­out bend­ing my knees.  I’ve always wanted to be able to do that but lately my deter­mi­na­tion and moti­va­tion to be flex­i­ble has been very high.  I men­tioned this to a friend and he said he had the same prob­lem until he started fol­low­ing this yoga video for 3 months and now he can bend so much that he could touch his chest to his knees!

He then asked me if I want the video and I said SURE!  What bet­ter way to dis­cover the joy of stretch­ing than to fol­low a yoga video in the pri­vacy of your own home, right?

The first time I fol­lowed this video, I did it for just 20 min­utes and my cycling-legs felt incred­i­bly good for the rest of the day and night. Since then I have done it a few times and I always feel no less than absolutely phe­nom­e­nal after­wards.  So I have uploaded the video so that every­body could have the oppor­tu­nity to expe­ri­ence this kind of bliss.

Down­load this video so you could do yoga for free in the com­fort of your home:

Power Yoga Total Body Work­out by Rod­ney Yee (Right-click and choose “Save Link As…”)

Video Trou­bleshoot­ing:  If you can’t play the video for any rea­son (Quick­Time won’t play it) install the K-Lite Codec Pack which will lit­er­ally allow you to play any movie file that you can find on the inter­net and includes a sim­ple media player.  This pack does not affect sys­tem per­for­mance either.

While the video down­loads, read these tips to get bet­ter acquainted…

What is Yoga?

Yoga is the art of stretch­ing that helps increase your strength, bal­ance and flex­i­bil­ity.  When you stretch your mus­cles and extend your bones, it places your aware­ness on those parts and the per­cep­tion of your bod­ies posi­tion in space gets cul­ti­vated.  Once you get into the groove of the exer­cise, it becomes a beau­ti­ful mov­ing med­i­ta­tion that qui­ets your ner­vous sys­tem while simul­ta­ne­ously strength­en­ing your entire being.  For that rea­son, while it is not a reli­gion, it is often used as a step­ping stone toward expe­ri­enc­ing spir­i­tual enlight­en­ment or inner peace.  Yoga also means “to yoke” and is in ref­er­ence to cre­at­ing a union between the mind and body.

Make space around your room.  It’s sur­pris­ing how lit­tle room we actu­ally have to lie down until we have to do it!  Clean your room, move fur­ni­ture and do what­ever is nec­es­sary to be able to lie down and com­pletely stretch your arms out to the side with­out hit­ting anything.

Be gen­tle with your­self.  You don’t have to be as flex­i­ble as the instruc­tor for the exer­cise to be effec­tive.  Just go as far as you safely can.  This is a trans­for­ma­tion process that will take time to undo the years of sit­ting around in one posi­tion.  Even with that said, this video is great for begin­ners and I think most peo­ple will be able to fol­low it suc­cess­fully.

Hold your pose, not your breath. When­ever you are in a stress­ful posi­tion, you will find your­self hold­ing your breath or prac­tic­ing shal­low breath­ing.  This is some­thing peo­ple gen­er­ally do in any tense sit­u­a­tion as anx­i­ety is a huge cause of unusual breath­ing pat­terns.  If we are to main­tain deep breath­ing dur­ing these tense sit­u­a­tions, it helps to dis­si­pate that ten­sion and help us get com­fort­able.  Try to remem­ber this lit­tle tid­bit and take deep breaths, for the rest of your day as well.

Incor­po­rate yoga after exer­cise. Yoga is great to do alone but doing it after any work­out ses­sion is mag­i­cal.  It helps stretch those mus­cles so good.  I can’t even describe the ela­tion and relax­ation you feel after such a combo.

Well I hope these tips were use­ful… and if you enjoyed the video, please let me know because if I get pos­i­tive feed­back I will upload more videos in the com­ing weeks!

Related posts:

1. Yoga Tips!
2. Yoga at Home!
3. Stretches to do while rid­ing your bike with no han­dle­bars [Video]
4. Lie on your back (on the floor!) for com­fort, NOW!
5. Video: How to stretch your back after sit­ting all day