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Week 3 & 4 formal practice: Mindful Movement/ Yoga


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The main topic in week 3 is "Mindfulness of the Breath and the Body in Movement: There is both pleasure and power in being present."

For week 4 it's "Learning about our Patterns of Stress Reactivity: Wherever you go, there you are."

In the two Mindful Yoga exercises, we tune in closely into our bodies which is similar to the bodyscan yet completely different as we are moving. What came up for you during the exercises? How do the practices evolve as you get more familiar with them? Share your experiences during the Mindful Yoga/ Movement exercises with your fellow participants.

 

Personally, this is the exercise where I lead most from my own experience when guiding a group. Like for any other mindful exercise I have a script and a dramaturgical arch for the practice (yes, you do have that in mediations too) but here I let the practice and the group to guide us more. Where, what do we move next?

While I enjoy mindful yoga, I struggle with mindful walking. I was mindfully walking in the most beautiful surroundings, in busy streets, even in Plum Village, and yet I struggle to find any sort of engagement with the practice I seem to be stuck with boredom. Now that I have said it out loud, I wonder if it'll change. Acceptance precedes change. 

 

 

 

  • 1 month later...
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I was really tense while doing the sitting meditation.

  • 4 weeks later...
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Can we talk about how powerful The Samurai and the Fly is?  It completely captured how our thoughts will take over if we let them.  I found the video so moving.  I need to think about it a little more...

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When I teach yoga, I always invite my students to be mindful. In order to better guide them into this idea, whilst doing say a specific arm posture I invite them to assess what is happening in another remote and apparently unrelated part of their body. When I do this myself, I really bring awareness on my entire body and my perception of time and space somehow expands.

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On 12/5/2019 at 11:05 PM, KKPinkowski said:

Can we talk about how powerful The Samurai and the Fly is?  It completely captured how our thoughts will take over if we let them.  I found the video so moving.  I need to think about it a little more...

Yes, I used to think of thought like a drops of rain that will wash you away if you let them. The flies are a powerful picture as well.

Such a nice and to the point reminder that we create our own suffering and how powerful our attitude is.

 

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I’ve noticed that the more mindful I am in the practice, the more I’m in tune with my body, the more peaceful the Savasana is at the end.  I can truly lie there and be quiet and still.  This is something I haven’t really ever been able to experience before, even as a yoga teacher, who tries to encourage her students to quiet their minds during that time.

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Just finished yoga and felt awkward and wasn’t able to relax.  Felt very stiff. A good feeling was that I felt my body stretching muscles that I had not used in a long time

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I like the yoga meditations. My next favorite is sitting meditation. But yoga keeps my mind on task. My body is moving. I have to breath to do the poses correctly. And I  look forward to the yoga movements. I find on other days I get distracted with the body scan. I keep wishing I was on the next part instead of being satisfied where I am. In sitting meditation, i get antsy and distracted too. It doesnt happen with yoga as much. It's like familiarity breeds anxiety and rushing. Any ideas?

  • 2 weeks later...
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So I'm on week 4. I love the Hathaway yoga #2. The warrior positions are really stretching. I found I got nauseous when I tried it first thing in the morning but now I do it in the afternoon or after I eat. Really enjoyable. I'm so glad I've made it to week 4.

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On 11/10/2019 at 12:54 PM, Jiiu88u said:

I was really tense while doing the sitting meditation.

I'm no pro at all. But maybe its tense because you are only focusing on your breathe. At first, I found the body scan easy. Which didnt make sense because the sitting meditation  is so simple. But maybe simple is hard.  I hope it gets easier for you.

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I have been working out for many years and I always try to incorporate yoga into my routine weekly. FINALLY, with mindful breathing AND yoga I am able to find the success behind it. in the past i would lay there at the end and be thinking about all the other things i could be doing. One day at a time and Im seeing the benefits of yoga and mindfulness

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@Kristi0988 Yoga, Meditation and Mindfulness are all connected. Isn't the bodyscan a take on Shavasana?

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Hello, did a sitting meditation and it was difficult to be mindful for more than a couple minutes at a time.   Long pauses made it hard to stay focus. I felt the pauses were almost too long for me.  At times I was mindful and enjoyed the process.  Overall it’s quite relaxing

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The central part of the practice is to - without judgement - start again. Maybe even enjoying the moment of awareness when we realize that our thoughts have brought us somewhere else and then gently but firmly bringing out thoughts back to the practice.
In my experience, if I label a practice my favourite because I seem to be easily focused there, my expectation of the practice changes, and it becomes harder. Also, every day is different even if I do the same practice every day at the same spot and at the same time.

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The sitting meditation is very relaxing so at times my mind drifted away.  Also,  felt a little discomfort sitting still for so long.  But was able to relax focus on my breathing and relieved  some mental and physical stress

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The sitting meditation is very relaxing so at times my mind drifted away.  Also,  felt a little discomfort sitting still for so long.  But was able to relax focus on my breathing and relieved  some mental and physical stress

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Yoga 2  was so enjoyable.  Sitting, stretching, every movement feels good.  Aware of every movement and feeling. 

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On 12/6/2019 at 6:05 AM, KKPinkowski said:

Can we talk about how powerful The Samurai and the Fly is?  It completely captured how our thoughts will take over if we let them.  I found the video so moving.  I need to think about it a little more...

When I saw the fly split and emerged as separate entities, it was like suppressing a thought with a thought, and ended-up having more thoughts. This hits me hard, and reminded me of a past experience where I let go of my thoughts and let them run freely. The amount of thoughts were raining so ferociously, while my mindfulness was like putting me meditating in a house that sheltered from the rain. When I got out of the sitting, it was pretty emotional for me to see world; to see it truly the first time of my life, when I had been dreaming all along.

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I don't know if there's any correlation with this being 'thought week', but I feel a bit overwhelmed with them (thoughts) this week. There's some interesting, but heavy, videos and readings - a lot of varying opinion/ways of sharing, a lot to mull over. The only time I feel that leaving me this week is while participating in Hatha yoga because my body is busy, my mind is focussed on the teacher's voice and actions... so right now, this is what's working best for me, this busy-ness. Physical challenges are making that difficult in its way, though, but I'll get through ? ..sigh..

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I have just restarted a practice of kung fu.  I have found it very fascinating how, when I practice mindfulness during class, the moves come much more easily and I remember things I knew years ago.  I'm excited to start this week's yoga practice as well.

And I still fall asleep with the body scan.

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'Chasing meaning in your life is better for your health than trying to avoid discomfort.' from Kelly McGonigal's Ted Talk

Courage and helping others turns stress upside down in your brain & in your blood vessels!  I'm excited about this, and it makes sense to me intrinsically, as well as in how I tend to deal with my stress by giving... :-) ?

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8 hours ago, Udumbara said:

So happy to read that I’m not the only one falling asleep during the body scan.  I  am at peace with that though and happy my body can rest.  I was reading one of the other posts by Borahbestie about keeping the mind on task in yoga and being distracted in the body scan and sitting ted and I don’t know how to reply directly so I’m writing here.  I was wondering if it has to do with the ‘doing’ element of movement versus the not moving and sense of not doing something?  We are so conditioned to always be doing something productive that it’s hard to be still.  Before this course I has a regular routing of one hour yoga followed by 45 mins - 1hr of sitting, but days that I had a lot on I was aware that I wasn’t enjoying the practices as much and there was a certain sense of rushing through them.  If I was busy and chose to just sit, I felt like I hadn’t done enough and my body was uncomfortable not having stretched out first.  My koan for a long time has been, ‘Who am I when I have nothing to do?’  It’s a real practice to not have a label and be content where we are.  
 

I’m noticing as I follow these practices that I also have a sense of not doing enough with just 30 mins of yoga and sitting.  This is present in the stomach area.  A sense of restlessness and some energy that wants to get up and go.  Im so used to 1 hour of yoga that my mind is telling me it’s not enough.  When I am able to let the thought go though I am actually enjoying the yoga and being told what to do.  I know that I can’t count or breathe quicker and that I will be practising for the set amount of time of the video and so I let go into it and don’t try to rush.  I guess that’s why people go to yoga classes instead of practice on their own.  You give the body/mind permission to be in the moment for the time of the class.

i still prefer silent sitting but I’m ok with that.  I am aware of it and know that I will continue like that after the course and turn my mind to gratitude for those who he have put this course together to share.  One day perhaps I will be sharing and others might not appreciate silence so it’s good to be exposed to many styles.

The line from the Japanese song, ‘Good day? it’s up to you’ is really working for me.  It’s my choice :)

 

A lot of interesting observations, Udumbara. I expect it could be different for each of us. I'm totally into the Art of Doing Nothing, and I suppose it's a type of meditation that I've always needed, but I do find the structure of Meditation, capital M, sometimes too restrictive/confining for me. I typically spend that time in nature, with water or other sounds and sights naturally guiding me, or, because I am a kinesthetic learner, perhaps, my most meditative state only begins after some 30 minutes of fast walking through the woods. That seems to be when all my thoughts are chased away, and I can just be...

Thanks for sharing.

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I'm heading in to week four.  I admit, I had a lot of trouble getting into the yoga portion of week 3.  The sitting meditation and body scan went beautifully.  I even was able to use the body scan extremely productively this morning.  I had what I suspect was a reaction to weather changing and was all of a sudden lost and couldn't think.  I lay down and did a body scan- didn't fall asleep and got up refreshed, feeling grounded, and ready for a wonderful day.

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