Through this post, I can reflect on day one when I first started doing yoga. Now I have been doing almost every day I see there is progress within me. I believe it is significant to measure my practice as it would help me to set achievable goals and motivates me on the days when I am feeling low. As yoga works with my body making it stronger and increase flexibility, and with my mind making me calmer and more resilient.
How I am keeping track of my progress in Yoga:
- Strength and Flexibility/mobility: Yoga has improved my functional strength and trained my muscles that were not trained before. For instance, I was not able to sit in a cross leg for a long time, but now I can sit for hours with my leg crossed. My hips, hamstrings, quads, and shoulders used to be very tight and I barely touched my feet on the mat during some of the poses. Eventually, practicing various yoga poses, I target my main muscles on the hip joints, ribs, and shoulder. Through these reputation poses of down dogs, cat cows, and planks, I have noticed that my arms are not stronger and I feel more strength in my whole body as well. My core strength has improved which enables me to stabilize my body and allows free movement in any direction.
- Alignment and execution: Doing yoga on daily basis I can access whether I am getting better or not. For example, I can see that my posture has improved and I can reach my toes with my back totally bend over however, I am also mindful of my own limitations rather than fulfilling my ego which wants to finally get there. I have some days where I forget about my whole body as I am blindly focusing on my goals. In such cases, I have to mind myself that it would take time do to the perfect poses like my yoga instructor. Through my practice, I am learning to modifieds poses that align with my body needs and being kind to myself. My yoga instructors always told me that it is significant to recognize where my body is then pushing it too hard when it is not ready.
- Mindfulness and mental health: During my yoga practices I can focus on my movement, breath, and being mindful. It was extremely challenging for me, in the beginning, to stay in the present moment, and found yoga was too slow for my busy mind. I am gradually learning different breathing techniques to incorporate with my yoga practices. I also practice gratitude towards my body and the practices that also improve my mental well-being as well.
