a) "I, Jordan Lim,affirm that I completed 30 hours of work."
b) Yoganette Studios
-Antoinette Contreras
-Susan
-Kelly
-Gigi
24 hour Fitness
-Marc Harrison
c) https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-uWFXRsQf2nMDBFSmlRcGVoVmc/edit
d) I completed 30 hours of yoga classes. The 30 hours was spent flowing from pose to pose. Normally the flow would be something along the lines of down dog to high plank, to chuturunga, to cobra, to down dog again, jump up to the front of the mat, and transition to sun salutations. Classes were intense at times. I worked on my alignment, breathing, and balance primarily throughout the 30 hours of class exploring my answers to my essential question. I had a lot of hands on help from instructors. They would correct my alignment, teach me new poses, and simply be a helpful resource all around.
Interpretive
The significant parts of the component was refining my poses through learning better alignment, and by better practicing my breathing techniques. Alignment is a big deal in yoga, so this component helped me grasp a better understanding of it, and helped me understand better the importance and significance of it.
I was not allowed to take picture during class because that would disrupt everyone's practice and probably make the other students mad, so what I did was took pictures of poses before and after.
This is my new down dog. As you can see my hips are higher up now, creating a more apparent upside down V. The hands are engaged pushing my body away from the mat, and my shoulders are broad...away from the ears. My alignment for this pose has been fixed thanks to the help of all my instructors.
This is my warrior 1 pose before. I looked like I was lunging and trying to fly at the same time.
This is my new warrior 1 pose. The feet are in a front heel-back arch stance. My back foot is at a 45 degree angle, the purpose of which is to make it easier to square the hips. My arms are higher and plugged into the armpits. My biceps are by my ears and fingers are engaged. My lunge is also a bit longer as well. Those changes make a huge difference in the pose, and really trigger a burn that builds up in the thighs and hamstrings.
This is my warrior 2 pose before. As you can see it looks as if my stance is small, and my arms are not completely straight.
This is the new warrior 2 pose. The stance is wider, the feet are more engaged. My arms are straighter, and the torso is supposed to twist so that it looks straight on. This pose took a while to get down because I don't have the strongest legs, so it always burned so good.
This was as far as I could go in terms of the splits prior to the 30 classes.
This is my new splits. Although I am not able to do it fully, I still improved thanks to all of those hip opening exercises Susan made me do. I still am dumbfounded on how guys can do the splits. It doesn't feel good.
Same thing, but side splits!
New splits! I'm pushing one leg back and the other forward creating a scissor like feel in order to square the hips. Once I squared my hips, I tried straightening that back leg and dropping my hips to the floor. This is as far as I got, but I think that this is called the man's splits. As seen in Pitch Perfect when Bumper did the splits.
Seated pose with feet open like a book. This is another hip opener, but I probably went as far as I could go. My thighs are on the mat. This hip opener actually feels really good.
This is one of the new poses I learned. It is called horse stance. Although it looks totally unattractive and easy, this pose is extremely hard to do. The feet need to be opposite each other as if they are on a line. The back needs to be straight and then you need to squat. I struggled a lot with this pose, primarily because my hips bones are extended outward according to my doctor.
Applied
This component helped support my answers 1,2, and 3.
Answer 1: Apply breathing techniques throughout the practice. Throughout my practice, I would exercise my ujjayi breathing. I noticed that when I didn't apply breathing techniques thoroughly throughout the practice, then I would not get the full enjoyment I experience during savasana. Breathing helped my body do more than I thought it could, it helped me deepen my poses. Breathing became a strong foundation.
Answer 2: Focus on alignment, then deepen the pose. This independent component helped me best with this answer. Having all that hands on help from professionals was priceless. They helped guide me with alignment, correcting me where I had mistakes, and commending me when I did something right. They built me up, and I'm grateful for that. They taught me things that I could not learn from simple online searches. Alignment has to be taught. It has to be, and it was. My down dog, splits, warrior poses, were all improved. Down dog is the center of the practice, so by fixing the alignment there, it helps tremendously for the practice overall.
Answer 3: Exert equal amounts of effort on both physical and mental poses. The independent component helped me here, but not as much as the other 2 answers. I learned that it is important through the practice to balance things out because stress is the result of imbalance. I noticed that balance does not always mean equal. For right handed people, balance in a practice may mean prolonging the pose on the left side to even things out since everyone has their natural side. This surprised me since initially I thought balanced meant equal time, equal everything on each side. Apparently that was not the case. An example would be when stretching with the straps, we would hold our left leg to the side for 8 breaths versus the right side where we would hold it for 4. I thought it would create an imbalance, but in actuality it made me feel more grounded afterwords. My left leg felt as if it was just as strong and important as the right.
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