These yoga poses: can you do any of these

[Crankin]

Well, when I was doing yoga regularly for 2+ years, I never even saw any of these poses in a class. And most of the classes were intermediate or mixed level.
My balance sucks, and while it has improved tons, from cycling, yoga, and x country skiing, I would not attempt any of these. There seems to be a lot of these poses around on the web lately. I think it's kind of funny, since in my experience, most people can't even hold tree pose for more than 2 seconds.

[OakLeaf]

!

What I said about good teachers, I guess. I can't remember exactly how long after I started yoga that I was successfully doing side crow and wall handstand, but I know for sure that it was in my teacher's first studio location, and she was only there for two years, meaning I'd been taking classes there at most eight months total before I could do those, and possibly much less. Last week, we were in Tree for three minutes each leg. It was Reggae Friday and a lot of us had our hands in the air swaying to the music. Standing balancing poses are a lot about the feet, and that's something that yoga has taught me tons about, that's been just HUGELY beneficial in the entire rest of my life.


As far as "levels," I don't know, but the video series I do when I'm away from my studio, these are all level 2 in a 3-level system (except for the open wheel thing, that I don't recognize - but I just did notice she's doing it in freakin' cycling shoes, which means she has no traction on the wall and she's holding her body weight with her core only, not with her feet. That IS strength!! But in the same way as acrobats' strength, yogis' strength incorporates balance, so she's distributing the load throughout the fascial chain.) In the video series, most of the level 3 stuff I'm nowhere near able to do.


Remember, yoga is a lot more like painting or math than it is like weight lifting. I wouldn't consider someone "advanced" who'd been practicing yoga consistently for less than 15 years, and by the nature of it, such a person probably wouldn't consider herself advanced. It's a lifetime of learning about the self. "Intermediate" is a broad and probably unfortunate term, just to distinguish someone who knows the names of the bandhas and the more popular asanas from a complete novice ... but could encompass a very wide range of actual knowledge and ability ...

[Crankin]

I guess I was happy doing the poses I did... I never really saw yoga as something that I wanted to get super advanced at. I mean, it did what I wanted it to do; calm me down, stretch, and add a different dimension to the other stuff I do. Of course, I am famous for not wanting to have to "train" or really work too much at improving any of the sports I do, but I really did improve at yoga just from going consistently. I still practice at home 1-2 times a week. Just easy stuff, though.
My teachers were all Kripalu trained and I thought they were great. They paid attention to alignment. I've only done a really easy beginner class at the gym I go to now. The teachers also seem good, but it's so crowded, I don't go much.
I am thinking about rejoining my old gym in the fall and yoga is one of the reasons. I went to a studio the summer after I left my old gym; I did a very intense yoga/meditation class for 8 weeks, which I loved, but then the place moved and it was too far away.

[shootingstar]

As a young teen, I could do the crow pose (lst photographed post in link) without knowing it had a name. You know as a kid, you just fool around with movements.

I will never want to do a headstand...having a head injury for me, just has made me not want to try stuff involving weight on my head. Just a few wks. ago when my brain was still
healing, I discovered I slept more fitfully/feeling refreshed by sleeping right side of head vs. left side where I was abit hurt, etc.

I had my lst physiotherapist appt. post accident this week. Her first movement tests to determine my wrist injury....were some yoga like simple hand movements. Seriously.

The simple yoga balance exercises I did a few years ago by balancing on 1 leg standing, will become useful for me later once my rehabilitation is more underway and probably long term.

[OakLeaf]

As far as the popularity of yoga among devotees of other sports, I think there are a lot of reasons. The physical/injury prevention/performance enhancing type reasons I mentioned are some of it. But then there's this also. Yoga I think is the antidote to the kind of people who run with headphones on, etc. One *does* have to be present in one's body to balance ... I don't think there's any way around that. Which is not to say that there are a lot of different reasons why some people's balance is naturally better than others'.

(I just gotta say ... I don't think too many people teach headstand with weight on the head any more. I know there's a style of headstand where you do weight the head and neck, but I've never been in a class where it's taught that way. That *is* pretty risky.)