Yoga and Skiing

Today I went skiing for the first time. Yay!!!! This made me wonder if yoga can help you ski better. The article I read about skiing and yoga explains that yoga can help by helping with injury prevention. The article explains that skiing can be very hard on your knees. This is because your knees absorb most of the impact from terrain on downhills runs. The knees take even more of the force if your gluteus, quadriceps, and back muscles are weak because these are the muscles that provide the power for skiing. In order to reduce the stress to knees, you can do poses that lengthen and strengthen the four sides of your upper leg. The article also explains that skiers need to have an awareness of their core and center, like in yoga. This allows a skier to turn efficiently and have quick reactions to unexpected situations.
Certain yoga poses can also help with proper ski form. For example, when skiing, your feet should be shoulder-width apart like in Mountain Pose, your knees should be in line with your toes like in Chair Pose, and your shoulders should be dropped/relaxed like Tadasana.
This article has been very helpful and I am going to try these tips for injury prevention and ski form next time I go skiing!

http://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/206

Yoga and Strength Training

For my blog this week, I read an article explaining the debate between practicing yoga and strength training. The article explains that when you want to build muscle strength and mass, strength training is better. This is because when you practice yoga, you are limited to your own body weight. When you practice strength training, you can increase the amount of weight you use. Strength training is also better for preventing bone loss by practicing resistance training that helps bones become stronger by causing the muscles and tenons to pull on the bones. This stimulates the bone cells to produce more bone. Overall, the article explains that neither practice is better for overall fitness. The best thing to do is combine the practices. Strength training will strengthen the body and boost your metabolism while yoga will keep your body flexible and keep your mind calm.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/fitness/Is-yoga-better-than-strength-training/articleshow/11079545.cms

Yin Yoga

Last week in class we did yin yoga. It was a very interesting experience. I felt as if it was a mix between meditation and holding yoga poses. I really like the experience and now want to learn more about yin yoga, so more my blog this week I read an article explaining the basic concepts of this practice.
Yin Yoga is a meditative approach to yoga that focuses on accessing deeper tissues, like the connective tissues and fascia. It also focuses on areas in the body where there are joints, like the hips and spine. When we did yin yoga in class the other day, we focused on stretching out the hips. I had not realized how tight my hips were until we held these positions. I have been doing a couple of the positions we did in class at home this past week in order to become more flexible in my hips.
The article explains how this practice allows you to become more intimate with your emotions and sensations. This practice also helps you learn to accept what is happening in life because it makes you sit still in uncomfortable positions for long periods of times. Doing this asks you to learn to accept what is in that given moment.
After learning more about Yin Yoga, I am even more interested in it and plan to practice it more outside of class.

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-5037/Yin-Yoga-101-What-You-Need-to-Know.html

Yoga for Your Feet

Throughout my life if have suffered from foot problem that ranged from plantar fasciitis to tendinitis. For my blog this week, I have found an article explaining how yoga can help with these types of foot pain. The article explains that yoga can help strengthen the muscles in your feet and help heal  inflammation.
The article also explains some techniques to use when your are doing yoga in order to decrease foot pain. These include, working the toes, making sure to be square and to distribute your weight across your feet, and make sure to do poses that stretch and strengthen your feet. Theses poses include downward-facing dog and hero pose with the toes tucked under.
Overall this was a very interesting article. I am looking forward to trying some of these techniques to see if they help with my foot pain.

http://www.yogajournal.com/health/2292

Resolving Conflict Through Yoga

For this week, I read an article explaining how conflicts can be resolved using yoga techniques. In the article, it explains that conflict begins when "we turn things around by mis-identifying with the ego self." Using what yoga teaches us, we are able to step outside the ego self and look at our true self instead. This helps with our ability to listen to others and their point of view on the situation. When we gain perspective on our true self, we can enter a state of serenity. In this state we can stay calm and serene even when faced with problems or conflict.
The article also talks about how yoga conflict resolution techniques were used during the Cold War to help the Soviets and the Americans to "build understanding and trust" between each other. I thought this was interesting because it showed how yoga resolution techniques are actually an accredited set of techniques for resolving conflict.

http://www.yogabasics.com/connect/resolving-conflict-through-yoga.html

Yoga for Anxiety

One of the reasons I decided to take yoga this year was because I tend to be very stressed and anxious a lot of the time. I thought that yoga could help. For this post I read an article about yoga for anxiety and panic attacks.
In the article, it talked about many yogic tools and techniques that can be used. They include breathing practices, meditation/self-study, and asana practice, which says that it will burn off the nervous energy that contributes to anxiety. Today in class we practiced meditation. It was a very rewording exercise that allowed me to relax and take away some of the anxiety that had already started to form. It allowed me to get my to-do list out of my head for a moment and focus on relaxing myself.
The article also talks about how the philosophy of yoga can help with anxiety. One philosophy that it explains is that no one can control what is going to happen. If I try to live by this, then it would take away some of my anxiety because most of my anxiety is caused from worrying about events that I have no control over. One phrase from the article that really stuck with me is a quote by Ramana Mararshi, which says, "take care of the present, and the future will take care of itself. 

http://www.yogajournal.com/for_teachers/2390?page=2