Last night Awesome Girlfriend Megan and I had another one of our Remote Yoga Dates! Many make fun of us, and we don't care. My friend highly recommended a guy named Sean Vigue. He offers an enormous variety of yoga workout videos, ranging from cardio to intense forms. Sean apparently even offers challenges. Meg and I are still beginners, not ready for that advanced stuff yet. Our main goal is relieving my neck, shoulder / back pain / tightness from stress. While Sean may be terrific for many yoga options, Meg and I couldn't stand him. He kept talking THE WHOLE TIME!!! We prefer the ones who have more of a focus on breathing, stretching, and going for that zen vibe stuff. I found myself doing my own stretches for neck and shoulders that Meg and I have learned from other instructors. Even though he wasn't our cup of tea, I'm still psyched that Meg and I did yoga another time. Little by little, we are feeling better.
Earlier this month, we did another session with Cole Chance. She's still our new current favorite, Cole Chance. This one was for stress relief, which was greatly appreciated by both of us. Cole clearly has a different definition of beginner than we do! My key with yoga is don't hurt yourself trying to keep up with them. It's still most important that you're doing it in the first place, and Rome wasn't built in one 23 minute Yoga session. Last night involved more putting weight on my hands/wrists, and I painfully learned my healed fractured wrist nearly as strong as it needs to be. I can hear my sister Suzanne yelling at me in my head "keep using that therapy putty I sent you and build your strength!" Ugh. Don't ya hate it when sisters are right?
Another one of mine and Meg's "remote yoga dates," is just what the doctor ordered. Monday night we tried out a yoga instructor named Joy Scola. She was excellent, even though I'm not nearly advanced enough for several of her stretches. The foot stretches as first felt amazing, but after a couple of minutes I was in pain and had to switch over to crossing my legs. Last week we went with another selection from yoga instructor Cole Chance, designed at targeting chronic neck and shoulder pain. This video was terrific, even though despite her saying these were easy stretches for beginners, my legs definitely can't bend the way she's asking them too yet!
Earlier in June when Awesome Girlfriend Megan and I had another one of our remote yoga dates, it went great! One thing that has been interesting to us is the way Internet searches work. Since Meg watches these videos on her iPhone and me on my laptop, sometimes different options appear. I now text her the link of our yoga video we'll try. We meant to try that same video we did last week with that YogaTX handle, another one from Cole Chance. She showed us some stretches and breathing exercises we have not seen yet, and they were absolutely wonderful. Instead, I apparently goofed. I searched on youtube for "best neck and shoulders," saw Cole and clicked on her video. It was a different video, and also TERRIFIC! Cole gave us some great stretches (do I sound like we're in a cult when saying this?) that Meg and I both enjoyed big time!
They say that trying new things together can be easier, so, Meg and I tried yoga together --- remote. How? We're very simple and primitive. While I'm at my place in Vernon, and Meg is at her place in Hackettstown, I text her the name of a yoga instructional video we find on Youtube. We even set aside a time for our yoga date, a couple weeks ago we went later at 7:30pm. The fun thing is now we're learning what we like and don't like, what to do and what not to do. I watch my laptop, Meg watches her iPhone. Some of our friends who tease us ask how do we know that Meg and I are both doing the yoga since Facetiming isn't happening. How about trust? LOL.
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Since we are still beginners, I just found this helpful starting guide for yoga at home. Even though I've been targeting yoga for a few months, it's taken time for me to build up enough courage trying this. While I've always been a die hard fan of yoga pants (again, how lucky is Awesome Girlfriend Megan?) the art of yoga has been intimidating to me. Can merely breathing and stretching help me escape the at times extreme amount of pain my neck, shoulders and back have been in for over a year and a half?
Which of the Youtube videos has helped us the most? So far we have tried Adriene, Jen Hilman, Paula Lay Yoga, and Cole Chance. While they both definitely helped us, Meg and I prefer Paula Lay Yoga, Adriene and Cole Chance so far, as they seemed to have a stronger focus on breathing. We like that both of them were friendly for beginners such as ourselves. We enjoyed her a ton. Adriene gave us some new moves we haven't tried, especially for our chest which is a big part of the process. Meg and I are having fun trying this new thing for us, while exploring videos seeing what we prefer the most. Paula Lay Yoga, handle YOGATX. Hopefully, yoga will be my key in getting back to running. I miss running every single day.
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Yoga can be very intimidating, especially when you're trying to get started. I've had several friends over the past few years rave to me about the benefits of yoga. From increased flexibility, to injury protection, and for me most importantly, stress relief, yoga has been gaining much popularity in recent years. Approximately 20 months ago, my stress built up pretty bad in my neck, shoulders and back. I apparently had some sort of stress attack in my sleep stemming from the neck down caused by angry, short, quick breaths. At first I listened to the advice of many saying that I just simply slept on my back wrong, and that it would go away soon. It still hasn't gone away from me. Within a few months, I tried out a chiropractor. While they were nice, and it did give me some help/relief, it wasn't nearly enough. Deep tissue massages have definitely helped me, especially for a few days after my session. I need a new practice that can help my mental health and stress long term.
These are wonderful tips for both doing yoga in a studio class and at home.
My 1st ever attempt at yoga a couple months ago, you can see here.