First Yoga Practice

So for my Commonwealth Award (International Phase 3) I am learning about Yoga. I chose this form of exercise to help compliment my running, and also to improve mental health as well as physical.

I started my journey by researching the foundations of Yoga. Firstly, I didn’t realise Yoga was made of six branches, six different paths to pursue including Karma Yoga (acts of kindness that will eventually lead to a happy life). The form of Yoga I plan to look into is called Hatha Yoga and uses poses, breathing and meditation to aid a happy life.

This post really though is to track my progress following the first physical session. (All my previous learning was held within the missing USB, so I’ll come back to the theory later).

I came across an online resource for practising yoga, a website: http://yogawithadriene.com/

The first session I have completed was the video called ‘Yoga for Complete Beginners’. This is my very first step into practising Yoga, and this video was a calm and not threatening at all. The session starts in the sukhasana pose (or simply, with your legs crossed) this leads to twists and stretches from all parts of the upper body. Then poses such as table, cat and cow, which are done on all fours.

Other poses included are the mountain pose, downward dog, warrior pose 1 and warrior pose 2.

I liked this session as it was easy, the time went quickly, and it was a good mixture of simple poses to learn the basics, but also included some recognised poses like warrior to get straight into the asanas that Yoga is known for.

Reflecting on the session, I enjoyed stretching, the feeling in my body of stretching body parts that are often neglecting through day to day desk work, and even running. I also like the strength you feel by holding some of the bigger poses, and also the quiet of sitting in the simpler poses. Health wise, I don’t know how much effect that one session would have – but like any exercise I will need to keep it up to notice a difference.

5 years service and I’m burning out

Things are stressful at the moment.

It is less than two weeks until Brownie holiday and am still waiting on payment from two girls. One is in hand, but due to the child’s situation it has meant extra work on my part. The second is just unfair on us, the parent doesn’t take responsibility for the payment and it leaves me with the stress of not knowing how many girls to cater for, and if this child doesn’t attend it leaves our funds short. (Two have already pulled out, however managed to arrange for them to come for the day.)

I lost my USB drive with the vast majority of my Look Wider and Commonwealth Award work. It must be somewhere in this house. We tidied up before James’ Mum came over and I remember looking at it on the table. I would’ve put it somewhere safe, but for the last two weeks I have searched and found nothing. Today I have started to redo the work, saving it both to a new USB and the computer.

I still have a lot of hours to make up for the Post Pals project. I’m up to 18 hours, so still 12 to go for Community Action Phase 3. My Commonwealth Award too, I still have a lot to do for fit for life and investigation. My 10k training took a stop for three weeks also, which made restarting very tough. Only 9 weeks to go, so I’ve set up a new training plan. I’m close to finishing Independent Living, just two more new recipes to do and I’ve got one planned for Tuesday. Out of Doors is out of my hands until August when I’m volunteering for Wellies and Wristbands, so that isn’t a worry right now. And personal values is in hand too, a couple more peer education sessions planned for the next two weeks.

Work was stressful on Friday. A lot of discussion on the future at work had me literally sweating! I’m back in this afternoon, not sure how things will go but don’t want to discuss that too much here. But right now, work is stressing me out too.

I was grateful to receive my 5 years award on Saturday! It is a nice boost to pin a new badge to my tab and to be recognised for the length of time given. I’ve learned so much in 5 years, done a lot of things I never would have, been new places and met new people. It is exciting to think what will happen in the next five years. However, the next five months are crucial. There isn’t much time left to complete this chief guide, look wider and commonwealth award. I just hope I shake off this lull and move on to complete it all.