“May you have peace in your thoughts, peace in your words and peace in your heart”
The moment I heard this, it struck a chord with me, I’m not sure why exactly, but it felt like it was the thing I needed to hear most at this time in my life.
We were nearing the end of the Five Parks Yoga Vigorous Vinyasa class, my very first class from this particular YouTube Channel, and we were lying in Shavasana when Erin Sampson, the instructor, said those words.
I just felt those words so deeply, I thought I might cry, it was that emotional.
Since then I have been using this as my mantra. There are times when I’m perhaps feeling a little stressed, or perhaps frustrated is more the term, and I feel my mind is just reeling and I’m getting myself worked up, which helps no one, I’ve just said these words to myself and I feel calm, I feel like I’ve broken a chain of negative thought and with a deep breath I’m ready to start over again.
I’m always looking towards being a better version of myself; to be less judgemental of others, to be more empathetic, and I find that this has helped me immeasurably to really be mindful of my day to day dealings with people, it’s made me wait a beat before responding to those who, in the past, have triggered frustrations and I just feel, better, within myself, if that makes sense.
My husband and I have since tried out about 25 of the Five Parks Yoga classes and we love them. I’ve been searching for a while now for an instructor that I can really follow and feel comfortable in learning from. Being in my 30s and pretty un-bendy, many of the “beginner” yoga classes out there are most definitely NOT for beginners. When you can just about touch your toes and the instructor goes into a full on 3 legged downward facing dog with her legs at a 180 degree angle, it’s really quite disheartening. So when I tried out Five Parks, I was thrilled to see that I could keep up, there are a lot of challenges in these classes, which only helps you to get better and evolve your yoga practice, if you are new to it.
We’ve both improved so much over the last 3 months, I’ve been controlling my breath (which I have never done before) and it has made such an enormous difference to my practice. I can finally go from chaturanga into upward facing dog without having to lay flat on the floor and push up from there, which I have found has, in turn, meant that I can now do a military style push up when I pop on over to my P90X practice (I’ll be talking about P90X in a later post, so keep your eyes out for that one). My balance has greatly improved after trying out many of the fast flow yoga classes, transitioning from crescent pose to half moon has become like second nature, my core is becoming stronger and look at me with the names of poses (I hope I’ve got them correct!).
If you are new to yoga, I definitely recommend Erin’s classes (they are free on Youtube and of course, if you enjoy these classes as we do you, you can show your support by making a donation), and range from a quick 15 minutes to over an hour, so whatever you have time for, there will be a class for you. Perhaps don’t start with the Vigorous Vinyasa, there is a Gentle Beginner Flow class that’s half an hour that may be a better start for absolute beginners. But have a good look through the different classes and choose those you like the look of. For me I tend to avoid those with too many inversions in them as I’m still building my confidence in being upside down, so you really can have the practice you want and go at your own pace. You’ll feel amazing after each class!
Yoga is one of those things that has been on my wish list for such a long time and I am over the moon with my progress thus far and can’t wait to improve further and challenge myself more and more.
(This is not a sponsored post)
