Yoga Journal: Week 7

     This week, for my yoga practice, I watched a youtube video on Ashtanga yoga. I really focused on this weeks journal theme while taking the class, which was; Yoga as a healing (medicine). From the start of the class, I can tell the teacher used a calm tone to try and create a sense of relaxation. Relaxation, alone, is a great way to relieve stress from the body, so it makes sense if people treat yoga as a medicine. This teacher also mentions the importance of linking breathe to movement and that practice will keep your mind and body healthy. 

    She also starts out with an invocation to show gratitude to the practice and gratitude to the teacher. This invocation creates a sense of spirituality, in a way, and is basically a form of 'praying' to the people who created this practice, which creates a feeling that these teachers are above you and are here to show you the path to enlightenment, through their practice. To me, this is manipulation at its finest. The manipulation continues when she goes into the moves and explains in detail what each move does for your body, allowing your mind to dive deeper into the idea that this is helping them become a better person. 

    Throughout the entirety of the class, the teacher would feel the need to express the importance of each move and the importance of every exhale. There was constant reassuring communication from the teacher, saying things like "how you look in your pose, is where you are at right now in life, and that is perfectly okay. But with practice, you could become even better." It's like the teacher is trying to convince you that everything you are feeling while doing these poses, is your healing process, and you should do it more often. 

    I won't lie, I felt pretty good after my practice, however, I still didn't buy into the idea that this practice was "healing" me. I think you should always feel good way after a physical activity, like yoga. The endorphin release is contributed to how good you feel, so harder the practice, the better you should feel. I'm still hesitant to believe that yoga is more than just a physical workout.

    In my opinion, the roots of Yoga are to be blamed for how it is viewed today. Certain people throughout history, took the feel good properties of yoga, and figured out a way to make money off of it, just like certain people did with the idea of religion.