Fitness!

This might be a tough line of questioning, but is there anyone here who does yoga at home who might recommend resources on guided practice? For the longest time I was following along with Yoga With Adrienne but after having a rather guilt-inducing conversation about colonization and decolonizing one’s practice, I’m trying to either move towards self-guided practice or more authentic sources of instruction.
 
Bull Shannon said:
This might be a tough line of questioning, but is there anyone here who does yoga at home who might recommend resources on guided practice? For the longest time I was following along with Yoga With Adrienne but after having a rather guilt-inducing conversation about colonization and decolonizing one’s practice, I’m trying to either move towards self-guided practice or more authentic sources of instruction.
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So, I'm not 100% on how to decolonize your practice, but I had subscribed to Yogaglo which is an app with a lot of great meditation and yoga classes and they are organized really well. It did cost me $18/mo, but that's less than the cost of a yoga class in person. I looked at other apps--Gaiam being the biggest player out there. Gaiam was only $5/mo but looking through some of the sample classes, I really liked Yogaglo more because it also gives you guided meditation classes.

I also HIGHLY recommend getting B.K.S. Iyengar's book Light on Yoga. It gives you detailed instructions on poses and in the appendix, he gives you asana routines you can do that build on each other from week to week. In the second part of the appendix, he recommends asanas that help with specific physical problems. This book is a tenet of yoga, and an amazing resource for anyone who wants to practice deeper. Iyengar wrote MANY yoga books and even has a branch of yoga named for him. If you ever get a chance, take an Iyengar class. I had an Iyengar yoga teacher in my 20's and learned sooooo much about the poses, however, I must warn you that after our sun salutations, we only did 5 or 6 poses for the full hour. We just stood there in poses holding it and focusing on the breath.

As far as decolonization of the practice, I really think it's important to understand that yoga is done, not just as a physical activity, but as an activity that helps link the body to the mind. It links your physical to your spiritual and makes you focus on yourself--your body, your breath, your discomfort, etc. This forces you to turn off your higher thinking and just exist in the moment. When you begin to force yourself to exist in the moment, for lack of a better term, that's where all the magic happens. I have studied a lot of Buddhist philosophy and even was able to meditate at the English speaking service of a local Buddhist temple. In Buddhism, there's this concept of moving meditation. I see yoga as an extension of this meditation. But the biggest thing that you have to remember is that yoga didn't happen in a void. It is the product of a people and a culture. To honor the people and the culture, just never stop learning about it. Understand that this practice came out of a place that has a very different perspective than we do in the Western world, and open yourself up to those concepts.
 
nolalady said:
So, I'm not 100% on how to decolonize your practice, but I had subscribed to Yogaglo which is an app with a lot of great meditation and yoga classes and they are organized really well. It did cost me $18/mo, but that's less than the cost of a yoga class in person. I looked at other apps--Gaiam being the biggest player out there. Gaiam was only $5/mo but looking through some of the sample classes, I really liked Yogaglo more because it also gives you guided meditation classes.

I also HIGHLY recommend getting B.K.S. Iyengar's book Light on Yoga. It gives you detailed instructions on poses and in the appendix, he gives you asana routines you can do that build on each other from week to week. In the second part of the appendix, he recommends asanas that help with specific physical problems. This book is a tenet of yoga, and an amazing resource for anyone who wants to practice deeper. Iyengar wrote MANY yoga books and even has a branch of yoga named for him. If you ever get a chance, take an Iyengar class. I had an Iyengar yoga teacher in my 20's and learned sooooo much about the poses, however, I must warn you that after our sun salutations, we only did 5 or 6 poses for the full hour. We just stood there in poses holding it and focusing on the breath.

As far as decolonization of the practice, I really think it's important to understand that yoga is done, not just as a physical activity, but as an activity that helps link the body to the mind. It links your physical to your spiritual and makes you focus on yourself--your body, your breath, your discomfort, etc. This forces you to turn off your higher thinking and just exist in the moment. When you begin to force yourself to exist in the moment, for lack of a better term, that's where all the magic happens. I have studied a lot of Buddhist philosophy and even was able to meditate at the English speaking service of a local Buddhist temple. In Buddhism, there's this concept of moving meditation. I see yoga as an extension of this meditation. But the biggest thing that you have to remember is that yoga didn't happen in a void. It is the product of a people and a culture. To honor the people and the culture, just never stop learning about it. Understand that this practice came out of a place that has a very different perspective than we do in the Western world, and open yourself up to those concepts.
Click to expand...

Thank you so very much for this. I'm going to pick up the book and see if working through it helps. I've had the same Rodney Yee book for the last decade, and while I can self-guide using that, I find having even just audio cues from someone walking me through poses and encouraging a deeper stretch or a more deliberate form can be really helpful.

I really connect with yoga on the mental and spiritual level you're describing. I'd honestly say it was my gateway into better understanding and enjoying physical movement/exertion, and was basically a gateway into lifting weights for a while. I've had therapists who use yoga nidra meditation as part of their practice, and I especially value the way both meditation and yoga push you to focus on the moment, to take ownership of your state of being and position in a space. It's just a lot harder to push myself into that space on my own volition, which is why a guide/instructor is always nice.

debianlinux said:
Can I get like a 3 sentence or less synopsis of what decolonizing your practice even means?
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I am no expert, but I'd say it has to do with the fact that yoga originated as a spiritual and philosophical practice in the east, and has become something of a cash cow in the west. In a lot of ways, it's been coopted by the fitness and lifestyle industry, where Lululemon will sell you a $30 water bottle with "namaste" printed on it, and neither the supplier nor the buyer have any understanding of the deeper philosophical or cultural underpinnings of the practice. I guess the question I ask myself is what's my level of culpability in this; to what extent am I fueling that system if I'm doing my yoga along with a youtube video marketed squarely at those people who'd buy the $30 Lululemon bottle?
 
Nice to know the vast majority of my yoga experience has been pretty well decolonized. Also, I was worried I was gonna have to decolonize powerlifting but now I think and hope my practice in that endeavor is pretty safe. The spiritual essence therein is “shit is heavy move it anyway”.
 
I've made some outrageous claims and been accused of being nothing but a swirl so here's some video proofiness.

This is an 8th set of 4 reps at 435lbs (read max fatigue, thus the straps):

streamable.com

VID-20201002-WA0001

Watch "VID-20201002-WA0001" on Streamable.
streamable.com streamable.com

P.S. no idea how to just post an inline video without using a service like youtube that ties to my person (uncomfortable enough putting actual self online).

P.P.S. got at least a video host that is anon
 
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debianlinux said:
I've made some outrageous claims and been accused of being nothing but a swirl so here's some video proofiness.

This is an 8th set of 4 reps at 435lbs (read max fatigue, thus the straps):

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com www.dropbox.com

P.S. no idea how to just post an inline video without using a service like youtube that ties to my person (uncomfortable enough putting actual self online).
Click to expand...
/me takes note of video proof
 
My wife started a diet a couple of weeks ago, and so I'm eating a bit better as a result of that. I didn't really start weighing myself until today but I'm down about 8 pounds from my all-time high, sometime during the quarantine period. Hopefully I'll continue to lose weight alongside her.
 
Has anyone been having issues with workouts from third party apps registering in the Activity/Fitness app on iPhone since the new iOS update?

After I finish a workout on the Peloton, either on the bike or in the app, it has been taking forever for the calories to be added to my move ring. Like, the workout itself will show up in the Apple app, but the move ring won't reflect the calories that were burned. And I just realized that last weekend the workout *never* added to my move ring, which resulted in me not closing my ring that day, and in doing so my 303-day streak got broken. And I'm super pissed about it, because like 90% of building these habits is finding ways to stay motivated, and keeping my streaks up were how I do that.

So, before I smash my watch with a hammer, has anyone else encountered this issue and found a way to fix it? I know there's no way to fix my move ring from a week ago, but I really want to not have to stress about it happening again.
 
Some more heavy work this morning. Here's my top set of 450x5. Last rep was a real rep max no doubt. I spent a couple years training deficits so my off the ground speed is phenomenal. I've been training more hip thrusts and overloaded block pulls to get the hip extension trained up. At any rate, most of the issue is due to me not getting appropriately tight in the setup which is also mostly due to being pretty fatigued by this point in the workout. When I set up tight and pull slow off the ground keeping everything less rounded I tend to be a lot smoother on the lock out.

streamable.com

20201012-450x5

Watch "20201012-450x5" on Streamable.
streamable.com streamable.com
 
I signed up for a 4 mile run that is virtual this year for obvious reasons. I actually really like that idea because running alongside like a hundred people kinda scares me. Although I am doing the run with 3 of my coworkers (how I found out about the run) which shouldn’t be too bad in comparison. I think we’re all going to meet at our office building and run a route somewhere around there. However, I’m hoping that there’s still some semblance of running alone because I know at least one of my coworkers runs a sub 7 minute mile and I definitely cannot do that.
 
wokeupnew said:
I signed up for a 4 mile run that is virtual this year for obvious reasons. I actually really like that idea because running alongside like a hundred people kinda scares me. Although I am doing the run with 3 of my coworkers (how I found out about the run) which shouldn’t be too bad in comparison. I think we’re all going to meet at our office building and run a route somewhere around there. However, I’m hoping that there’s still some semblance of running alone because I know at least one of my coworkers runs a sub 7 minute mile and I definitely cannot do that.
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Update I did it!

Not too thrilled with my time since this was after work (I normally run in the morning on an empty stomach) and I didn’t drink enough water. Also this was not my normal route and was figuring out where to cross streets with 100% more traffic than usual.
But all in all it was good. I probably could have kept going after the 4th mile.

www.instagram.com

Chris Neckermann on Instagram: "Virtual Heady Trotter 4 Miler ✅ #headytrotter #alch3mistb33r #market32bypricechopper"

24 likes, 10 comments - evenout on October 15, 2020: "Virtual Heady Trotter 4 Miler ✅ #headytrotter #alch3mistb33r #market32bypricechopper".
www.instagram.com www.instagram.com

because of peer pressure I signed up for a 10K 😱 that I need to complete by the end of November. It seems scary but that’s a little over 6 miles. In the build up to the 4 miler I ran 5 miles twice and it was not too bad at all. I’m not doing this one with coworkers so I can go my normal route 👌
 
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