Rodney Yee & 8 Weeks of Yoga

Look under the word BALANCE and see where it says 8 weeks of yoga with Rodney Yee? Well, today my husband and I will begin week 8 of this practice. I can hardly believe we've been doing yoga six days a week for 7 weeks already. We've both lost weight and feel better than we have in a long time.

I don't want to give anyone the impression we are slim, svelte and atheletic people who have blithely picked up a yoga book and cruised our way through seven weeks of yoga practice. So not the case! We've grunted, sweat and clawed our way through the last seven weeks. We are just a regular middle-aged couple who noticed we are no where near as flexible or fit as we would like to be. Even after we complete this 8 week program, we will still have a long way to go. We just feel so pleased with ourselves because we made an initial commitment of 8 weeks and our goal is just 6 days away! The other thing, and it's also a biggie, is this program, the practice of yoga, has changed our lives. We believe it to be a lasting and life long change and have plans to continue yoga practice for the rest of our lives. That's a huge statement to make after 7 weeks, but we really believe it.

The time commitment has been challenging. The commitment to "do it right" by doing the necessary chapter reading and preparation each week, not to mention the day one practice each week is twice the length of the other daily practices at just about 2 and a half hours. Still and all it has been transforming. As with most good things that come into one's life, a person asks themselves why, oh why, oh why they waited so long to begin. TGILW and I have concluded it is because right now, this time was the time we were meant to discover yoga. Yeah, I'm getting philosophical on you now.

We had a beginners yoga DVD with Suzanne Deason last year. We practiced it for about a month, but it got monotonous and we were unsure if we were doing everything correctly. I recently took a couple of private yoga classes where I could get one on one instruction. If you can afford it (it's $60 an hour here) it is well worth the investment. Since I couldn't continue the private lessons and the group classes did not fall at times the worked with my schedule I had to consider other alternatives.

That's when TGILW and I found Rodney Yee's book. We were pretty intimidated when we looked at it...the pictures, the reading, the commitment. BUT, we thought we could do it incrementally, in our home, at our own pace and give it a try. Why not for $21.95? Lots cheaper than those private sessions. I'm so glad we took a chance and for whatever guiding spirit made us pick up this book.

We have spent a little more money because while we did have yoga mats, blocks and straps already, we didn't have bolsters and blankets. The book does give alternative items in your house you can use, but since we were making a commitment and felt it was going to be long term, after about 3 weeks we invested in the bolsters and some additional blankets.

We've since purchased a couple of other books by other instructors, but plan to re-do this 8 week program first. As you can see from the book title MOVING TOWARD BALANCE is exactly what we are looking for presently. Once we feel we are pretty centered we plan to further our yoga education and our practices.

Of course, I've checked out Rodney Yee's website and found he does weekly videos for a website called Lime - Healthy Living with a Twist. They are great little one minute or two minute videos. Here's one on balance which sort of sums up why we finally started yoga. We want to have choices with our bodies as we get older. We don't want to feel limited by what we can or cannot do.

My cup runneth over!! It is such a big change for us and has consumed a great deal of our time, effort and energy but has paid some big dividends too. I just had to share some of it with you.