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So you’ve decided to give this yoga thing a shot. Seems pretty simple. If old ladies can do it, I’m sure I can too, right? If that sounds a little bit like you, keep reading on.

Yoga is a 5,000 year old practice from India that encompasses nutrition, meditation, exercise, spirituality, and the study of scriptures. It’s a whole pre-determined way of living. It even prescribes how to clean your nasal passage. That’s how in-depth yoga can get.

What yoga is widely known as today is the physical postures of that entire lifestyle, which are known as asanas. Asanas can be extremely beneficial to your body and mind, as with many other forms of physical activity. These asanas have helped thousands of people with claims not only from their overall improvement of their overall fitness, but with their stress, anxiety and depression. Without surprise, as these asanas were formed as a way of active meditation to discipline the monkey mind through controlling the physical body. After all, it’s difficult to feel sadness or stress when you’re balancing on one leg in tree pose. You are probably trying not to fall over, rather than worrying about your presentation on Monday.

Now, in a modern day yoga class, it’s mainly all asanas. If it’s your first yoga class ever, try to find a class directed at beginners, so hot yoga, acroyoga and power yoga is out of the question. Instead go with yin yoga, gentle flow or ask the instructor if his/her class is a good fit for a beginner. When the instructor knows that there’s a beginner in the class, he/she will always provide options (beginner, intermediate, advanced). And you, as a beginner, should take those options. Ignore what your neighbours are doing and look at your teacher for guidance.

Let’s use the analogy of buildings. Each asana (posture) is like a building. First you need a strong foundation (your alignment), then you need the materials (the strength and flexibility) to continue to build on top of that. And how high you go depends on factors such as the type of materials you have (your current fitness level/where you are in your practice) and what the environment allows (your body type/even your genes). The tendency is for beginners to want to build skyscrapers before ensuring the foundation is sturdy. The outcome of a building that is too high without a good foundation is that it will fall.

I definitely am not worried about the past or future when I'm in tree pose, balancing in the mangroves. Okay, maybe I was a little bit worried there might be snakes. — Balancing in tree pose requires your mind to remain completely calm and balanced. Your mind is focused and free from all unnecessary worries, fears and troubles.

But those postures look fun! It’s completely fine to try. Just remember, it’s your body that is the building, so your fall could be a simple, meaningless stumble, or it could lead to the revival of an old injury. You know your own body better than anyone else, so you need to listen to it and remember to rest whenever you need to.

To ensure you have the best experience, here are a few mental tips for your first practice.

Patience: Build the foundation of your body, take your time to get into postures with grace rather than jerking into them
Awareness: Check your body for alignment cues that your teacher will provide you either verbally or visually
Humility: Maybe you could do backbends when you were 12, but it’s been a while since then and this is not the time to try. Keep your mind on your own mat, with a consistent practice, that strength will return, and when that day comes you’ll be ready for that full wheel.

These are key for getting the best out of your yoga experience.

If you want to know what physical requirements to expect behind the doors to the yoga studio, click here.

Adventures in Thailand, art, pets, rants, yoga

The Young Yogi and The Island

September 5, 2015September 5, 2015 Evelyn Loh

Oh gosh, it’s already September! 4 months has passed since I first arrived on this beautiful island.

My fiancé arrives next week and I’m very excited to see him. He told me it feels like forever since he has seen me. Whereas I feel like it was just a month that has passed since I saw him. I miss him but it doesn’t feel that long in my mind.

And so I reflected on my time here. So much has happened. I’ve met so many great people and had lots of amazing experiences. But why does it seem like such a short time?

Here on the island, I’ve been in this strange state where time seems to stand still. I feel like I’ve been suspended in time and I could stay here forever. Like some sort of trans-state or hypnosis. It’s an amazing feeling. I wake up feeling great everyday and happy to go about my day. Sometimes I forget what day it is. And sometimes I forget what time it is.

After teaching morning yoga I have so much spare time, yet I never once felt bored. I spent my days learning Thai, reading, practising yoga, and riding my bicycle/scooter to explore the island. In this constant state of exploration, I feel like the pages of my life story have just been a constant page turner. You know the kind of good book you can’t put down so you stay up reading it till 3 AM. I think right now, this is my life. Only there my story is pretty anti-climatic. It’s probably a lot like The Old Man and The Sea – some people love it, some people hate it.

Recently during my explorations, I wanted to look for interesting places to take my fiancé to when he arrived. I found an artsy boutique hotel where I fell in love with. It was that kind of vibe that I was drawn to. It beautiful handmade decorations from paper flowers and stars to large painted canvases. It conjured beautiful emotion.

As soon as I saw him, I knew immediately that he was the owner and the artist. I knew we could be friends. Initially, I asked just about the rooms, not wanting to impose. Then, I cycled home.

All the way home and the next day, I was washed over with the feeling of longing. I missed painting. I went to Art School and I miss the days where I and fellow students alike stayed up all night to finish projects. I missed creating.

That place brought back my desire to create. And so the next day, I went back to visit him. I asked him if I could buy canvas and paint from him. My Thai was as good as his English, but we understood each other. He understood I was an artist too. I interpreted his expression and his few words as, “Every artist needs to create, we will find you something.” And so he led me to his small studio, where he was painting a girl, who I found out later was his girlfriend.

After a little bit of shuffling, he sent me off happily with an old watercolour set, brushes, and paper. I grew up painting with watercolours but I quickly switched to acrylics like many artist do to the convenience of fast drying times and its adaptability to mistakes. With watercolours, you needed to paint in “layers” and can be somewhat technical at times. There are ways “to erase” mistakes, but it’s better if you don’t make them at all.

The last time I used watercolours was probably when I was 18, almost ten years ago. So I decided to paint Koya (again) to get my feel for it back again.
Turned out alright! 65 likes on Facebook! Which is a lot of likes for a person like me, who only gets 5 likes on any given post…and that’s if I’m lucky. Which makes me wonder do people like this post because it’s a good painting or because it has a cute dog on it? Maybe a little bit of both?

Whatever it is, I’ll just keep doing what I love and let days like these be imprinted into my mind. One thing is for sure, if and when I have grandkids, I’ll never run out of stories to tell them.

yoga

Listen to Your Body!

August 22, 2015August 6, 2018 Evelyn Loh

One of the biggest challenges in teaching asanas lies not in teaching different levels but teaching different people of different levels. My key word here is different people not in the sense of age, gender or any physical appearance, but the way they are.

I’ve had students who tend to always stay in their comfort zone, and I’ve had students who don’t understand the limits of their own body. The latter being the most frustrating of the two.

It’s so frustrating because I am genuinely afraid that they will hurt themselves. Yoga is sometimes jokingly known to physiotherapists, chiropractors and osteopaths as keeping them in business – meaning quite plainly that people who do yoga often hurt and injure themselves, thus keeping them in business. The sad part is there is complete truth to that. And I see it in my students.

A few days ago, I had two students. A 70-something-year-old lady who was overweight and a fit 30-year-old. At the beginning of class, I had a talk with the older lady (who I previously had one-on-one sessions with, giving me a good idea of where she was in her practice, which is beginner beginner). Before the class began, I told her that we have different levels in the class today, please listen to your body, and take child’s resting pose anytime you need to, lie on your back and whichever option is the easiest. She acknowledges.

I have taught multi-level many times before, usually with younger people trying to be competitive, where slight adjustments would bring them back a step. But this time, it was very worrying, because of her age, her weight, and her lack of listening skills – it was such a challenge.

So what happens? About 20-minutes into the class, we are into tree pose and there she is trying to take tree pose on the calf, although our lessons before she always took tree in kickstand with both toes on the ground. Why the sudden change? Is it the need to be competitive, or she didn’t understand me and took my words of advice as a challenge instead?

She falls out a few times before deciding kickstand is the best, meanwhile the other girl has her foot right by her groin. The younger girl has practiced yoga for years, and me, almost a decade. The entire class was this tone, I offered multiple level options and she refuses each time. I would go to her make adjustments and tell her to back up in the posture. But it was constantly happening that about midway I had to tell her by name, “Ms. X, stay here. Ms. Y let’s take it a little further.”

Then we come into pigeon, I give Ms. X her option (one on her back). And I proceeded to move into full pigeon with Ms. Y, forehead on ground. With my forehead on the ground, Ms. X sneakily gets into pigeon pose. Not even 3 seconds laters complains her hip hurts. I look up baffled to see her in pigeon and completely worried because old people and hip problems are not a good combination. I check on her, she’s fine and proceeds back on her back. Then my sense of worry turns into complete frustration.

So I say, a little forcefully perhaps, “Please, please, please, listen to your body! If you’re not quite there yet, you need to be patient, it takes time for strength and flexibility to work.” Obviously directed at her, since there are only 2 students in the room. The lesson continues into savasana and she hastily leaves the class. I believe this was enough to turn her off from my classes as she hasn’t shown up for two days.

At first, I was a little sad that she chose not to follow-up her yoga sessions and that her choices have made it less enjoyable for her, and also for me. But then it clicked.

I remember having a talk with her at the beginning of our sessions, where she told me of her gastric bypass surgery and fat removal that got her from 300 pounds to 130, her facelift and how she felt younger than friends her age. Why she was here at the resort was because she had gained weight and she wanted to be healthy again.

It clicked, it clicked, it clicked. She was binge exercising and dieting. She neglected her body a second time and the weight was back and she wanted to reset. But you cannot reset your body overnight. It’s impossible. You care for it like a garden. It takes time, love and patience to see the garden bloom. I believe she feels that all that time, money and energy spent on all those surgeries to lose weight and get young would be for nothing. She made such a huge change to become “young” and “healthy” but never maintained it, and now she wanted to flick the switch again. Seeing younger girls in yoga clothes probably wasn’t easy as they reminded her of her age.

Even though I think I lost a client, I believe it was the bitter medicine she needed. Her character perhaps required a more direct approach. I just hope if and when she does yoga again, it will be mindfulness of body and breath, and not about trying to be “young” again.

My message today is please take care of your bodies, right now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not after Thanksgiving. Right now.

Start right now. Exercise regularly. If you haven’t exercised yet today, I challenged you to 10 burpees, followed by 30 lunges each leg and 30 sit-ups. Do anything, just move. And do it with mindfulness, not just rushing through them. Make healthy food choices and save only special occasions for cheats.

It will only get more difficult with time. Listen to your body, build up that strength and only get stronger from there.

If that still doesn’t make you move, maybe this will.