This term I have started doing yoga again. I am curious to see if I will be able to stay with it this time. I will make a better effort to continue going and to keep improving myself. After the surprise of a different type of yoga, I am happier with this, and I have more of my friends around me, which I think motivates me and makes the whole experience more fun. I think that I will like it better this year, as there will be more stress, and it will be a vector for me to relieve my stress. I am looking forward to becoming more flexible and stronger! By the end of this activity I hope to be able to at least touch my forehead to my knees when stretching the back of my legs. I also hope to improve my balance and knowledge of Yoga.
After the half first term and a bit...(Sept. 2016)
I actually have attended a lot of the sessions. I find it relaxing and fun, and I like the instructor. My yoga CCA is all girls, with a group of friends from year 9 and some friends of mine from my year. The instructor has been helpful, encouraging and relaxing in his way of teaching, pushing us to our limits, but never past them. I have applied this approach to my other aspects of life - schoolwork, dealing with difficult people, and so on. I have noticed recently that I have gotten both stronger and more flexible, and my balance is improving. Surprisingly, I have become more aware of how my body moves, my strength, and my limits of my flexibility. I have began to be able to do a head stand, and just today I was somehow able to twist my body so that I was doing the lotus shoulder stand (the cross-legged pose with feet on top of opposite thighs, then laid down and lifted that so I was able to balance on my shoulders and neck while supporting my back with my hands). Learning new poses like this has been both a challenge and achievement for me. I learned that I actually love learning things like this, and improving on my physical weaknesses. Today, he said that we have finished the beginner's poses, and next term we will move onto intermediate. I am excited and scared at the same time. I hope that I will not be too exhausted and busy with exams to miss out on sessions when I come back from the December holidays.
I have since improved on this, and I have learned how to put the weight on my elbows, tense my core muscles, etc. to get up on my own.
Almost at the end... (March 2017)
I love yoga, and will continue it after I have finished my CAS programme. It is relaxing, but at the same time challenges my body and how to constantly improve. Not only does this help me in daily life, but it also helps me challenge my body and become fitter and stronger. I think that 1 session a week was not enough, and I would have liked to do it more often, but I have learned a great deal about how to safely get in and out of poses that could cause injury. The instructor is very careful to tell us about how we could injure ourselves and accommodates for things we can't do, but at the same time makes us challenge our bodies. He is very professional and is good with teaching us. There is a wide range of ages in the CCA, and he helps all of us.The activity has let me become aware of more muscles in the body and how to engage them to become stronger. I will use this knowledge to do yoga in my own time. It has taught me a great deal about the human body, and about myself.