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Old Forum Yoga recommendation

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Northern Kettlebells

Northern Kettlebells

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Hi,  I'm looking to add a bit of yoga to my strength practice, but not sure where to start.

Can anybody recommend a DVD or website that I should start with?

Ideally something that has plenty of progressions as I will be doing it with my partner who has a lot more flexibility than me, so will likely be starting at a higher level
 
I love yogatoday.com, Neesha's practices in particular.  She is very good at teaching the postures through the format.

Yoga Today is a subscription service that streams pre-recorded yoga practices daily for something like $10/month.  They're filmed outdoors on location in the Grand Tetons.  I use our Apple Tv to mirror them from the computer to our flat screen.
 
If you want a go to guru, you already have one here - Pavel.

Take all the good bits of everything known about stretching, mobility and flexibility from yoga, Qi Gong, gymnastics and all human movement minus the navel gazing and fluff and you have Pavel's library. Jon Engum's flexible steel also. If you go to a yoga class, the instructor is probably more important than the type of yoga. The benefits of yoga are often spouted, less so the injuries. And, whether or not, results, be it psychological or physiological gains. I've dipped in and out of yoga at varying different times and never really seen flexibility gains and found rushing around to classes stressful, odd that that may sound. And, never really got 'it', whatever 'it' is. Stick with our own resident yogi.

 
 
Hear hear!  I second Alistair on that one - my experience is Yoga = Calisthenics + Static Stretching + Loss of Money + Pretension + Poorly Pronounced Sanskrit.  Still insist on doing the calisthenics called Yoga?  Practice your sun salutations to perfection - do 10 every morning until your heart stops beating.  That will give you far more benefit for far less money than all the Swami Ji's or Rainbow Moonchilds in Lululemons you could go see on any given day of the week.  There's a great saying I grabbed from Chinese martial arts culture - "Learning martial arts is easy.  The hard part is practicing every day for the rest of your life."
 
I agree with Charles, the best yoga practice is 10-12 Sun Salutations daily.  It is the S&S of yoga.  Simple, but effective, and every practice you work on doing it better, if you study technique.

But DVDs are useful too -- this is my favorite.  http://rodneyyeeyogastore.com/120-1301.html
 
Well said Alistair & Charles.

If you want to get big, you don't have to play football.  Just lift.

If you want to get flexible, you don't have to "do yoga".  Just stretch.

Does anybody here "do kettlebells"?  No.  We train.

Skip the affectation.  I climb in the Tetons.  The sport requires mild contortionism.  But I don't carry a yoga mat around town to let everybody know how precious I am.  Sorry to rant.  It was a sad day in the weightroom when the yoga instructor told me I had to stop deadlifting because the noise was disturbing their chakras.
 
Thanks for the replies.

Flexible steel is already part of my program and I'll definitely be keeping that in and I will add in Sun Salutations. Thanks for the DVD Anna, I will check that out.

Z
 
Got some friends that are into Yoga.  I would spend more time trying it out....if I had more time.  I respect it and have done a few sessions with who I consider very good instructors.  Dan John speaks favorably of Bikram and practices regularly per my understanding.  I did one session of that and really liked it.  It seemed like my sweaty clothes took 3 days to dry.

It's one of those things I'll definitely sink time into down the road once I'm not so busy with raising kids, career, etc...  Just like I'll get back to golf, tai-chi.

But for now, S&S keeps me busy.  I throw in joint mobility, body-weight training, stretching per S&S directions....
 
Chris, I just re-read your original post.  My wife is quite a bit more "into" yoga than I am.  She started out by practicing Bikram, and we're socking away money bit by bit so she can do her RYT training next year to become a teacher.  She's actually featured in some promo material for a local studio.  All that to say, she is definitely more flexible than I am, but she's also tuned into to a lot of the other benefits of a regular practice than I am.

When we practice together, one, I still use blocks for many things.  But, two, she takes the postures farther than I do.  Often when we're doing something form Yoga Today, the instructor will say something like, "And if you want to take this pose further . . . "  So they'll give instruction on how to take that next step.

She doesn't really love the website.  I do.  I think practicing to a television takes away a decent chunk of what you'd get practicing in a studio with a great environment (it's not all about flexibility), and she'll miss that when we practice together at home.
 
As alistair linford has pointed out, Pavel's work gives a pretty good distillation of various eastern disciplines.
If you want to do more yogary stuff though, look up Esther Eckhart on youtube, she has a ton of really good videos.
I started doing yoga myself a while ago, I just follow books and youtube vids at home. Doesn't cost me a cent and has zero navel gazing (besides plough pose and the like).
 
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