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“the intent of this blog is to incrementally build a body of thought that works toward integrating various topics, yoga, fitness, and the arts – it’s a process…”

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My First Yoga-to-Dance aha! Moment!

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for awhile now, i’ve been able to have more input into yoga, via my fitness studies with AFAA, SilverSneakers, and Zumba workshops, than from yoga into my other fitness routines, jazzercise dance etc

some of these items included, among much more:

non-stricture regarding breathing only through my nose if needed; optimal times for adding a small snack before, during or after a class or routine for muscle rebuilding; importance of respecting where one is starting from or currently “at” regarding expectations and how hard to “push”; and special precautions when dealing with either special populations or conditions and illnesses

these are fitness tidbits i may eventually do some posts on, but do routinely discuss in my classes

yesterday, after a three week hiatus, due to myriad factors (my yoga teaching immersion, worst weather of the year, and visiting family), i finally got to go to jazzercise with a fabulous teacher, vanessa, in clear lake

my wife sheila’s and mine AFAA studies indicated that enhanced aerobic fitness diminishes in as quickly as 2-3 weeks of inactivity [1] and they had 😉

granted, i’ve done a “few” things during that time, but, as i point out in class, each fitness activity enhances some one or more aspect of our total self – and frankly, i’ve not found any one exercise type, fun or not 😉 to provide everything to the highest degree that’s possible to me

and it’s obvious to me, that pure concentrated aerobic dance does more for my heart and lungs and increased/enhanced oxygen uptake, than, say, elastic bands (which i also love to us), or yoga (which i’m loving more and more each day)

all that said, whew! 😉 what did i gain during jazzercise from yoga that helped me enjoy and benefit from my jazzercise routine that much more?

well, as some of ya’ll probably know better than me, in holding a pose for an extended time, there’s a lilt and musical movement one sometimes becomes aware of in the steady inhalation exhalation, a lilting lifting releasing living tiny steady movement, natural to being alive and breathing that’s quite comforting…

so, i’m enjoying doing a much broader quicker range of motion (ROM) than i have for several weeks, to some great contemporary music (one of jazzercise’s strong points i enjoy), and, in the middle of a few hip flexing chasses and sachets, my body-memory [2] of my yoga-pose-breathing kicked in and i was breathing in and breathing out in memory and in reality – the two experiences merged in a smile that caught me by surprise 😉

then, during some fun single-single-and-a double‘s, the merged-memory kicked in again – now those are some fun rewarding aha – yes’s 😉

next time sheila and i zumba, i’ll see if i have a three-way memory-merge – zumba, jazzercise, and yoga!

namaste – con dios – god be with you

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yoga to dance aha! series

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footnotes

[1] luckily, the same studies indicate, recovering one’s fitness level won’t be like when you first started, and will come back quite quickly; even if with non-use-pay-the-price-aches reminding oneself “it’d been awhile” 😉

[2] i first heard and learned of the term body-memory, around 1980; my children and i were doing an outdoor musical, “the lone star,” on galveston island for the summer, and my son, barely nine, was learning a staged fight scene he and his friend were greatly enjoying 😉

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INTEGRATING YOGA FITNESS AND THE ARTS

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