Real Yoga Students Share Top Five Results of Their Yoga Practice in 2013

On December 30, 2013 I went into my two Monday morning classes at the Hampshire Regional YMCA in Northampton, MA and asked my regulars to look back at their year of practice and acknowledge (and share if they like) their top five accomplishments from this year. My mother (Linda Hill, also a yoga teacher) went into all of her classes at CNY Healing Arts in Albany, NY and asked her students the same question. The results are inspiring! Please honor their accomplishments by reading this amazing list. We are blown away! Absolutely blown away.

• Calming
• Flexibility
• Learning quietness through breathing
• Clear away preoccupations, however briefly
• Source of holiness
• Developing a desire for yoga as opposed to willing myself to practice because I think it is good for me
• Noticing my arms and core becoming stronger and that I can actually do chattarunga dandasana
• Knowing when to practice and when, physically, I need a break
• Knowing how to adjust my practice when I need spiritual or mental exercise  but less physical
• Consistently practicing made me realize how effective it is in improving my physical and emotional well-being, especially noticeable when/if I go more than a week without.
• Peaceful grace
• Increased flexibility
• Manage stress well
• Introduced others to CAM
• Able to avoid injuries of running for greater than 25 years
• Closer connection through meditation
• Managing sress
• Emotional Grounding – Returning to my yoga practice after giving birth to my wonderful daughter has helped me to find myself and regroup, focusing a small amount of time on myself, which has helped me tremendously throughout the year.
• Balance – I have regained my balance both physically and spiritually.  My yoga practice helps me find a balance in my life as new challenges and needs for my time and energy arise.
• Core Strength – After giving birth in January and having abdominal surgery in May, my yoga practice has helped me strengthen my core. It has made caring for my new daughter (lifting, carrying, nursing, playing on the floor with her) so much easier and more enjoyable.
• Reassurance – This year my dad passed away and I had many physical challenges that required a lot of time to heal.  Regaining more of my strength and flexibility from returning to the mat after each challenge, reassures me that no matter what happens, with time and support, I can always return to my practice.  It may not look or feel the same as in the past, but I still have a place I can return to and find balance, strength, and grounding.
• Faith – I believe in my body and my spirit!  After going through such a difficult and rewarding year, I had no idea the strength and resilience I possess.  Yoga has been an integral part of my sanity and my ability to bounce back.  Thank you so much for your support and leadership Courtney.
• Stamina and strength in running for my first 5K
• Practicing patience to help clients at work and build in the maintenance of family relationships
• Letting go of control

• Ability to reach my feet in order to put on shoes and socks
• The realization that doing 15-20 minutes of yoga when I first get up in the morning really helps me get started for the day
• Improvement in balance, very important at my age
• Improvement in my lower back
• Helped left leg recover from knee replacement
• Improved circulation in left leg so the pulse is normal and there is no swelling
• Improved techniques in basic down dog position-shifting more off shoulders by raising hips, beginning to get it
• Holding time for yoga as a high priority—valuing it as part of a greater value to care for body and spirit
• Yoga fundamentals feel key to helping keep me in shape for biking, etc, rehab from ski injury
• Greater confidence in trying new classes
• Freer in being fully present—leaving responsibilities outside the studio
• More physically fit
• Emotionally calm
• Better focused
• Ability to relax more
• Handle stress through breathing
• Expanded positions
• Applied breath into daily life
• Developed more strength
• Enjoyed my practice
• Discovered more about my body its relationship in space
• My practice has helped me to find my center and my most powerful position in every area of my life: health, spiritually, athletic endeavors, personal relationships and career
• I have learned how to soften my solar plexus, bringing me into a position of greater power
• I’ve learned to focus on my own practice rather than the practice of others
• I’ve learned how to be aware of and attend to my emotions, as well as understand their importance and relationships to the body
• I’ve integrated yoga as one of the cornerstones of my athletic regimen, I swim, run, bike with better form as a result
• Yoga has helped me to find the patience in moments that would normally upset me (stress)
• Yoga has helped me find my body after many years of mental separation and physical discomfort
• Yoga has reminded me that I am strong
• Yoga helps me smile
• Yoga has opened my minds eyes (third) and I can see so clearly my own perceptions and actions, and also to notice the body language and emotions of others, inspiring empathy and greater communication in my interactions
• I do yoga almost every day as I transition from work through retirement to new work
• I am stronger and more flexible which at 67 feels like a gift
• I am better able to be in the moment during yoga
• I have a different relationship to my body as I am more aware of anatomy and how my body works
• Daily practice now something I seek and miss when I can’t get it in versus avoid and drag myself
• Yoga is present in all my work-teaching movement and breathing to all the populations I work with as an all-purpose tool (students, staff, families)
• Yoga’s presence in my every day movement. I feel more mindful, safer and more comfortable in my body, more optimistic about safety and health in the future.
• Taking a deeper look at inspirational practice of yoga, adding anoterh layer  (physical, mental and spiritual) to practice/live
• Overall calmer, happier, more peaceful because of yoga
• Come backto yoga for painrelief after being inconsistent for several years
• Helped refocus and take time for self while finishing nursing school and helping raise child with a friend
• Present: staying focused in the moment when school, sudden onset parenting and life get too hectic
• Slowly learning to protect myself
• To breath rhough my fears and anxiety
• To listen not only to my body but myself and others
• To be open
• To try new and different things
• Yoga has become a primary anchor within an exploratory journal of “life practices”—along side mediation, yoga most quickly brings me home in the body
• I have strengthened my practice by focusing on deepening the multiple aspects of each posture
• I have a greater focus, to know my pelvis works to connect, along with the core, feet and crown
• Noticing stronger upper body: able to lift and carry things I never could before
• Easier/faster falling asleep using “rest on exhale”
• Able to find more compassion and be more patient
• Almost no lower back pain anymore!
• Balance (literal, like standing on one foot) much better
• Deepened my experience of yield
• Began contact improvisation
• Improved/changed my running by drawing in more deeply to core (especially area of pancreas/solar plexus)
• Began serious, daily mediation practice
• Softened in all aspects of my yoga practice and life
• Improved digestion
• Learned to breath better in my daily life
• Wanting to or actually getting up earlier in the morning, feeling like my day is longer
• Muscle strength
• Calmness
• Discovered a more relaxed self
• Increased strength
• Learned new poses
• Tried crow pose
• Tried new poses to expand my practice
• Strength
• Challenge my comfort zone
• Calm
• Used my breath at work/in traffic to destress
• Increase flexibility
• More centered, more connected
• Reduced stress and anxiety
• Shared a common experience with great people
• Made it into half moon pose
• More flexibility
• More extension in postures
• Stress relief/relax/unwind
• Flexibility
• Recovered from physical exertion much quicker
• Quiet mind during practice
• Better, deeper poses
• Stronger
• Enrolled in each yoga session
• Relieve muscle/joint pain
• Used yoga to calm and focus
• Half moon pose
• Balances
• Releasing judgment
• Much stronger upper body
• Stronger core
• Can go inward to self calm
• More grateful
• More present
• My commitment to my practice helped me to be more patient with myself and allow my imperfections to be my perfections
• Finding myself
• Being able to get off Actonel for osteoporosis
• I’m proud that I started taking yoga and working on bettering myself
• I am so thankful for the peace I found in the quiet of yoga
• Proud that I started coming to yoga again
• Saw a change in physical appearance which had a positive effect on mental well-being
• Became more flexible
• Breathing outside of class
• Kept a regular class attendance
• Practiced at home infrequently
• Enjoyed the people who teach and attend class
• Tried to get others to come to class
• I learned to fall asleep easier at night with yoga breathing
• Yoga has helped my old body remain flexible
• My plank pose has become much stronger in 2013!  Yeah!
• Learned to relax by breathing
• Live in the present
• Use yoga breathing to get to the present
• Daily hip stretches have erased some hip pain I was experiencing
• Cat stretch relieves back issues.  I use frequently.
• I have the ability to allow myself to actually let go and relax at any time–without feeling guilty
• My body was responsive to stretching in ways unfamiliar to me

Please check in tomorrow for their yoga resolutions for 2014.