Meaning

Be it that you live in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Halifax or MontrealSt John’s yoga means many different things to me. When I first began doing yoga, it was for stretching my body after long runs and loosening the muscles that I had overused. Yoga now means something else today. I now enjoy yoga for how it makes me feel! 

Yoga helps me to relax my mind, focus on my body movements and manage my stressors that I have had in the day from work and life. Yoga has also taught me to focus on my breath work and how it can relieve stress that I can have throughout my day. 

When Doing

When I am doing yoga, I am not thinking about the outside world, or what is happening around me. Yoga gives me the change to just be in the moment. 

During yoga, it gives me time to recharge myself as I am only focused on what I am doing in the moment. I am not thinking about what happened during my day or what I will be doing once I am done yoga. 

Yoga gives me an outlet to clear my mind of any negativity, and to focus on what amazing things my mind can do. I can let my mind be focused on other things besides work, home life, and to just be in the moment.

Yoga helps me relieve the stress that has built up during the day, while giving me time to focus on myself and giving me the opportunity to just be. 

Pressure

There is no pressure, no anxiousness, and not having to deal with anything. Yoga is a wonderful tool to keep the body in alignment and to help with the overuse of muscles

During yoga, if I listen to my body, it shows me where I am holding tension and helps me with relaxing my shoulders, as that is where I hold a lot of tension. 

Yoga helps lengthen my muscles, and helps to align my body, such as my hips and lower back in certain poses. Yoga has taught me what my body is capable of doing and that even though I may not be able to do poses well, to not underestimate how amazing the body is. 

Helped

Yoga has helped me to concentrate when I breathe, and has improved my breathing when doing other activities such as running and hiking. 

Yoga has shown with breathwork and proper breathing techniques, I can manage how my body reacts to stress. I can manage stress, by taking a moment to do some deep breathing and release the tension that I am feeling.

Breathwork

Breathwork has shown me how to take the moments to just be in the moment and to listen to my surroundings. I have noticed that with breathwork during yoga, it can lengthen and give more space for muscles, and joints within my body. 

Breathwork during yoga gives you a sense of being, and just being present.

Yoga has shown me how to relax, how to engage with my body, listen to what my body is telling me, yoga has taught me to just breathe and enjoy. Yoga has shown me a new way of life!