345. AutoDraw - V

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344. The Paddle Ball Game

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343. The Basketball Game

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342. AutoDraw - IV

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341. My Yoga Experience

- H A R I N I

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It all started in elementary school, when I enrolled in after-school yoga. Mrs. Nora, came to teach us about yoga. I was really excited. The first class was an introduction, but we did more poses like dog, cow, cat and many others! At the end of the class, she would let us relax, and open up a bottle of lavender essence. It was so calming!

Fast forward a couple of years… MIDDLE SCHOOL 6th Grade, Christmas Holiday

I then enrolled in Raffa Yoga, and my first class was:

BEGINNER 101

This class was all about the basics. We started with 2 rounds of child pose, and 2 rounds of downward facing dog. We started with Sun Salutation, and just did the 3 steps. Then we did the cat-cow pose. When we inhale, we did the cow pose, when we exhaled, we did the cat pose! Meow & MOO. We used blocks, bolsters and straps. We used blocks for the kneeling-launch, I used a bolster to support my arms. We used the bolster to do the pigeon pose.

That was tricky. We then used straps at the end to do the airplane pose. Our arms would be up and to the side, and it would be holding one end of the straps, and one of our legs would be lifted by the straps. Last but not least, we did the final resting pose, which was did by laying on our back, closing our eyes, and remaining silent & still. After a few minutes we were asked to bring consciousness to our hands and feet. We then sat up, and did easy pose, and chanted OoMm.. The class ended by saying: NAMASTE`!

The Next Day, I was signed up for Stretch Class:

We stretch our legs first, by placing one leg over the other, and leaning towards one side, we did the same for the other side as well. We then did leg lifts, and tried to touch our feet, using the strap. We stood up, and bent forward, did the halfway lift and repeated the cycle.

We used the bolster and went to  one side, and then the other. We lifted out legs high up in the air, using the strap and block, to help bring the foot over.

We did the puppy pose, and placed one arm under the other, doing a shoulder stretch. We did the final resting pose.

The Next Class, I signed up was Kundalini:

We started with the prayer: “Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo” and the with the Adi mantra

“Ad Guru Nama

Jugath Guru Nama

Sat Guru Nama

Shri Guru Deva Nama”

Then we did kriyas. First, we started with fire breathing, by holding the shin and rocking the spine with forward inhale and backward exhale, then we twisted the spine, left is inhale, right exhale. Then we slowly rotated our head, downwards was exhale, upwards was inhale.

Sitting on our bolster, we did the thunder bolt pose, raising our arms up, interlocking our fingers, and we chanted: “Sat Nam”. Sat was belly out, Nam was belly in. We did this for a couple of minutes.

Then we did the resting pose, and Elise played the gong! After that, we started meditation, and finally ended the class with the song,

“May the long-time sun shine upon you

All love surround you

And the pure light within you

Guide your way on”

We ended the class by saying, “ Sat NAM.”

The Next class, I enrolled was Stretch class:

The first thing we did was lay on our back. The class started with the introduction at the New Year new beginning and we are asked to pick up our feet and did the back arch, we did this for a couple of minutes. We stretched on both sides, arching our lower back and taking the opposite hand and reaching to the back of the room. Simultaneously, we put our head in the direction we were stretching.

We then did leg lifts, when our legs were up, we did inhale, when our legs were down, we did exhale. We continued this process for the other exercises.

We sat up and did pranayama, which is also called the breathing exercise. We took our hands up, and said, “Hoo” when our hands were up, and said, “Saa” when our hands were down. This method is called priming. We did the cat-cow pose, when sitting, and this was to find the 2 millimeter shift in our backs.

Then finally, we did meditation for 2 minutes, thinking about the word PEACE. We then laid back and relaxed. After a while, we sat up and said a quiet OooMmm..., and the class ended with: NAMASTE`!!