Journal 4: Practice as Rtiual

        Last week I participated in another online yoga class via Zoom. The instructor was very soft spoken and descriptive with her instructions. She spoke a lot about connecting the mind and body and feeling the connection between your brain and muscles. She also included how sometimes doing yoga can affect one's emotions and bring out feelings and emotions that are trapped within ourselves. Overall, this past week's class was an interesting one that I enjoyed.

        Based on the article by Nevrin, my practice might be analyzed as a "ritual" by the use of a certain lighting I use every time and props and mat I use each time I perform yoga. Yoga instructors will have music or sound effects in the background when they do their classes or they'll burn incents or something along the lines of that. The practice of yoga could be analyzed as a "ritual" because usually each time one performs yoga they use the props they have each time or they use the same mat every time or even play a soothing song each time they perform. It is interesting how yoga can be looked at as a ritual because there are infinite ways to customize one's yoga experience. Each person has their very own special way of doing things whenever they perform yoga and it is unique to them.

        This ritual functions to change the nature, impact or intensity of my practice experience by everything working the way I want it to. Basically, whenever I have my mat and my own props it makes my yoga experience feel better. It definitely makes my yoga experience more intense rather than if I did not have my own mat or props. Having one's ritual be the same every time is important in order to feel the most comfortable with one's yoga environment and to get best results from yoga. I feel that one's ritual is something that should stay consistent in order for one to be able to truly focus and lock in on the practice of yoga.