Weekly Journal 2

Kaitlyn Gonzalez 

Weekly Journal 2

GIS-4636-091

September 24, 2020

    There are a number of things that make your space a 'scared' space in my opinion. When I was able to practice in person with a class, there are certain things that I would look for. For me, in order for me to practice yoga, I need to be a place that is quiet, maybe with some light music, but something calming. This helps me really focus and be in tune with my body and what yoga is doing for me. When I am able to practice in a calm and quiet space, I am able to relax and the poses bring me more peace. Another thing that I like for a sacred place when practicing yoga is scents. I've been in yoga classes that might have candles or light incense burning, and I think that the light scent adds such a sense of comfort, along with the music. 
 
   When practicing at home though, this tends to be a different story. We can set up a sacred place for ourselves in our home, but most likely it will not be free of distractions. With everybody mostly working from home, my home tends to be loud and always has people in it. In order to counteract this and still make my practicing space sacred, there are some things that I do instead. For one, I make sure to close my door and try to block out some of the noise going on in my apartment. Secondly, I burn some incense or a candle in my room to create that comforting scent that I love when I go to a yoga class. Lastly, I open some of my windows to let some fresh hair in and I put some wireless headphones pair it all together with some calming music playing, without it interrupting if I move around. While it might not be perfect, it works for me in making my room a sacred place to practice my yoga, even though it might be virtual. 

For this particular practice, I decided to try something new. This class was "Yoga at Your Desk".  When we think about yoga, we might think that we have to be laying somewhere relaxing with music playing, but this is not entirely true. With this video, I was able to practice yoga at the comfort of my own desk, and this is something that I will be taking with me to do in the future. I can practice some of these poses while I do homework and want to stretch, or if I need a few minutes to myself to relax. This instructor, yoga with Adriene, which I have done her videos in my past practices, was very helpful in showing how to do these poses easily at your desk. Even though this video was only five minutes, it can be helpful to just take five minutes to yourself for self-care and stretch out your bones after sitting at a desk for hours. I think that this video is especially helpful because of the fact that most classes are online and many people are sitting at their desks for hours at a time. In this particular video, it focused mainly on neck and back stretches, which were so helpful because it is a strain on the neck to sit at the computer all day. Overall, this video was a great quick video in order to get a stretch in all at the comfort of your own desk. 

Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAUf7aajBWE

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