Category: Health and Wellness
I take what they call a "slow flow" class at a nearby yoga studio; they also have acupuncture, massage, and personal fitness training. I find the flow class most helpful for working on flexibility, endurence, strength, and even cardio-vascular fitness. The instructors are most helpful, even hands-on when necessary. I'm not in a class with other blind people, and glad to know that my presence in the class is not a problem to the staff. One frustration I have with the class is the ballance poses like Tree, Dancer, and Airplain. How do I keep from wabling and nearly falling down? When we're doing these poses, the instructor tells the class to center their gaze at some fixed point to help with ballance. I don't know what I can do instead. I never could stand on one foot for very long, for that matter, never had the ballance for things like skating. My yoga instructor is not the first to suggest that there is a visual component to this. What say you, other congenitally-blind folk?
There is definitely a visual component. I was taught the mechanisms behind this in my physio studies. In the brain, you have a nerve pathway called the tectospinal tract which co-ordinates the head, neck and arms in response to visual stimuli. The position of your head triggers sluid flow through the ventricles of the brain, which is picked up and interpreted as your awareness of yourself in space. Without the visual, or in our case, tactile stimulous to centre on, the balance is made much more difficult.
Try placing the very tip of a finger against a fixed object such as a wall, or a very stable chair. It'll help.
Hope this helps
FM
Thank you for posting this. I'd like to start doing yoga to take the stress out of my life for a little while, but finding a licensed instructor's kind of difficult.
I do not practice yoga. I do however practice martial arts. One does not need to center their focus visually on something. One could imagine a line from their forehead, shootingout straight in front of them.
Also, Balance is a matter of practice, so practice.
Thank you, FM and OKSure! It's all practice; I'll keep at it.
There is a yoga class in Visability, the organisation for the blind in glasgow Scotland where I live. I think I went to it once. I might go back again. I am just so unfit. I think the lady that takes the class is blind herself.
I suggest you try it again, especially if it's a beginners' class. It will take more than one session for you to decide whether Yoga is for you.
lol-This thread is a bit old, but it's right up my alley! I've taken yoga 4 out of the 5 semesters I've been in college, and I've taken several martial arts classes as well. Balance is a key aspect in both. I've always had bad balance, but since I've taken these classes, I find that it has gotten easier to stay balanced. It does take practice, as well as deep concentration, but it can be done. My friend/karate teacher gave me a tip: always make sure your head is pointing straight ahead, and if you feel yourself dropping it or tilting it back, correct it. And indeed, yoga will help you combat stress, and the more you learn about the yogic philosophy, the closer you'll be to being able to balance many aspects of your life.
Hi, I took a Hatha Yoga class in college. It was in between semesters and only lasted two weeks. We were doing yoga for nearly 2 hours per day. I don't believe in the visualization and medatative aspects of yoga, cause they stem from Hinduism and I'm a Christian. Of courses, the stretches and some poses really do help improve flexibility and balance, and I try to work them into my workouts.
I took two yoga classes last year and loved them. I had trouble with the balance issue also, and monkey is right, just use the tip of a finger on a wall or chair. I was so taken with yoga, that I started looking for home sessions that were blind friendly. I have two of them. I havent really had a chance to work with them much, as we are moving, but when we get settled in the new house, you can bet I'll give them several tries. They are in m p 3 format and are on my computer. I also have a walking c d set on my computer.
happy yoga
cj, TexasRed
I took a yoga class to see how I liked it and I really enjoyed it. It will help me with centering my self since I am a massage student. I need to center my self before I give a massage.
Yes, I have started ging to the yoga classes in Visability. We are all blid in there inclding the teacher. Some times it is hard to follow the instructions propery. I think we should have some body sighted i here to help ot. It is left to the Partially sighted ones to help the totaly blind ones and that's not fair.