Yoga

Yoga: Final Reflection

CAS, Uncategorized

LO4: Showing perseverance, resilience, and commitment to activities

I participated in yoga for two seasons and I can say with confidence that my fitness level improved. Since I am asthmatic, it was very important that I stayed committed to this activity. I was able to demonstrate this resilience and commitment by attending the weekly sessions, challenging myself with harder poses, and practicing yoga at home with my mom. Maintaining motivation for me was easy because of the wonderfully supportive community during the sessions. Additionally, I knew I was doing the activity to improve my health, which helped me to keep working hard. Although at times it was challenging, especially going on a Monday afternoon (during which I just wanted to go home and sleep), the positive outcomes from the activity outweighed any arguments I had. Every Monday, I saw myself going home relaxed and calm, ready to work.

Yoga (Season 2)

CAS

LO4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.

Yoga was one of the new activities that I tried this year and I can say that I am thoroughly enjoying it. Finding motivation to exercise is quite challenging for me and I tend to make excuses not to do anything. By signing up for an activity with a time commitment, I managed to find motivation to consistently do yoga every week. I also signed up with a friend and we ended up pushing each other to go when the other didn’t feel like it. This was another key reason I was able to maintain my motivation and commitment.

The activity also helped me develop new relationships since the yoga group consists of many approachable and friendly people. I found myself growing quite comfortable with the people around me since everyone was incredibly kind and supportive as we developed our skills together. Despite everyone having different levels of mastery of yoga skills, we made sure no one was left behind. A lot of this was also due to the teachers incorporating different levels of yoga poses (beginner, intermediate, and advanced). As of now, I have lost a lot of the self-consciousness I originally had when I started the activity.

This safe environment, the friendships I made, and the physical progress I was making (e.g. becoming more flexible) really helped me strengthen resolve to continue to do yoga and start doing it outside of school as well.

Yoga (Season 1)

CAS, Uncategorized

LO1: Identify their own strengths and develop areas for growth.

I signed up for yoga primarily because I have asthma and I thought it would help me outgrow it through its focus on breathing exercises. I also thought it would be a good way to relax and manage the stress from the IB. Going into the activity, I had a bit of experience with doing sun salutations but that was it. The unfamiliarity of what we were going to be doing was definitely a bit daunting at first. However some of my strengths are to be able to adapt to new situations and to approach challenges with perseverance. This helped with my attitude towards the activity.

Something that was challenging for me was the physical aspect of the activity.  I’m not a very athletic person and some of the poses were quite hard to do. It made me realise that I need to do these exercises outside of the weekly sessions as well to improve my progress.

Another key component of yoga is the meditation we have to at the end of every session. It’s actually quite challenging to empty your mind of everything and just focus on your breathing. Trying to do this every week has made me so much more self aware about my most frequent thoughts and emotions. It helped me identify some of the stress factors in my life and has motivated me to try and get reduce them.

I think something that has improved for me during these past few sessions is my mental state. I’ve become so much calmer and relaxed when dealing with stressful situations. I hope this continues for the rest of the term.