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Why I Joined a Yoga Challenge for Women over 50

Quote of the day: “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’!”

Trust me when I say I wasn’t thinking of ever joining in a yoga challenge. Reading Andrea’s post, where she talked about what she learned from practicing yoga for 60 days straight got me thinking.  I figured it was time to get off my butt and try to keep moving. If you’ve been following along on my monthly highlights, then you might realize that I twisted my mom’s (and Rob’s) arm to go to a local stretch class. It’s been about 6 months since we started going, but we only attend once a week.

Therefore, I was intrigued if daily movement could be an added benefit. I was also interested in the idea of trying online yoga instead of attending a class at a center or building. When I talked to Andrea about this yoga challenge, it turned out to be a very flexible challenge (no pun intended, ha ha) which made it easier.

We tagged each other on our IG stories to have accountability. And there were no other “rules.” It was all about being a benefit for ourselves. After she explained that many of the practices were short and sweet, I was all in. Just like I talked about in our recent workout clothes post, it seems like there is a study published daily that touts the benefits of exercise.

Spoiler alert, I did love this online yoga enough to reach out to the company, The Yoga Collective and request a discount code for my readers. I’ve tried to include all the details below, but the short version is you can get 3 months of this online yoga for only $10 with the code Jtouch.

My Workout History

Gymnastics

I have had the benefit of being somewhat active most of my life. Not that it’s ever too late to start I believe! Yet, I thought it might be good to share my history to give some background to why I love this yoga.

As a child, I competed in gymnastics up until high school. I was pretty good, but definitely nothing like the UCLA gymnast that recently was so newsworthy. A full twisting back flip was my highlight of my floor routine. Of course, in my defense, we didn’t have those kind of spring floors either. LOL! During high school I switched over to the high school gymnastics team instead of the private team. Less practices, less stress and less money were all motivating factors.

One of my teammates from my private team did go on to get a college scholarship, but that was never my goal. I knew that I wanted to concentrate on my studies in college so I could go to dental school. Yes I knew I wanted to be a dentist from a young age. I even taught gymnastics in college to young kids and met a couple of my lifelong friends that way. In fact, Heidi who was included in a blog post last summer, was one of those I taught with in college.

From college to about 15 years ago, I continued working out. This was back in the day of “No pain, no gain”  and “Abs of Steel” so it was all about working out hard and producing a sweat.

Kinder and Gentler Workouts

Finally in my dental career, I started working out with a personal trainer. It took me years to figure out that someone helping me could be a good thing. TJ was very valuable in helping me to realize that I could still get a beneficial workout without killing myself. In fact, Rob would even come with me to these sessions, and Rob is not a workout fanatic. In fact, he is just the opposite. You can even read our testimonial on TJ’s page, if you’re interested.

It was in these last 15 years that I’d started trying out other kinds of exercises. Both Rob & I would take a mat pilates class almost weekly at our gym. Knowing how important a strong core was huge especially for my job. We attended this class for probably 3-5 years.

And I tried out a yoga class sometime in this time frame. I remember thinking it wasn’t all that different from the stretching we did during our gymnastic sessions. Finally about 6 years ago, I tried a heated yoga class. To me that was heaven since I’m always cold. The only issue was how expensive it was and the classes weren’t always convenient. So it wasn’t something I did much.

Our personal training sessions ended when we retired due to the cost. However, I learned SO much from TJ. Just the idea that doing the same workout over and over can cause repetitive damage. It makes sense, but I never thought about it. Besides changing up your workouts is not only good physically but mentally.

Yoga

I’ve seen this yoga instructor on Facebook before and am always inspired. I mean how could you not be? She’s 97 and sitting like that. And just recently I shared this video also showing a 90 year old who is incredibly flexible. In my thinking, flexibility and balance get overlooked in many traditional workouts. And yet I believe these factors are super important.

But let me remind you, I am not a yoga instructor. Nor am I an expert in any kind of physical fitness. I will share that one of my blog readers already signed up for this deal from the Yoga Collective. She is a pysch nurse practitioner and told me she always recommends yoga/meditaion/journaling to all our her patients (or anyone who will listen to her).

I have to tell you that even Rob has been doing many of these classes with me. And he is the opposite of flexible. But over these last 15 years of us being together, he has certainly come a long way. Not that he likes it, but he does it.

So when I signed up for the yoga challenge, I figured if anything it would get my blood flowing for at least 10 minutes a day. That’s why I decided to join in. Since I’ve enjoyed at least 90% of the classes through The Yoga Collective, I thought I’d write a post about the entire experience. That wasn’t my intention at the beginning of this challenge. But if something helps me, I thought it’s nice to share.

Pros and Cons of Online

I’d never even thought about practicing yoga from online classes. I think this was the biggest factor that made me join Andrea in this. Along the way, even Cathy joined us in the challenge, however, I know she used a different online program. I’m sure there are many options out there. One day the Yoga Collective’s site was down for awhile, so we tried one we found on YouTube. It was definitely not as good. But I’m sure there are other great ones.

Being a pros and cons kind of girl, I wanted to share my thought on any online program.

Pros

The greatest thing is the convenience of place and time. Like I was saying, we go to a local stretch class once a week. It’s an hour class, but by the time we get in the car, pick up mom, get there early to make sure we get in, take the class and then drive home, it’s actually 2 hours long. That’s a lot out of my day.

With our online yoga, I can walk upstairs, pick a 10 minute class, and be done in less than 15 minutes. And I’m able to do it at any time I want. Truthfully, I have found that I love my yoga in the evenings. I’m winding down from the day, and don’t have a mile long list of things to do. But I would never want to leave the house to do it at this time in the evenings. Especially outside in the snow like in this video…haha!!

If I don’t like the class I’m taking (which has happened twice), I can easily stop it and find another one. I haven’t wasted any money this way.

I’m not sure about other programs but the Yoga Collective (especially with my deal) is amazingly inexpensive. When I was going to heated yoga it was $17 a class. I realize you can buy a monthly pass but that’s still $89 through CorePower and $30 through YogaPod. A month.

And I can do this anywhere. Most times, like you see above, I’m in our office on the carpet. But I could easily access the classes from my phone too, and that’s how I continued the challenge even when I was at my knitting retreat or in LA for FierceCon during that time period.

Cons

You’re going to laugh but one con to me is that I’m not inspired to put on my cute workout clothes. Go ahead and laugh. I know, that sounds silly. But I do love clothes, and when I’m doing my yoga at home, I’ve been known to do it in my jammies. You may actually consider this an advantage. It all depends on your perspective.

You also need some motivation to do this on your own. Of course that’s not much different than making yourself go to a brick and mortar class. That’s where the tagging was nice on our IG stories. Not that we berated each other if we didn’t do yoga on a certain day, but you knew someone was looking out for you.

And you don’t have someone coming around to adjust your form when you’re at home. Of course, in many of the classes I’ve been in, it’s not like you get much individualized attention. But occasionally they would straighten you out.

Now even though this program is inexpensive, many of you might have Silver Sneakers which means many classes are free through your health care. So this cost could be more than that. As long as you’re doing something, that’s what is important.

The disadvantage that is in my home is distractions. Yes, I’m looking at both of my kitties. They love to come in when we are doing our sessions and interrupt. The same thing could also be said for my husband who thinks he’s a comedian at times. It’s not always the quiet, reflective practice that you find at a studio.

The deal and which Yoga Collective classes I would recommend to start

If you do want to sign up for The Yoga Collective, let me give you more details. Like I said, it’s $10 for a 3 month membership with my code Jtouch.  You need to sign up under the monthly membership (not the yearly one) which will trigger this deal. After that you can continue on to a monthly membership for $5.99 per month. You can cancel at anytime. Even if you cancel during that 90 day period you will still have access to your membership for the full 90 days.

The site does offer a 15 day free trial membership, which then is $15 a month after that. Therefore, my deal is a better deal, but when you click on that 15 day free trial membership, you can put my code in (Jtouch) and use it instead.

I’m not very experienced in yoga even with all my history. So I found a great Beginner Series and we took all of these. Even though I’d done a couple of classes before, it was very helpful to hear all of the details of where to look and place your body. In fact, I think I’ll take these again, because it’s like anything. The more you do it, the easier it becomes.

For those of you who have trouble with getting up and down, there is chair yoga. This first one was maybe a little basic for us, but 2, 3, 4 and 5 were pretty darn good.

I do like how you can click the heart above the video (once it’s the only video on your screen) to make it a favorite. Then it’s easy to go back to the ones you really like. Your favorites are under “My Yoga Profile.”

One of my other favorites is the Quicky which is a 20 minute routine. Right now I have 18 favorites. But I also like trying out new ones.

What do you Need for Yoga?

Seriously, when you first start you really don’t need anything. Especially if you are at home on carpet, you don’t even need a mat. But if you’re on a hard floor, a yoga mat can be helpful. We bought our mats at Target a long time ago, but you can see (from the first yoga mat link) there can be even better deals at certain places. But worst case, you could even use a towel to make the hard floor more comfortable. There even are foldable yoga mats available, if that seems better for you.

That’s another thing I like about most of the classes in The Yoga Collective. They will give you suggestions on props you might have at home if you don’t have the “equipment.” The only thing I’ve bought is a yoga block. I really bought it for Rob since he isn’t so flexible, but he is stubborn and won’t use it. So I use it occasionally.

The other items many instructors discuss are yoga straps and bolsters. If you are going to add these thing to help your practice, it’s smart to get the combo deal for the block and strap.

You may notice that I am wearing my compression ankle socks in these photos. I don’t always wear them, but if we are doing a more active practice, they are nice so I don’t slip as much. Especially since we do ours on the carpet. And rarely am I barefoot in the winter.

The Facts

I will get a small commission ($2 for each sign up) if you decide to use my code, Jtouch, for this wonderful deal from The Yoga Collective. That’s only because I reached out to the Yoga Collective and asked if they would give my readers a better deal than what is on their website. So just think, if you sign up, not only are you giving yourself a great gift of exercise, but also supporting my shoe and clothing addiction. Thanks for being so supportive!

I also linked up this post to Zen Tip Tuesday #ZTT.

 I’m so glad to report that you should be able to Pin these images to your own Pinterest now. So I’d love it if you help me out and pin away! 

Even if you wouldn’t consider purchasing your purchases online, it can be helpful to look through my links to see what is available! It certainly doesn’t hurt my feelings, if you click on them but don’t like them. Just so you know, one of the ways I make money from this blog is through these linked items.

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