{"id":30054,"date":"2016-11-24T19:46:20","date_gmt":"2016-11-25T00:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/?p=30054"},"modified":"2016-11-24T19:46:20","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T00:46:20","slug":"a-mindful-moment-yoga-and-meditation-at-u-of-t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2016\/11\/24\/a-mindful-moment-yoga-and-meditation-at-u-of-t\/","title":{"rendered":"A mindful moment: yoga and meditation at U of T"},"content":{"rendered":"Let me start this off by saying I am not a yogi, nor am I a master of the subconscious \u2013 or any other level of consciousness for that matter. U of T\u2019s new yoga and meditation programming<\/a> is inclusive and inviting, and all you need in order to participate is your presence.\r\n\r\nYoga and meditation are available across campus five days a week at a variety of times to suit our crazy schedules. It\u2019s drop-in programming so you can go as often or as seldom as you like. If it\u2019s Wednesday, 5:15 p.m. and you\u2019re thinking you\u2019re done for the day, you can pop over to the Goldring Centre and join the \u201cYoga and Meditation\u201d session which runs from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. It\u2019s flexible \u2013 in more than just the obvious sense.\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s the session I had the pleasure of attending this week. It was held in the dance studio\/multi-purpose room on the top tier of the Goldring Centre\u2019s strength and conditioning centre. I\u2019d never been in that space before and oh how I wanted to dance! It\u2019s so bright and open, with a wall of mirrors that I could think of many ways to exploit.\r\n\r\n
\"The<\/a>
This is the site of all group fitness at the Goldring Centre, for future reference!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nI was pleased to see that a good number of people trickled in for the session. Students and community members, older and younger folk, athletes and average Joes and Janes. I wasn\u2019t overwhelmed and intimidated sitting in a group of the bendy and beautiful, instead I was inspired to join this diverse group of my peers to unwind and de-stress for an hour.\r\n\r\nThe session proceeded at a pleasant pace and the teacher who led the session reminded us repeatedly that this was our individual practice and we were always welcome to modify and adapt it as our bodies required. I certainly needed to take a step back here and there owing to some shoulder pain I\u2019ve been trying to sort out \u2013 and when I looked around I saw I wasn\u2019t alone.\r\n\r\nWe spent the beginning of the session focusing on our breath and engaging in a terribly bizarre looking breathing practice. It\u2019s called alternate nostril breathing \u2013 or \u201cnadi shodana.\u201d I have no doubt I wasn\u2019t the only one who felt a little silly, but we all followed the teacher\u2019s instructions and honestly, I felt some tension go once we stopped and settled back into regular breathing. Placebo effect? Who cares? I felt better!\r\n\r\n
\"A<\/a>
A cute little depiction of alternate nostril breathing. The idea is, you alternate between breathing in and out of each nostril. One at a time.
Source: katiehayyoga.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\nAs mentioned, a variety of sessions are available across campus and I\u2019m now excited to discover what else is out there. While they all revolve around mindfulness, meditation and distressing, there are some unique varieties of yoga and interesting teachers on the schedule. I\u2019m hoping I\u2019ll be able to get myself out of bed one day soon to do the 8 a.m. yoga and meditation on Tuesday morning.\r\n\r\n
\"Garfield<\/a>
Thankfully I pass by at least four Starbucks locations on my way to class.
Source: themagicofthoughts.wordpress.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\nOne thing I want to stress is that attending these sessions likely has a different benefit for each individual. You don\u2019t have to go for the yoga, or because you believe the meditation will be of any help to you, you might attend just to distance yourself from your phone and your jam-packed agenda or to find some peace and quiet. In any case, I recommend everyone give it a try at some point, you may be surprised by what one of these short sessions can do for you and your well-being.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Let me start this off by saying I am not a yogi, nor am I a master of the subconscious \u2013 or any other level of consciousness for that matter. U of T\u2019s new yoga and meditation programming<\/a> is inclusive and inviting, and all you need in order to participate is your presence.\r\n\r\nYoga and meditation are available across campus five days a week at a variety of times to suit our crazy schedules. It\u2019s drop-in programming so you can go as often or as seldom as you like. If it\u2019s Wednesday, 5:15 p.m. and you\u2019re thinking you\u2019re done for the day, you can pop over to the Goldring Centre and join the \u201cYoga and Meditation\u201d session which runs from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. It\u2019s flexible \u2013 in more than just the obvious sense.\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s the session I had the pleasure of attending this week. It was held in the dance studio\/multi-purpose room on the top tier of the Goldring Centre\u2019s strength and conditioning centre. I\u2019d never been in that space before and oh how I wanted to dance! It\u2019s so bright and open, with a wall of mirrors that I could think of many ways to exploit.\r\n\r\n
\"The<\/a>
This is the site of all group fitness at the Goldring Centre, for future reference!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n
Continue reading “A mindful moment: yoga and meditation at U of T”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"author":274,"featured_media":30057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1758,7204,62,65,61,70,82,67],"tags":[318,405,487,9685,13612,7266,259,1733,15653,1882,1734,9294,23702,1984,9547,237,1804,23703,1837,1983],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30054"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/274"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30058,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30054\/revisions\/30058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}