My yogi life meets Prenatal yoga

yoga has been part of my life since I was 20.

And now, I turned 38 (yup……this is 38!) and I am so proud and feeling privileged that I have been keeping my dedication to yoga for all these year. Moving around 3 different countries — USA, Japan, then Germany — embraced yoga in my hometown in Redondo Beach, California, and kept my practice going in Japan while I struggled with some culture shock. I was so depressed in Japan in the beginning when I moved back there after living in America all my life. It took me so long to integrate and get used to living in Japan as a “non-Japanese” even though my background is Japanese. And I had yoga to help me keep myself grounded, calm and just “together”. I think if I wasn’t a yoga practitioner at that time, I wouldn’t know how I would’ve been able to over come my difficulties with culture shock. It felt so natural for me to keep on breathing and roll my yoga mat out every day or every other day just to keep my sanity. Now I cannot be more grateful that I kept it going and I was able to teach in Japan and also here in Germany. Whenever I went back home to Redondo Beach, I went to my favorite yoga studio, Harmony Yoga, and I was so happy to be back there every time. The energy that flows in there, this synergy of breath and mind.

So now, being able to teach here in Germany, it took me a while to really get a hang of teaching in German since of course I teach better in English. I’ve learned my yoga in English so teaching it in Germany made me feel “inferior” and “less” of myself. I really wanted to offer the course that I can share and be able to send the right message with the right instructions / words…..and I mean, some things cannot be translated directly so I struggled. I am still struggling and I always feel like i can only do 65% or 70% of what I can really offer. But then again, I didn’t think that I would be pregnant and be teaching yoga/ keeping up my practice. I REALLY did the prenatal yoga during my pregnancy and it made me feel GREAT. I have to say it helped me the whole pregnancy, and also in labor. We all know how it is when someone’s going through labor: we see them in TV shows and movies how the mom-to-be is just screaming her lungs out….! ….so I expected osmehtign super painful super long……BUT it went by so fast and not as bad as I thought. I know there’s all that happy hormone that comes right after labor so I know the feeling of pain or exhaustion just disappears as soon as you hold your baby. And yes….it truly was amazing. *awww*

Looking back on how I spent my pregnancy months and some of the moves that I kept on practicing, I thought I can share some here with you. I have some short prenatal videos that I’ve posted on Instagram as well but I know if i can assist you in your pregnancy to stay calm and in shape, I would be happy to do that. And of course, right now due to COVID-19, it’s not the easiest times but when things get better, it would be nice to be there with the mommies-to-be in the same room to guide them through in prenatal asanas.

Here is another tip for boosting your Immune System:
:: Tree Pose Vrksasana ::

Here are some Asanas that’s good for prenatal yoga: Cat & Cow, Chair-pose (Utkatasana), High lunge, Warrior 2. I will blog about the first 2 today, and the other 2 in my next post.

Cat & Cow (Chakravakasana) : This is a great pose for everyone to get into when starting their practice. I would say not only for prenatal yoga, but for EVERYONE, it’s the best thing to warm up the body, the spine, and to find your breath. It helps with finding balance with your body, keeping in mind not to put all the wight and pressure on the wrists.

Start by getting into your table top position. If your belly is getting bigger, then of course, you can keep your knees bigger than your hips’ width-apart. Keeping those wrists directly under your shoulders to help find balance.
Exhale push the ground away from you as you round your back and look into your Baby bump (or to your belly button). At this time, you can think about tucking your tail-bone under.
Inhale: now let your baby bump hang and keep your chest reaching forward while keeping your shoulders back. Be careful not to strain your neck so you want to just simply keep your chin slightly forward. And repeat a few times. You would feel a nice flow of energy and heat building up inside.

2. Chair pose (Utkatasana): Great for building strength in your legs — especially before you want to come into a squat. Nice for keeping strong thighs during your pregnancy if you find yourself not walking too much or getting any movement.

Keeping your feet parallel to one another, hips width-apart, start in your mountain pose (Tadasana). With an inhale reach up with your arms, keeping your shoulders away from your ears, and start to sit down with an exhale
Keep in mind that you want to have your knees coming directly on top of your toes — and make sure that you ca still see your big toes (both right and left). So you are bending your knees and imagine that you have a string on your hip joint and someone pulls that slowly towards the back. You are trying to find that “sitting” position by tucking your tail bone under so that you are not curbing your lower back. Back stays relatively straight here.
Keep on breathing calmly through your nose (in prenatal yoga, if you need more breath, you can always exhale through the mouth — but try and inhale through the nose so that you can get some filtered air)

Here’s the link to my Instagram (IGTV) for some prenatal yoga video that I have posted. Please take a look if you’re interested.

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CDriTEnlgAn/