BellaOnline Forums Health and Fitness Yoga Rodney Yee's A.M. Yoga

A friend of mine loaned me this DVD so I'm trying out the routines. It seems that Rodney Yee has five short routines on here, meant for Mon - Fri. They are standing, twists, backbends, forward, and hip openers.

Today I did the standing routine. It was 23 minutes long. It was filmed in a lovely part of Arizona, looking very Grand Canyony in the background. There are options for both full and minimal voiceover which is nice. I went for the full. He does a great job of explaining what to do, how to stretch or position or bend. The background music is light and relaxing.

It goes through a series of fairly standard moves - forward bend, triangle pose, and so on. Then it ends in corpse pose which he calls "relaxation pose." I imagine people don't like the corpse imagery I like that it ends with relaxing music so you can take as long as you wish and then when it auto-returns to the main menu it's still relaxing music. Some DVDs pop back to jarring active music which isn't quite as nice.

To me a down side here is that he doesn't mirror you. He says to do something with your left foot, and then he does it with HIS left foot which means it's the opposite of you rather than the mirror of you. I'm more used to mirroring and find that easier, but I was able to adapt.

On one hand I felt it was a little short, but on the other hand it's meant for busy people who have to squeeze this in so I suppose someone wanting a longer routine can just do it twice or do two in a row.

A general commentary - when you put the DVD in you have to sit through an introductory part where he rambles about how important it is to have a gentle start to your day and so on. It'd be fine to have that as an option on the main menu but I don't want to have to watch that or skip past it every time I start the DVD. I'd rather it started on the main menu and let me choose to watch that or choose the routine I wanted to do right away.

So far so good!

OK second is the Twist yoga. I did that today. That was 26 minutes long. About half way through he says "Now take a strap and put it on your foot ..." - luckily I *did* have a strap sitting next to me, but they really should warn you at the beginning to "make sure you have a strap handy for this session."

Again it was filmed in a lovely canyony area of Arizona and the music and vocals were just right. They help you feel relaxed and know what to do without being intrusive.

Again I wish he was mirroring you. Especially with twists, here arms are going over legs and bodies are turning it would really be helpful if I could simply mirror what he looks like instead of trying to interpret the moves and then get myself into the same position. Maybe they should have a "mirrored option."

I did have to skip past that intro piece to get to the second lesson even though I'd seen the intro already. I can see this getting annoying after a while.

It was a real wake-up call to me that I hadn't done yoga in a while, how my body felt during these twists. It was both challenging to do and really good feeling. I definitely will be doing this twist session often, once I finish testing the whole set.

I began this session with all sorts of chaotic thoughts in my mind and by the end I was feeling much more relaxed. So that right there is a plus! I do wish the "relaxation pose" was a little longer but I also understand that this is a morning routine and most people want to get it done with and on with their day.

Third is back bends, I did that today. It's 28 minutes long. At least in this one he says right up front to have a bolster, so I could pause immediately and run and get it. You only use it for the very first opening part. The rest is standing and downward-facing-dog based moves. Some really helped me stretch a lot, I feel much better after doing them.

This one was situated by a quiet river in some canyons so it was quite pretty. Of course most of the time I'm not looking at the TV, I'm looking past my hands or whatever he tells me to do, but still it's nice when I glance over to see the pretty backgrounds.

He doesn't give much advice about where to place the bolster. Just "behind your back / shoulderblades". I had to do some moving around before I found a spot that seemed comfortable.

There were one or two places here where he would simply say "go into bow position" without any other guidance. And the camera would often be just on his face so you couldn't guess what he was doing. In the first two sessions he was clear to explain every move - and remember they have a 'non verbose version' for people who know what they're doing so this supposedly is the verbose version. So I think in this track maybe he forgot to describe things fully. It makes things a little tricky for newcomers.

Still in general it was a good segment for me. It was challenging but not impossible. He recommended ways to ease off and ways to make it more difficult based on where you currently were in your stretchiness.

Fourth is forward bends which I did at the end of my day today, which was at 4am. That counts as morning, right?

I forgot to write down the time but it seemed to be about the same as the others. Interestingly though the time seemed to fly by. I'm not sure if it's because it's at the end of my day or because it was a very long day, or if I am just getting back into the yoga swing of things and now a half hour of yoga seems easier.

Once again he decides to use a strap part way through without any warning at the beginning. So have those straps handy.

Also at the end where you go out of "relaxation pose" (corpse pose) into a seated position he has you roll onto your right. My in person yoga teacher always said to "roll onto the side you are most comfortable with" which I liked much better. We all have preferences, it doesn't really matter what side you choose, and this is part of the ending relaxation. So I'd like it if he let you choose that.

Still, relaxing voices, a gorgeous river/canyon location, and the stretches did help my back quite a bit. I can really feel the improvements in how my back feels even after only these few days of restarting the yoga. So it is WELL worth carving out 20 minutes out of your morning or evening to pop this into the DVD player. I went into it with an agitated mind and ended with a fairly quiet mind. I came on here to write up my thoughts while they were fresh - but then I'm heading to bed!

Namaste

Fifth and last is hip openers which I did today about 4am. Again I figure it's my morning

The time for this one was 26 minutes and just as with the forward bends one the time seemed to fly by. I think it must be that I'm getting used to the yoga and the time now goes quickly. Of course the true test will be when I go back to the first one again and see what I think.

In this one he doesn't pull out a strap - he pulls out a block! So be sure you have one ready.

This is one that I can still feel in my hips even an hour later. so it definitely did some good.

Also with all its twists it's one I really wish he'd done in mirror fashion. It was fairly hard watching his arms and legs all twist up and then to try to figure out how to get my own body to do the same thing.

I do like the variety in the five sessions and will now be interested 1) to see if the first one seems shorter on a second run at it and 2) once I do that test, to see how they differ with the minimal vocals option.

I have this cd too and love it. I have several by Rodney Yee in fact. I started out with his yoga for beginners, even before I ever took a class.

I got this one because I wanted something a little more advanced and it didn't disappoint. I think his routines, with the soothing voice and voice overs are very relaxing, unlike some yoga cd's where they jump around and talk too much-lol

It's good to hear that someone else has tried out this DVD. I do like the relaxing atmosphere to the exercises given.

OK did the first one again, the standing poses. It turns out that it didn't feel short, although I was thinking about it the entire time (if it was shorter feeling or not) so that could have had something to do with it Really though this involved a lot of balancing poses and 'hold for a while' poses so I think that makes it feel longer.

Interestingly now I see there was water in this one too - I think on the first pass through that I was so taken by the beautiful canyons that I didn't really notice the water. Now I notice all of them as a whole. So that's interesting to realize.

I also think on this one he said to roll to your left side at the end and I'm pretty sure on others he said to roll to your right side. So he does vary how you come out of relaxation pose. Still I would rather be able to choose for myself which way to roll out.

I can still hear my back pop and creak during some of these fairly simple poses, but I do feel like I'm making progress in regaining my flexibility - I can do better each day. So definitely doing regular daily practice is important, even if it's short little half hour sessions like this!

Next I'll try this one out with the "minimal vocals" to see how it differs. Which reminds me - at one point he raises his hand to the sky in a pose but never mentions it vocally. So if you weren't watching, you wouldn't know. So they do need to be a bit better with the vocal prompts. Also this had a section where they say to do something and then go off and look at the canyons so you can't see what he's doing. That's not helpful

Did the second one, twists. Again it didn't feel short. It had a lot of balancing and such so I think those routines feel longer to me.

I did it this time with the minimal voice. He still talked a fair amount, it's not that he went silent. But often his instructions were cryptic. He'd say "twist to the right" when really your leg was going to the left. And he'd jump from downward facing dog into forward bend without any warning. So I'm not fully keen on the minimal option. I think you would have to memorize the whole routine and then just listen for the cues to make sure you were at the right point.

My cat kept trying to meander beneath me during the downward facing dogs and such. An added challenge.

I think all I have left to test out is a bonus discussion video of some sort - I'll do that tomorrow!

ok I did the bonus video - it was an interview with Rodney Yee about his childhood and how he got into yoga. How he kept trying to do things to please his father and finally he realized he just had to accept himself.

A nice lesson to learn!