Amazon.com: "Meditation is a time-honored practice that reduces stress and revitalizes the body, mind, and spirit," explains Rodney Yee, instructor for Yoga Journal's Yoga Practice for Meditation. "Meditation is awareness of posture, ease of breath, and attentiveness of the mind." In this beautiful video, Yee quietly and expertly leads you through five yoga practices that release bodily tension, improve posture, and open up breathing. The setting is grand and gorgeous Yosemite National Park, where Yee demonstrates poses in a meadow flanked by trees and cliffs, or at the edge of a lake or waterfall. The rewards of meditation are "living more calmly, more fully, with strength and grace," promises Yee. The practice is divided into five segments: Mountain, a series that moves from pose to pose, used for making the transition from daily activities to a sitting meditation (12 minutes); Garden, gentle movements done in a chair that open the hips and stretch the back (10 minutes); Tree, four sitting poses, using props to modify the poses to your personal flexibility level (10 minutes); Wind, with the focus on the movement of breath, releasing tension, and relaxing deeply (10 minutes); Sky, a meditation focusing on posture and breath, and "inviting the mind into the present moment, time and time again" (8 minutes). --Joan Price
Excellent Service This DVD was purchased as a gift for my son and I was mailing it off to him for Christmas. Delivery was prompt and I received DVD in excellent condition. Would not hesitate to purchase products again.
A good place to start I enjoy this DVD and use it fairly frequently. However, the practices are very separate -- they don't flow easily together, so you can't really just do the whole video, one set after the other. Most people, I think, will find one or two practices useful, and ignore the rest.
The first section, "Mountain" is a gentle flow series of yoga postures. These are slow, easy, and should be within the range of most beginners. You are left in a cross-legged sitting posture, so that if you keep your remote close by, you can just shut off the video and go straight into meditation. This makes a nice morning practice.
The second section "Garden" is an unusual set of postures done in a chair. These help make the hips more flexible, so you can sit for longer periods of time in meditation. Rodney Yee also mentions that you can meditate while sitting in a chair. This series would be a perfect intro for those that choose this option. Also, once you learn these postures, it would be easy to do them at work, for a quick yoga break.
The third section, "Tree" is purely instructional, teaching four sitting postures that you can use in meditation. It's not meant as a daily yoga routine.
The fourth section, "Wind" is a breathing meditation -- such an important, and often neglected part of yoga. I use this section fairly often.
The final section "Sky" is a guided meditation. It starts in a standing position, which is a bit inconvenient if you'd like to do the last two practices together. ("Wind" leaves you lying on your back.) You do sit down to meditate, though. I use it on days when I need the instruction to get myself settled. As you progress, of course, you're going to want silence for meditation.
As others have noted, the scenery is pretty -- but I tend not to judge yoga tapes by that. After all, you are listening more than you are watching, when you do the practice. I like the music on this one better than others I've heard -- something a bit more important than what the video looks like, I'd think.
This is a useful video; it would have been even more so if "Mountain", "Wind" and "Sky" could blend together more easily to make a complete practice.
Helped reduce symptoms of stress I'm a student, and have been really stressed out lately. I started to get an ulcer (I've had one before), experienced restless sleep, and was generally feeling frazzled. I'm a spiritual person, but was feeling spiritually deficit with not enough time in the day. I was desperate and I bought this DVD. I only used it a few times, but the result was remarkable and immediate. I'm a hardcore skeptic about all this free-your-mind, natural-healing stuff, but I couldn't be after this. The effects would last me through the day. My posture was corrected. I didn't experience any heartburn. I felt oddly "centered" (now I get what that word means!), and things just sort of fell into perspective. I felt nurtured. I highly recommend it if you're dealing with stress.
Meditation with lots of talking I was looking for a product that would be a good introduction to yoga, and stress-relief/meditation are always a bonus. This is a good guide to meditation, except that he keeps talking. It would probably work well if you use the techniques to your own music or with the mute button. This product did not do a lot for me, physically. I am fairly active and was looking for a way to do some stretching and refreshing yoga. This is not the right DVD. Good if you want to meditate, but don't buy it if you are looking for physical rather than mental refreshment.
Perfect start to building a meditation yoga practice In this video, master yoga instructor Rodney Yee guides the viewer through gentle yoga poses designed to allow you to focus your attention inward. The practice is divided into 5 segments:
1) Mountain. Rodney describes this as a "quiet flow series," and it contains about 12 minutes of simple stretches to warm up the body. 2) Garden. This 13-minute section focuses mainly on hip opening postures such as twists and forward bends performed while sitting on a chair. 3) Tree. In this section, Rodney spends 10 minutes reviewing 4 basic seating postures used for meditation: cobbler, hero, sage, and lotus. Each pose is practiced with and without a block for variation. 4) Wind. The purpose of this section is to concentrate on breath while in reclining postures; 10 minutes. 5) Sky. In this final 8-minute section, Rodney leads you through a seated meditation. His soothing voiceover instruction reminds you to turn your attention inward and to focus on your breathing.
Although I tend to concentrate on postures rather than meditation in my own yoga practice, I found this video to be enjoyable and restorative. I particularly liked the third section, as Rodney's breathing instruction helped me to really feel a tingling sense of deeper relaxation in my body. Rodney is an excellent instructor; his beautiful form while practicing is a perfect compliment to the gorgeous background scenery. This video would work well for anyone looking to add the benefits of meditation to their yoga practice without having to simply sit quietly in a lotus position.
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