The Yoga Ride recipe

In the first posting, I wrote that the Yoga Ride is made up of three parts, this post will describe the first part, the Pre-Ride.

The Pre-Ride exercises are made up of Pre-Yoga poses taken from Alignment Yoga's Beginning Syllabus.

• Tadasana (Mountain pose) - as the grounding and check-in posture
• Dead Bug series - to exercise not just the right and left side of the body, but also the right and left side of the brain
• Psoas Wake-up - to develop this under utilized muscle
• Uddiyana Bandha Wake-up - for core strength
• Sumo - flexion of the ankles, knees and hips as well as the pelvic floor.

I learned about the Pre-Yoga postures during my 200 Hr Yoga Teacher Training (through Alignment Yoga) and adopted these for use in my Diverse Audience project. All of these exercises work well for  Pre-Yoga and/or the Pre-Ride, building on the fundamentals required for both.

If the next post I'll discuss how the bike ride portion of Yoga Ride will focus on breathing, shoulder alignment and the ride break.

Namaste

Yoga Ride Intro

My names Doug Curtis and over the last year I've been taking the course work necessary to complete a 200 hr Yoga Teacher Training certification through Alignment Yoga (AY) in Madison, WI. As part of that certification, one of the requirements is a Diverse Audience Project. The AY Diverse Audience Project is a way of introducing yoga to an audience that either may not normally take or have access to yoga.

For my project I developed the Yoga Ride, to incorporate an AY based yoga practice into cycling. Part of my interest in this was to see if the Alignment Yoga techniques could benefit other cyclist as they had benefited me.

The overall flow of the Yoga Ride goes like this...

• Pre-ride - poses to warmup, using Alignment Yoga's recipe of pre-yoga poses
• The ride - focus on breathing and form (such as hip and shoulder alignment)
• Ride break with easy no-props or mat poses/stretches
• Post-ride - opposition and down-regulating poses

My initial audience (beta testers) were members of the bicycle club that I belong to here in Waukesha, WI (Spring City Spinners) that beta testing was well received.

I'll have my certification from AY at the end of 2012 and hope to put the Yoga Ride into practice for other cyclists through either: one-on-one sessions or with the help of a local bike shop, since I don't have a studio at this time.

Watch for updates or contact me if your interested in participating in a Yoga Ride.