Yoga DVD: Kundalini Yoga with Maya Fiennes

MC • 7th Nov 2008 • The Daily Nonsense • beginner, breath of fire, breathing exercises, dvd, exercise, kundalini, NaBloPoMo, poses, review, stretching, yoga

On the “resting” days when I’m not running, I needed another activity to keep me motivated and limber, so I decided to take up yoga in the mornings before work, after work and after runs.

Even with Obama elected, miracles don’t happen over night, so I still can’t afford yoga classes once or twice a week. Classes are either much too expensive or at times that are impossible for me to make. So, I’ve resorted to yoga instruction on DVDs and I think it’s a totally acceptable alternative – depending on the DVD, that is.

There’s quite a selection of yoga dvds at the library, so I checked out a few to try them out before making my purchase online. I wanted a DVD that taught me versatile poses that I could practice as a beginner and then deepen or extend into as an intermediate.

Kundalini Yoga appears to be based on meditation and stimulating one’s chakras or energy flows through breathing and chants. On Kundalini Yoga to Detox and Destress with Maya Fiennes, she uses these same techniques and combines them her own music compositions. Fiennes, from Macedonia, is a beautiful woman with a clear, charming accent. Dressed in white, she sits in a white room on a simple rug while her voice over describes the contents on the DVD. It can feel a little hokey, at first, to repeat the chants in Sanskrit but I decided to play along. I won’t lie, I didn’t feel a bright light entering my third eye or a connection with the infinite being but I did find myself relaxing and completely self-aware of my posture, breath and muscle tension.

The skeptic in me does wonder what the benefits are for body drops or wrists press but I could feel immediate results after doing active cat/cow poses and Breath of Fire (which is actually a difficult breathing exercise for me to master).

I enjoyed Fiennes DVD, she’s beautiful to watch and the music she composed for the exercises are pleasant but at only 60 minutes (with 10 minutes lost to introduction) I thought that after a few viewings, it would no longer be challenging. For $8.00 on Amazon.com, it’s not such a terrible investment. I think, if one could get past the embarrassment or awkwardness of chanting in a group, this would be a great DVD to try with other beginner yoga friends.