Yoga for Stress Reduction

I became certified as a yoga instructor this past fall, but I still frequently practice at home under the guidance of videos. I purchased this DVD for two reasons: 1) the instructor, Hala Khouri, is well-known for her work in trauma/stress, and she has worked closely with one of my teachers, and 2) it includes meditation, and I am trying to increase my practice of meditation along with my yoga practice. The style of yoga on this DVD is based on Khouri's work as a somatic counselor. Somatic means body, and Khouri believes that the body is the key to healing and managing emotions.

This long practice (80 minutes total with both meditations) includes various segments that be used as stand-alone mini-routines. The Main Menu reads as follows (times added by me, and names in parenthesis are as stated inside the DVD case, some of which are different than the DVD menu): Play All - Introduction - Warm-Up (17:49) - Standing Pose (25:39; Standing Poses) - Shaking It Off (11:58; Free Movement) - Cool-Down (15:27) - Meditation A (5:20) - Meditation B (5:08). I have broken down each segment in greater detail below.

WARM-UP

Khouri moves slowing through the warm-up. She briefly starts seated but quickly comes to lying on her back for moves such as a reclined twist, a reclined leg stretch, and reclined pigeon. Coming to a face-down position, she performs sphinx, cobra, and child's pose, adding a lateral stretch. On hands and knees, she moves through several rounds of cat/cow and also performs thread-the-needle. Khouri returns to a seated position to finish by checking in.

STANDING POSES

To start the standing work, Khouri encourages you to ask yourself how you are feeling in your body and to notice any sensations. This is a very flowing sequence. Khouri begins with big sun breaths and then comes into a fluid lunge pose, moving the knee up and down and circling the arms while in low lunge. She flows through plank and down dog, lunge and pyramid. Returning to standing, Khouri brings some balance work into the mix, again continuing the flowing nature of the routine. She ends this sequence with centering.

SHAKING IT OFF

Khouri beings here with a few minutes of flowing movements/stretches. She then moves to pounding the body, taking time to work her way over the entire body. Once that energy is released, she guides about four minutes of free form movement. For the last two minutes, Khouri returns to some flowing stretches and concludes with a final checkin.

COOL-DOWN

This quieting section starts with Khouri in a seated position for a full forward bend. This is followed by one-leg forward bend and then bound angle. Bringing the legs into a straddle position, Khouri performs a side bend to each side. Finishing postures include child's pose, a prone back release, and a final sphinx pose before concluding with shavasana.

MEDITATION A & B

The first meditation involves being "resourced" in your body. I didn't feel that this concept was described particularly well. What I got out of this was the idea of being centered and grounded. However, I would have liked more information, because in the second meditation--which centers around a more specific stressful situation--Khouri states that using your ability to be resourced is vital.

Overall, this was a very nice practice. I enjoyed Khouri's calming presence, and she did good job with the voiceover instruction. I do think that the overall length of this practice is a bit intimidating--all 80 minutes is close to the length of an average yoga class (75 minutes), I know my own home practices tend to be half that or even less. However, this DVD is well-chaptered, so that does provide more options. This is definitely a well-done video, and I would recommend it to anyone with some yoga experience wanting to explore working more with the body as of stress relief.