Mantra Girl Advanced Kundalini Yoga for the Spiritual Warrior

First of all this is my first experience with Kundalini yoga. My yoga consists of Power Yoga/Ashtanga.

On that note my first try at it was a wonderful experience! I plan on doing this workout at least once a week..maybe 2 times a week as I felt a newbie at this particular method of yoga. My muscles worked differently then my usual yoga and i have alot of challenges to meet. It was advanced to me for alot of the exercises and I felt alot of strength work was involved...also it had an aerobic feeling for some of the exercises. This is not a 'flow yoga' at all. If you have the Hard Body Yoga it's similar in format meaning you do an exercise repetively..many reps of it as a 'set' before moving onto the next exercise. I have lots of room to grow with this workout and hope to find other workouts similar with great production, music and presentation as this one was!

It is about 60 minutes long, no chapters and I couldn't get a menu to pop up so don't know how to turn the music off option. However I would not want to turn the music off as the music synchronizes very well with the exercises (sets). Think Fit Prime's music. It changes beats or tunes for each set. The music was very pretty and enjoyable. The background setting is outside amongst a grassy area with the ocean (i think it's the ocean) in the background. There are 5 participants including the instructor. The 2 participants in the back row perform the exercises with modifications for lower impact/easier versions of the exercises so even beginners could follow along fairly well. I really like the instructor. She doesn't talk excessively. She quickly explains the exercise, might show a demonstration for the more difficult ones, gets you going into the movement and then she herself is quiet as we complete the reps or hold the pose for a few minutes. I felt the routine moved very quickly...no boring breaks or excessive instruction as you are waiting for the next exercise to begin. She did offer some very brief rest periods such as in downward dog (she calls this triangle) or resting on your belly in between the various bow poses. These brief rest periods were very welcomed from me and at the right moment when you don't think you can go on.

There is no instruction on how to perform the Breath of Fire which she has us do periodically in the workout for some of the exercises. I suppose she explains this in her beginning workout. So I'm just trying to imitate what they are doing. Not sure if I'm doing it correctly yet but I do have to note that I was not dizzy or queasy during the workout but i was afterwards for a few minutes. I felt shaky, my legs felt very worked out. Towards the end you do a fast torso twist and your head twists with your body so that may have been it but from reading other posts in this thread I'm thinking it was the breath of fire which I'm not used to doing. It quickly passed though..after about 10 minutes and then I felt great afterwards!

Below are the exercises in order of how we did them. Please remember that each exercise she does quite a few reps lasting anywhere from about 1-3 minutes. Even the poses you hold as an active stretch you hold it for about 2 minutes. The entire workout phase is about 50 minutes. Then there is a 5 minutes shivasana, spinal twist laying down, spinal rocks for about 5 minutes and the last 10 minutes is all mantra chanting sitting in a crosslegged position. I have never chanted before but I did enjoy listening to the music and following along with their chants. Very pretty and a nice way to relax and wind down from this challenging workout. Okay..now on to the exercises:

) Chanting warmup Meditation (about 2-3 minutes long)
2) Cross legged seated position and do circular torso rotations keeping your torso low
3) Cross legged seated position curving back inward and outward
4) Forward seated bend (holds it or about 2 minutes)
5) Stand up and do slow tempo high jogs with arms out to the sides and hands facing sky and holding first finger and thumb (3 minutes of this)
6) Immediately go into downward dog (she calls this triangle) and then scoop down and up into cobra. You hold the downward dog about 2 seconds and the cobra 2 seconds and then raise back up into downward dog and do this mini combo for lots and lots of reps..very aerobic after the high jogs and uses alot of strength so I was pretty spent after this set.
7) Sit cross legged and stretch one arm out to the side and hold it straight and still for about 2 minutes. Repeat on other side. This was pretty challenging after the downward dog/cobra set. I had to rest my first arm 3 times. My 2nd arm was more rested before we started that side so I could hold it straight the entire time.
8) Body Pulls. You sit in a split straddle and place your hands on the floor in front of your groin and then you raise your torso completely up off the ground (legs too) and back down quickly and repeat this numerous times. One girl couldn't lift her legs up and the 2 in the background just did a mini forward bend. This was very tough. I could only lift my butt up...not my legs.
9) Froggie stands (I made that exercise name up as I don't know the correct terminology) You crouch down into a froggie position and your up on your toes with your heels touching at an angle and then straighten to a forward bend and squat back down. Do this numerous times! ( I think this is in the video clip they have on their website)
10) Sit down on your butt but raise up so your butt is not on the back of your legs then you sit down on your legs and raise back up. It's like you are starting in the camel position but instead of bending backwards you sit down and sit back up.
11) Go into downward dog and hold this position for a couple minutes and do breath of fire
12) Lay on tummy and interlock hands behind your back and raise arms up as high as you can and lift your chest up and hold this for a couple minutes and do breath of fire
13) Lay completely flat on floor on your tummy and legs, then raise your hips up and down.
14) Lay on stomach and alternate legs kicking your butt with breath of fire.
15) Move into the bow position but only grab one foot with both hands and rock back and forth. Repeat on other side and then hold onto both feet in normal bow pose and rock back and forth. This is MUCH harder then it looks! I could only do the rocking motion with both legs up with my hands holding the ankles.
16) Lay on back and lift both legs up and down (works the abs) Keep hands under butt
17) Do the double leg lifts but this time involve arms with raising them up and back behind you and then one arm and same leg at a time
18) Spinal rocks
19) Stand up and sit downs (she says this is tough and looks tough!) As fast as you can you start in cross legged position and stand completely up and then do a little hop/switch of the feet and sit back down crosslegged and do another quick switch of the feet as you raise up and repeat. Do this numerous times. They make it look so easy..HA!
20) Sitting down in cross legged position do torso twists with breath of fire
21) Sitting down cross legged position do fast moving alternating punches with breath of fire
22) Sit on knees, bend slightly forward, stick out tongue and do breath of fire pant
23) Shivasana, spinal twist, spinal rocks and final chanting meditation

Deb Rolin

I knew Kundalini wasn’t for me, but I decided to try this one anyway to see what all the fuss was about. I was right – this is definitely not my style! This has a lot of very active movements, such as a high jog for several minutes with your arms up, and also a lot of bouncy-type moves. The worst thing about it for me was the MAJOR repetition. It seemed like each move went on forever. I did 32 minutes of it and couldn’t stand it anymore. But – I do admit I felt refreshed afterward. A comment about the DVD itself: there are no chapters at all, not even “menu”.

Annie S.