I have finally graduated to being able to do the entire Power Yoga by Rodney Yee workout. Most of the last portion is leg stretching which I'm discovering I've been sorely needing.
I have added on, at the recommendation of my dear husband, a tai chi video by Terence (Terry) Dunn. It's a magnificent video -- very simple in presentation, but precise and methodically taught. The warm-up by itself is 50 minutes long. I only dedicate 20 minutes to it, squeezing it in in the evening when I can.
I think slower is more my style than lots of information/forms/poses. I find that I need time to think over what I'm doing and practice a small thing over and over and over. Maybe this is why it's taken me 6 months of daily workouts to finally be able to get through the Power Yoga DvD. Yoga has become so much a part of my daily routine that without my morning yoga workout, I feel that I cannot begin the day with a worshipful, thankful attitude. The attitude says "now there can be no disasters in my day".
One thing interesting that I've noticed is that the Power Yoga DvD does not make one a yogi. I dedicate my evenings to juicing vegetables and puttering in the kitchen with my diet and such, and so don't always have the time for my evening workouts from the "Moving Towards Balance, Yoga in 8 weeks with Rodney Yee" book. When I do it now, I get a tremendous workout. I'm surprised, since I'm so dedicated to the Power Yoga DvD morning workouts. I discover, though, that the Power Yoga gives me a maintenance workout, but the "real" yoga comes from holding the poses longer and doing more inversions. In those ways I feel that I learn more self-perception and gain more meditative qualities to my yoga. Plus, it's just plain harder to hold, say, a side-angle bend or warrior 2 for 45 seconds. I find that in that pain of holding those poses is where my mind searches for the ease in my body and where I find the liberation.
I still continue to find over and over the life-changing benefits of my daily yoga practice. Maybe some of it comes from the fact that yoga makes one respectful of ones body. And even when I'm being bad to my body by eating badly or whatever, it's still with an overall knowledge that there's a pristine, pure, worthwhile being inside, and that's a wonderful gift that I'm grateful to have.
