Sahaja

It kinda depends on how you're doing your yoga and how heavy your strength and running days are. Gentle yoga is great for active rest days. It's also great on the same day as the run or gym day IF you practice at a different time of day so you have the energy and focus to do both well. If you're going to do a more taxing practice like Ashtanga, power yoga, or hot yoga you'll probably want to do it on it's own day as a replacement for a run or weight training to make sure you still get proper rest days in.

It looks like you're hitting the basic muscle groups, but for that knuckle forward / rounded shoulder posture you need to strengthen your mid/upper back and open your chest. - You should really focus on squeezing your shoulder blades together on your butterflys and rows. - Adding something like Lat pull downs that really focus on scapular movement should help get to those rhomboids involved too. -Stretch out your chest from time to time, you can start a few min at a time just laying on the floor with your arms wide and palms up. When that's not enough put a folded towel or a small pillow under your shoulders. -If you want a more active chest/shoulder stretch look up 'cow face pose' on YouTube, look for a video with a strap to get started. Posture is also about the deep skeletal muscles and habit, I use this process to teach it to most of my students and clients... https://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/88421-good-posture-or-how-to-stand-up-straight-in-way-too-much-detal/

Jean, being present is practiced by noticing and participating in the 'now', but you don't have to process and absorb every detail of every moment. The purpose is being open to the opportunities of 'now' instead of missing out because your mind is stuck in a different time. For example, A man walking to lunch on gorgeous day is re-hashing the argument he had with someone the night before, instead of being calmed and warmed by the walk and beauty around him his mind is distracted by anger and the 'would-a, could-a, should-a' of the night before. When a dog runs up his closed mind is more likely to ignore it and continue the story line in his mind than to be open to great the dog and make a friend when it's owner turns out to be a beautiful woman. Instead of arriving to lunch with a possible date, he gets there still mad with no idea that he just missed out on an opportunity because his mind was stuck on the night before.

Mukunda Stiles book "Structural Yoga Therapy" has some great info for working with your hands, but it's not specific to any activity or vocation.

I'll take my final exam in Feb 2019 if all goes well.

http://www.suryachandrahealingyoga.com/home.html

Yeah kinda long, it took a about a year. The fun part is that it was the first year of a 3 year program to get certified as a Yoga Therapist (IAYT), only 2 more to go!

Yep

I just got my grade for the final exam of my RYT 500 training. I finished with 98.5%! I'm a brand new yoga teacher!... again or still. I've been teaching for years, but I'm better at it now and have better job opportunities. And to top it off I had an interview and got a position at a studio 3 miles from my house today! (second job)

Plank progressions and wood choppers might be useful if you're not up to back levers yet. Planks are recommended that you only do one set per workout, and choppers can give nice results done as a single set with light weight and more reps. http://www.startbodyweight.com/p/plank-progression.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA3S8CrSOTw

Everything you're asking about you can find in a good yoga class. Spinal flexibility and mobility, scapular mobility, and establishing the neurological connections to muscles you're not activating, yoga really compliments almost any other exercise. As for your posture, I work on it like this in all my classes... https://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/topic/88421-good-posture-or-how-to-stand-up-straight-in-way-too-much-detal/

Caution: May be habit forming...

That sounds like a perfect first practice. I wouldn't even worry about how long you practice each time, you sound like you recognize when you're done. Just enjoy it as long as you feel like until you have to start setting a timer to remind you to move on with your day

Nothing, walking meditation IS a mindful bridge activity.

I'm afraid there's no trick to anchor the elbows, the best bet is to practice Eagle pose, especially the arms. That will give you the strength and shoulder flexibility to hold those elbows in.

Without seeing you in down dog it's hard to say what the issue might be. What aches from it? I have my new students move in and out of poses they struggle with until their body gets used to the position. You can either drop your knees to the floor and press back up to the dog, or move from down dog to a plank (top of a pushup) and back. Within a couple weeks you should start to find the strength to just pedal your feet and bend your knees instead of coming all the way out of it, then in a while you'll be able to do longer and longer holds. The two things that come to mind about your hands slipping (you are using a mat for traction, right?) are kind of related. The first thing that comes to mind is weakness around the core, hips, and or shoulders. Without muscle engagement in those areas it's hard to find the stability in down dog. The second thing would be the spacing between your feet and hands, if your too close or too far apart it can be harder to find the engagement I just mentioned. If you start in a plank with your hands directly under your shoulders, then you should have the perfect spacing to lift your hips into down dog without adjusting your hands or feet at all. Next class when the teacher puts you in down dog, describe your troubles and they should be able to offer some more help or advice.

Lilias Yoga is a good start as well, her show ran for decades. YouTube has a bunch of episodes

Not exactly, they use many of the same muscles, but the asymmetric movement of lunges work the stability muscles of the hips and pelvis in a very different way.

I learned about it in studying yoga and anatomy, but a quick google search of 'muscle pairs' or 'antagonistic muscles' should let you find out how the paired groups of muscles work together. The basic idea is that when a muscle like the biceps works to move the elbow for curls, the tension of the triceps on the back of the arm resists and stabilizes the elbow so the movement is controlled and safe. The opposite is true for pushups or dips, the triceps work to move the elbow and the biceps resist.

Like any kind of conditioning, there are newbie gains, plateaus, and points of diminishing returns. My first questions are: -Why are you so dedicated to stretching? The goal could need a certain process. -Are you focusing on joints or muscle pairs? Muscles work in pairs and at some point you won't get good flexibility improvement without strengthening the agonist that pulls against the muscle you're trying to stretch. -Are you staying warm for the entire 45min? Not getting warmed up and not revisiting the warm up in that length of time will make a difference too.

I teach yoga and even I find some of the stuff I have to deal with is way too new age and woo-woo for my taste. I probably wouldn't have stuck with it except that I found a teacher who was so obviously experienced and knowledgeable that it was impossible not to take her seriously, and even she encouraged us to use our own internal filters in class, to keep what we find useful and just not worry about the rest. That's the advice I would pass on to you... First, use that internal filter, and second, try to find a teacher that you can take seriously, and respect what they teach and how they teach it.

Yeah, same idea. The teachers donate their time and experience (most pitched in some $$ too), and the students donate money to take part.

I just got to help lead a Yoga Mala practice (108 Sun Salutations) in Fredericksburg, VA. We raised money for the Homeless Shelter, memorialized the homeless people that died in town this year, and celebrated the Solstice. From now till next summer every day will get longer! Enjoy the holidays!

The dangerous snakes around here are copperheads. They're camouflaged ambush predators and their instinct is to freeze till it's time to strike.

Yeah that's the one, just because it's empty doesn't mean it's not still a weapon! The extra mass is part of why it's such an easy shooter, it soaks up recoil very comfortably. It feels a lot different than the ultra light CC guns that are so popular now. And snakes aren't too hard, but I've only used it on em once. I gotta be close enough to see that it's poisonous to pull a trigger, and that's plenty close for a clean shot. They even hold still at that range