Friday, June 6, 2014


1.      What did you intend to accomplish with your 20time project? What did you actually accomplish with your 20time project?

  1. Describe the impact of your project on yourself and others. How could you use what you learned to create a positive change in someone else or the community?

3.      What roadblocks did you run into? What were the areas of the project that were more difficult than you expected them to be?

  1. What new learning, if any, did you gain because of the roadblock? Did the roadblock give you new insight, change the course of the project, etc.? How?

5.      Finish this sentence: The thing about this kind of learning that works best for me is….

6.      Finish this sentence: The thing about this kind of learning that is a challenge for me is...

7.      Would you consider your project a success? A failure? Somewhere in between? Explain your answer.

8.      Estimate how much time you spent on your 20-Time project per week:

  1. How does what you did in 20-Time connect with the IB Learner Profile (see Moodle or Intro Packet for the IB Learner Profile qualities)? Discuss any and all qualities that apply.

  1. How does what you did in 20-Time show relevant learning in your English class? Things that may apply: written communication, oral communication, collaboration, research skills, technology/digital media skills, reading skills, etc.

  1. What advice would you have for teachers who are doing 20-time projects in the future? What would you tell them that would make the project go more smoothly or more successfully?

  1. What advice would you have for students who are doing a 20-time project in the future? What would you tell them that would make the project go more smoothly or more successfully?

1       13.  Will you continue with your independent learning/creating beyond this class? Why or why not?

1      14.  Anything else you would like me to know? (optional)
IBWL – 20 Time Final Reflection

1.       I intended to make yoga a part of my everyday life, in other words try to practice it every day and gain knowledge in the physical AND mental aspect of yoga. I did not accomplish this. I gained a lot more knowledge of yoga, but it hasn’t become a part of my life. I really didn’t focus on the mental aspect as much as I should have, I barely meditated if at all. The reason for not reaching my goal was due completely to my lack of balance, which ironically is something I was trying to achieve as kind of “sub goal”.
2.       Although I didn’t completely reach my goal, I still felt an impact. The peacefulness of yoga is something that you’ll always feel if you really want to. Yoga helped me handle stress in a healthy way, whenever I had the time to! I can recommend it to friends or family that feel overwhelmed, or bring people to classes with me in the summer.
3.       I ran into the roadblock of a pulled muscle in my back. This really hindered my progress because a lot of poses require flexibility of the back. Flexibility is something I pride myself on and losing a lot of it from the pain in my back really bothered me. One area of the project that was more difficult than I expected was posting blogs consistently, I never thought that would be a problem as much as it was for me.
4.       It taught me to work through physical pain to reach a goal. Even though my back hurt, stretching did seem to help it and now a few weeks later the pain has almost subsided. It changed the course of my project quite a bit, it made me slow down on stretching for certain poses and slow down in the physical practice altogether.
5.       The thing about this kind of learning that works best for me is being able to self-direct and self-motivate myself.
6.       The thing about this kind of learning that is a challenge for me is having to self-direct and self-motivate myself.
7.       I would not consider my project a success nor a failure. I did not reach my overall goal, but I did make progress and I’m proud of it! Maybe my answer will change in a few weeks or months if by then I’ve achieved my long term goal.
8.       In the beginning I spent about 2 hours on my project during the school week, and 3 to 3 and half hours throughout the whole week. towards the end after hurting my back I probably spent between an hour or an hour and a half during the whole week on my project.
9.       Yoga connects with the IB profile in one of the areas I needed work on the most, balance. If you take the practice seriously and care about all aspects you should feel overall balanced. I felt that this feeling of balance would carry into my actual life and not just my mental state, but I was not dedicated enough to achieve this.
10.   I gained a voice! Or at least an online voice. I also gained more skills in online research, and editing of media.
11.   I would tell teachers to ask Mrs. Hechlik because I feel like this a perfect way to teach 20-time, and I couldn’t really give any more advice except to maybe start sooner and allow more time for the project.
12.   I would tell students to not let themselves slip. It’s only a loss for yourself in the long run, and you aren’t cheating anyone except yourself. I would maybe try to set a reminder on your phone or in general for writing a blog post because it is easy to forget.
13.   I will try to continue with independent learning beyond this class because it’s rewarding knowing you did something like this yourself.

14.   Thank you for introducing me to 20-time and allowing me to have this experience, I really appreciate it.

Sunday, June 1, 2014

setbacks, setbacks, and more setbacks

So you could say that the past two weeks I've had some setbacks. I have had barely any time to do anything other sun salutations in the morning, but no time for any sequences or practicing of any more advanced poses. To top it off I found out I pulled a muscle in my lower back! Not from yoga, but from either dead-lifting or squatting in my conditioning and weight-training class. At first I thought I was just sore from the combination of lifting and yoga almost every day but then the pain didn't go away and started to get worse. I thought I just needed to stretch it out so I did some simple inversions like a bridge and cow to cat pose, but those did not help and maybe made it feel a bit worse. Anyways I went to the doctor and he said I should feel a lot better in about 2 more weeks if I just take it easy so thats good news! Some more good news is that our school newspaper The Update did an article on our 20-time Pitch Presentation! I got kind of excited because there was a picture of me doing upward facing dog on the front page (: That's all the exciting stuff that has really happened the last few weeks, and even though my back is hurting I still try to do some breathing exercises or other simple poses just to keep it in my daily routine!

Friday, May 9, 2014

My set-backs and my progress

This past week was a rough one when it came to time management. I worked almost 20 hours and that is almost double what I work in a regular school week. A part of my 20-time goal is to eventually become an altogether more balanced person throughout my yoga practice and that means making time for yoga even when I have the most hectic of weeks! This week I was limited to only doing a few sun salutations in the morning when I woke and today spending about 30 minutes working on flexibility and handstands. I am going to attach a picture of my very first headstand.... I had to use the wall to balance against and could only get halfway up but at least it was something! I am proud to say that by now I can hold it all the way extended and without the help of a wall (: this is just the beginning of the progress I can see strength wise, but I know I can only achieve more! One thing I want to work on more next week is being able to clear my mind while practicing yoga and being able to think more clearly/balanced, to me this will be the hardest part but excelling in my asanas (poses) will help along the way.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

4-12-2014

After some research and a hour or two scrolling through Instagram ( I will link the websites and Instagram accounts below) I decided on the style of yoga I want to pursue and a few different websites with instructors who post their videos online!! The style of yoga I settled on is called Ashtanga, it is described as the most rigorous form of yoga which is a little bit scary but really exciting at the same time. The definition of Ashtanga is (ashta)-meaing limb and (anga)- meaning practice, this refers to yogas "eight limb practice". The eight limbs include the practice of: restraint, observance, posture, breath control, sense withdrawal, concentration, meditative absorption, and "enstasy". Enstasy is the definition the word samadhi which literally means to "put together" or "stand inside of". The instructor that I found on Instagram also has a blog of her own with different sections one about the "physical journey" and another about the "spiritual journey" which is an idea I might use to document my journey as well! I do have to say that at first all the different styles of yoga and the names of poses and "spiritual journey"-ness of yoga was a lot to take in, but once I finally sat down and tried to actually understand these people and their interpretations of everything, it was no longer scary but exciting and only makes me want to read more and sign up for my first class (:

~links~

Thursday, April 10, 2014

First Blog!

The goal of my 20 Time project is to make yoga a part of my lifestyle. I plan on starting my research by learning about all the different aspects of yoga and all of its benefits while slowly starting to incorporate the activity into my everyday life! The one thing I am not very good at is balance whether its balancing my everyday life or even holding a yoga pose. What really made me choose this topic as opposed to something else would be that there are more than just physical benefits to doing yoga, and i excited to "find myself" as many people say yoga helps them do! One of  my classmates Sanjay brought me a book full of yoga poses from India which i'm really excited to get into, I started reading the beginning and its very interesting. I plan to blog my progress anywhere from once to twice a week. I think it might be fun to see my progress by taking pictures or videos of myself trying some of the basic poses at first and then comparing them to my skills at the end of the year! ....until next time (: