Repeat to self: Yoga is not a burden. Yoga is joyful. Yoga is energizing.
Working myself up to get off the couch and do 90 minutes of Max Strom.
Which yogi said, "The hardest part of practice is getting to the front of your mat?"
Grand prize (a pocketfull of tranquility) goes to the first commenter who can remind me whose quote that is!!!
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Mysterious Barrel Chested Yogi
Yesterday's yoga: Yoga Shakti, 35 min of poses including a "Lunge" section which I do rarely and like. Forgot to set intention.
Today's yoga: Rodney Yee Total Body Yoga. Intention: Invest your energy.
I found a new yoga blog that had actually linked me! Mon dieu! I'm adding to my blogroll: http://yogarookie.wordpress.com/. The Rookie mentions something that i hadn't even thought about - SHARING through these blogs. EXCHANGE of information. What a lovely concept. Given that I have been operating under the assumption that no one reads this blog yet, I hadn't really thought about a two-way street, more just me bloviating into the ether.
So this is a fun new idea brought to me by the mysterious barrel chested yogi who, like me, lives in LA and, like me, loves Max Strom, and LIKE ME took Max Strom's workshop a couple months ago!!!!!
Who is this dark knight of yoga???
Today's yoga: Rodney Yee Total Body Yoga. Intention: Invest your energy.
I found a new yoga blog that had actually linked me! Mon dieu! I'm adding to my blogroll: http://yogarookie.wordpress.com/. The Rookie mentions something that i hadn't even thought about - SHARING through these blogs. EXCHANGE of information. What a lovely concept. Given that I have been operating under the assumption that no one reads this blog yet, I hadn't really thought about a two-way street, more just me bloviating into the ether.
So this is a fun new idea brought to me by the mysterious barrel chested yogi who, like me, lives in LA and, like me, loves Max Strom, and LIKE ME took Max Strom's workshop a couple months ago!!!!!
Who is this dark knight of yoga???
Monday, January 22, 2007
Dilettante Yoga
Today's yoga: Rodney Yee for Flexibility, 30 min.
Intention: "Calm down!"
A crazy day, so crazy I almost talked myself out of yoga this evening. I told myself a half-truth: that it wasn't an imposition on my free time, but a way to clear the day off my mind so that I could "enjoy the evening." (What I'm really getting to "enjoy" is all the random crap I need to do this evening, but oh well.)
So I came home a hungry stressball and a half an hour of Rodney later, felt a bit better. Thirty min isn't anything to get excited about, but I'm trying not to feel guilty about the short session. It's better than nothing, basta.
Incidentally, I'm no big fan of Rodney Yee since he left his wife for a student and moved to that spiritual Mecca known as the Hamptons. Plus he wears really fugly tie-dyed tank tops. Nevertheless, his DVDs are decent, convenient workouts so I'm still using them.
I'm watching Jim Leher News Hour as I type this and they just ran the new list of dead in Iraq. Eight names. I found out today that a friend's roommate died there last Thursday. RIP? It's criminal.
Intention: "Calm down!"
A crazy day, so crazy I almost talked myself out of yoga this evening. I told myself a half-truth: that it wasn't an imposition on my free time, but a way to clear the day off my mind so that I could "enjoy the evening." (What I'm really getting to "enjoy" is all the random crap I need to do this evening, but oh well.)
So I came home a hungry stressball and a half an hour of Rodney later, felt a bit better. Thirty min isn't anything to get excited about, but I'm trying not to feel guilty about the short session. It's better than nothing, basta.
Incidentally, I'm no big fan of Rodney Yee since he left his wife for a student and moved to that spiritual Mecca known as the Hamptons. Plus he wears really fugly tie-dyed tank tops. Nevertheless, his DVDs are decent, convenient workouts so I'm still using them.
I'm watching Jim Leher News Hour as I type this and they just ran the new list of dead in Iraq. Eight names. I found out today that a friend's roommate died there last Thursday. RIP? It's criminal.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Weekend
OK, I missed a few days posting. Gah.
Friday yoga was Shiva Rae Yoga Shakti, a disc that let’s you program selected poses. As far as the range of practice, its one of my favorites. I chose a light program with a lot of shoulder opening and forward bends. I was tired and not very focused but still felt better afterwards.
Friday night we went out, woowoo!, and I finished the night with an extremely strong Belvedere martini. The quadruple olives I ordered weren’t enough to save me from hangover – so Saturday’s yoga was 5 minutes of stretching that required ALL MY WILLPOWER to pull myself off the couch to do.
Alcohol, bad.
Today I did Bryan Kest Sweat. It’s a good 1 hour standby, but I’m tiring of the DVDs quickly. The yoga starts to feel rehearsed instead of fresh and alive. So I need to get back into doing a self-guided practice. Sometime this week I’ll put together a “set list” of about an hour.
I forgot to set an intention, but other than that, I was pretty focused and careful about long, deep breathing. I failed to do a good meditation at the end, because I started up the ol' mental to-do list. So I left myself off the hook and cut out after 3 or 4 minutes.
Friday yoga was Shiva Rae Yoga Shakti, a disc that let’s you program selected poses. As far as the range of practice, its one of my favorites. I chose a light program with a lot of shoulder opening and forward bends. I was tired and not very focused but still felt better afterwards.
Friday night we went out, woowoo!, and I finished the night with an extremely strong Belvedere martini. The quadruple olives I ordered weren’t enough to save me from hangover – so Saturday’s yoga was 5 minutes of stretching that required ALL MY WILLPOWER to pull myself off the couch to do.
Alcohol, bad.
Today I did Bryan Kest Sweat. It’s a good 1 hour standby, but I’m tiring of the DVDs quickly. The yoga starts to feel rehearsed instead of fresh and alive. So I need to get back into doing a self-guided practice. Sometime this week I’ll put together a “set list” of about an hour.
I forgot to set an intention, but other than that, I was pretty focused and careful about long, deep breathing. I failed to do a good meditation at the end, because I started up the ol' mental to-do list. So I left myself off the hook and cut out after 3 or 4 minutes.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Asana Asana Asana
Today's yoga: Seane Corn Bodies in Motion, Vinyasa Flow Yoga Part II. Note to self: Need to get better at carving out a full hour for morning yoga, not 40 min.
Why would twisting your body up like a balloon animal do anything but make you cry uncle?
Here’s how I think about it.
I have a lot of trouble getting away from the worries that the day creates. I think-think-think-think. Then I think some more. I get classic “monkey brain” – when your thoughts ricochet around your mind, in a continuous chaos that leads nowhere.
BUT….
During yoga practice, I am forced to direct my focus at my body and my body only. To get properly into a pose – say, triconasana, or triangle pose – I have to think about every single part of my body. I have to tighten and elongate dozens of muscles. And then I need to hold that configuration.
It takes every ounce of mental juice to wrangle my muscles – and suddenly, I’ve forgotten everything else and find a state of grace.
Hello mental RELIEF. Once I’ve had an hour or so of asana, my brain finally gets to the point where shivasana – the resting meditation that caps a yoga session – is possible. My brain, finally freed of having to rally my muscles, just… floats.
That’s right, folks: Yoga is the ancient, time-honored Idiots Guide to Meditation, designed by some smart bendy Indians to get the befuddled human brain into a clearer, quieter state.
And it works.
Why would twisting your body up like a balloon animal do anything but make you cry uncle?
Here’s how I think about it.
I have a lot of trouble getting away from the worries that the day creates. I think-think-think-think. Then I think some more. I get classic “monkey brain” – when your thoughts ricochet around your mind, in a continuous chaos that leads nowhere.
BUT….
During yoga practice, I am forced to direct my focus at my body and my body only. To get properly into a pose – say, triconasana, or triangle pose – I have to think about every single part of my body. I have to tighten and elongate dozens of muscles. And then I need to hold that configuration.
It takes every ounce of mental juice to wrangle my muscles – and suddenly, I’ve forgotten everything else and find a state of grace.
Hello mental RELIEF. Once I’ve had an hour or so of asana, my brain finally gets to the point where shivasana – the resting meditation that caps a yoga session – is possible. My brain, finally freed of having to rally my muscles, just… floats.
That’s right, folks: Yoga is the ancient, time-honored Idiots Guide to Meditation, designed by some smart bendy Indians to get the befuddled human brain into a clearer, quieter state.
And it works.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Yoga Therapy
I’ve been practicing for three years now, ranging from 3 days a week to every day. Never in my life did I think I would be one of those "yoga people." And if it ever means kissing a guru's feet or getting one of those simpering, faux-peaceful voices I'll still never be one of those yoga people.
Nevertheless:
This year I will practice every day, push myself farther, but – most importantly – look to yoga for focus and stability, as a tool to keep myself centered in the joy and love that can be life.
Because truly, my professional life is challenging me. Ha! My professional life is driving me fucking bonkers. There's not a lot of joy and love there, at least at the moment.
Help me yoga! Make me sane! Is there an opening mantra for that? Remind me that my experience on this earth goes beyond whether my job is going well, beyond whether my boss is driving me crazy, beyond whether my income increases commensurately with my experience.
Those things are important, of course, so I also look to my daily practice to give me the strength to continue fighting at work.
To demand all this of “yoga” starts to become wishy-washy, like when you say a word so many times it starts to sound funny and lose its meaning. So what are we talking about here, specifically?
I will carve out time each day to exercise my body and mind by practicing asanas, poses designed to stretch and strengthen all the muscles of the body. I will start each practice by setting an intention, both for the practice itself and for the day ahead. For example, tonight when I practice I will follow an intention to be patient and calm. I plan on holding the poses long and filling the space with slow, deep breaths.
I plan to write about the in's and out's of it all, micro and macro, here.
My daily practice will be a mixture of modified DVD workouts, self-guided home practice, and classes – when I can afford them. But that's the true challenge: How to push myself in a home practice. I've been mostly practicing at home for a year, but always find I get farther faster by going to classes. How can I turn up the heat all by my lonesome?
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