Tag Archives: yoga

A Break For Yoga

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A photo of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois at Yoga Confluence 2013:
Sri K. Pattabhi Jois

I haven’t posted in just over a week because I was in San Diego!

First I went to a yoga conference “Yoga Confluence 2013″ and then visited a good friend for a few days. I want to go back and banish socks from my wardrobe for ever. After not wearing them for a week I came home to SNOW and COLD. Now I find myself resenting my socks, perhaps my yoga harmony could still use some work.

Yoga Confluence was really wonderful. I am not very far along in my yoga practice, even though I have been doing it for years. I can make it through the sun salutations, the standing postures, most of the sitting but there are a few poses I struggle with and a few that are definitely not going to happen. Doing the yoga every morning and the workshops certainly inspired me to pick up my practice. Also seeing all the other dedicated practitioners, many quite a bit older than I has made me want to dedicate more time to yoga.

Am I ready to get up at five in the morning to get to the yoga studio to practice?

No. I’m not. Although I have been doing a little everyday. Getting on my mat and working through the postures that I can do. It’s a start and who knows by the time the scooter comes back out in the spring maybe I will be ready to journey to the yoga studio to practice Mysore with some of the wonderful people I met at the conference. Calgary was well represented at the conference!

So as I strive to bend, stretch, increase the strength in my wimpy arms (I actually dropped myself on day two) I will keep all those dedicated practitioners in mind and continue to be inspired by them!

The Most Important Part Of My Plan

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I did spend time on Sunday getting my weekly and daily plan ready as per the instructions for implementing the 7 Habits. I have a to do list (I always have a to do list). Two days in to following the 7 habits and I’ve already realized the most important part of this process.

Getting off my ass.

Sounds pretty simple. Get up off the couch and get things done! Woo Hoo!

Problem? I like sitting on my ass. After a long day and walking home, I like to sit down. Sometimes for quite awhile, sometimes until it’s late and I’m having cereal for dinner so that I can return to the couch and whatever crappy show is on (I like crappy shows). Sometimes I make a cup of tea when I get home and then I know I’m not getting up.

Today though I came home and the couch was calling to me. Looking very cushy. My couch blanket beckoning me. Come sit, relax ….. settle in…….

Oh it was tempting. According to my schedule though I was suppose to go to yoga. Which I have been a little lazy about going to. I immediately changed into my yoga clothes and then sat. Once in the yoga clothes I know I’ll get out the door. If I had sat first I would have been less likely to get into them, sometimes it’s the order you do things that is important. After changing and getting some water I relaxed for half an hour and then headed out the door to yoga.

I did not miss sitting at home, I did not miss the tv and the crappy shows were still waiting for me when I got home. I missed nothing by going to yoga. Something to remember the next time I sit before I change. Everything at home will still be here when I get back AND I’ll feel so much better. Also I can still have cereal for dinner!

I do, I feel way better, I know I’ll sleep well tonight and I’m still on track. Only two days but it’s a start. So far, so good.

2012 Goals – Yoga Workshop

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Over the past two years I’ve gotten into the habit of going to yoga twice a week (okay I totally slacked off in December but I was busy with my Christmas funk). What next then? A yoga workshop!

I have a friend (a MARVELOUS friend) who teaches yoga, who loves yoga, who gets up at some ungodly hour four or five days a week to drive across the city and do yoga very, very early in the morning. Like at a time of morning that I haven’t seen in years.

She also does yoga workshops and they sound like fun. So this year I am going to go, hopefully with her, to a yoga workshop. Sometimes they have them over a weekend in Banff and I’m hoping that they do one of those again this year. Banff, yoga, in the company of a good friend. Does it get any better?

Yoga Farts

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Sometimes with all the bending, stretching and twisting (especially twisting) in a yoga class people fart. It happens. Often.

Consulting my friend who is a yoga instructor I asked how she handles it. Apparently it is actually part of the teacher training and there is only one way to handle it. Ignore it. It didn’t happen. Carry on and just try not to giggle. The usual reaction when it happens to someone is to be slightly embarrassed, give quick glance around with an apologetic “oops” look and then back to the bending and twisting.

What happens though when you look over and somebody looks like they’re trying to fart? Like this guy was twisting and was trying to let one go. He had the trying to force it scrunchy face. He had already farted, several times. Had never given the “oops” apologetic face but instead kept twisting and bending and looking like he wanted to.

I tried to ignore him and just felt bad for the lady behind him. Then he let a big one out while seated and twisting. Trying to propel himself up into enlightenment I suppose but the lady behind him suddenly had the “ewww” face. On her behalf I gave him the stern babysitter don’t do that face. He didn’t see it. Too wrapped up in looking rather proud of himself and accompanied with this last great fart was also a great groan.

This is a yoga class, we don’t come here to fart on purpose. For the comfort and concentration of others most people try NOT to fart. Yes concentration, I mean if you are a bigger person than I and don’t have to stifle a giggle when you hear someone fart, congratulations. I hope one day to be that mature.

By the end of the class even the instructor, while avoiding walking near the offending person, was giving the guy looks like “What are you doing?” At one point she even lit a few candles because the room was starting to smell. Yep, it was that bad.

I understand it happens but to come to class for the seemingly soul purpose of getting out as many farts as you can is offensive. It does not make you more enlightened, it is not spiritual, in my mind it puts you in the same category as a fourteen year old boy.

At the end of the class when students say “Namaste” to everyone around them, not one person looked at him.

Shunned by yoga people, my goodness you must have offended. Yoga people usually consider themselves above being petty but this man was now out of the loop. He tried to be jovial after but nobody wanted anything to do with him.

So if you want to fit in with a yoga class. Don’t force your farts. Try to be considerate of those around you. Save it for stinking up your own home where you can blame it on the dog.

Namaste

Full Moon Camel Pose …..

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I go to yoga once or twice a week, it’s something I really enjoy and most of the time I don’t pay much attention to the people around me. Just mind my own business on my own little mat and try to do the poses as gracefully as a I can (which isn’t very).

Yet every now and then someone comes in that you can’t help but notice, either they are handsome (wink, wink), really good (envy) or have on yoga pants that they should BURN. A lady showed up one day and sauntered in like she was all that and a bag of chips. Which was already a little weird as the studio I go to is pretty low key and is big reason I like it there, it’s not a fashion show.

So this woman, she stood out in her shiny new yoga outfit. To start with the top was too tight, I understand that you want a yoga top to be snug to keep everything in place when you’re twisting, bending and such….but this was WAY too tight. Those girls were gonna pop out with one wrong turn. She looked like she had tried to squeeze into her 13 year old daughters top (I don’t know if she had a daughter, this is just what it looked like) but the worst part is that it looked like she had also borrowed the 13 year olds pants. Or maybe the worst part was the make-up….. make-up? At yoga? Really?

Anyway she wasn’t heavy but the pants were so tight they were giving her muffin top and camel toe. The problem with camel toe is once you notice it you’re like a deer in the headlights, you can’t look away. You keep trying to glance back trying to figure out what you are seeing, how it is doing that, it just looks so wrong and really uncomfortable.

She didn’t seem to notice but once in the studio she ended up in front of me, she adjusted her pants (which I thought “Yeah that must be UNCOMFORTABLE”).

Then the class started, after the first downward dog I stepped up to the front of my mat and camel toe was still stretching it out in downward dog. OMG full moon rising, the fabric of the pants were stretched to the max, you could see her butt through the fabric and also her hot pink thong. Uggg… I tried to avoid it and find a different place to look but like the camel toe, you can’t stop looking. From behind you can stare for longer because she won’t notice. I almost started giggling, the more she moved, the more I followed the thong, wondering if the pants would give. I swear you could almost hear the fabric creak under the strain.

Then during another downward dog, the instructor who was wandering the room stopped mid-sentence…. lost his train of thought and said “Umm, ummm…..” and I glanced up. He too was mesmerized by the full moon and now couldn’t find his train of thought. He NEVER loses his train of thought. His look seemed to say “Jesus those pants are gonna blow”….. This is when I started to giggle, tried to suppress it and instead half hiccupped and started coughing. All eyes now on me, “Hey everyone!”

The good thing is it snapped the instructor out of his trance and got him back on track but he didn’t wander around behind full moon again. He kept sneaking glances and I thought “Yep now he’s noticed camel toe”.

She has come again, same pants, same top but now I don’t sit near her. I just hope that one day she can save up enough money to buy her own yoga pants and give those back to her daughter and now I also want to know what the rest of her wardrobe looks like.