“Aural Yoga” or more aptly, “How to maintain your daily yoga practice when you have a migraine that’s making your brains feel like they might actually explode forth from your temples at the slightest inkling of physical exertion.” 

Step 1. Slowly lower your butt onto your bed.

Step 2. Reach across, and drag your laptop over to your bed. 

Step 3. Look to your left, and open laptop. *Be careful not to look directly at the screen*

Step 4. While maintaining a squint, carefully turn your head to a side angle glance at the screen.

Step 5. Select Alan Watts mp3 files, right click to open, press play.

Step 6. Carefully lift your legs from the floor to place them on your bed.

Step 7. Using your arms to support you, slowly lower your upper body onto the bed.

Step 8. Close your eyes. 

Step 9. Relax your breath. 

Step 10. Focus on the sound of Alan’s voice. 

Step 11. Stop beating yourself up over missing a day of your challenge. You’re now practicing aural yoga. This totally counts. 

<3

4 months ago  /  12 notes

SO! Today is day 6 of the 30 day yoga challenge I was encouraged to partake in with my bestie. The main idea is to practice yoga every single day for a month. Seems easy enough? Welllll, It is and it isn’t. (but really, what isn’t?) So far I’ve been doing a combination of home practice using DVD’s, and attending classes. I went out at the beginning of the week and decided to buy an Ashtanga video because if I’m ever going to be as strong as Brihony Smyth in that Equinox video I had better start practicing what she does, right? Yeaaa… So I was browsing the DVD selection at my local yoga studio when the name David Swenson popped out at me. I have heard his name a lot so when I saw it on the DVD spine I thought it would be a good place to start since he obviously has a great reputation. The DVD was entitled: “The First Series”  Perfect! Level 1, just what I need. So I bought it and happily went home to try it out. Well, it started out easily enough with two rounds of sun salutations - okay I was def feeling the “heat” as he puts it, after the tenth sequence, but then things really started to move out of my range. The standing postures involved some major core strength (of which I have zero) and balance (of which I have negative 3) and he was going through them so fast! Arggg! I tried desperately hard to keep up even through losing my balance repeatedly and staring at the screen blankly for a few of them while he kept repeating “if this is too difficult, just wait” until eventually I was doing more waiting than anything else. I decided to fast forward a bit to the seated postures and when he came to “Garbha Pindasana” http://tinyurl.com/74mpa3t I thought I would give it a shot. So I got myself into Lotus okay, and then managed to shove my arms through my legs okay, but I could not for the life of me get my arms to bend up enough to rest my chin in my hands. I wound up rolling onto my back in a fit of laughter because I felt so ridiculous with my arms flailing around sticking out through my folded legs like some kind of bizarre human-pretzle-circus-act. Then, by the time my laughing fit was over and I had managed to straighten myself out again, I had missed like six more postures! I suddenly went from laughter straight into tears. I was feeling more than a little bit overwhelmed and defeated by that point. Okay I was actually totally pissed off and frustrated by that point. lol My thought process was something along the lines of “How the hell is anyone supposed to learn how to do any of this when this moron isn’t explaining it at all!! He just keeps saying wait!!” or something like that, hahaha. So as it turns out, for those of you who like me, don’t actually know anything about Ashtanga practice, the Primary Series is NOT a beginner series. How does that expression about “assuming things” go again? Yeah, I’m an ass. :)

So Wednesday night I went to my first beginner Ashtanga class, and the good news is, I absolutely fell in love! The teacher was awesome, she explained how to get through it in a really easy manner and gave variations all the way along in case any particular posture was not yet available. I’m not sure exactly what’s happened yet, but I have never pushed myself that hard before while simultaneously feeling completely elated. It was awesome. Something about the practice just really resonated with me and I finally feel like I have found my yoga. I must have thanked the teacher five times after the class and went from tears of frustration the night before to a giant grin and a total feeling of bliss 24 hours later! So I’m officially hooked, and I think, based on the past six days, that it may just become a 365 day challenge, and then maybe (hopefully) just continue to evolve into a daily practice that I pay no more thought to than brushing my teeth or bathing or eating a meal. 
So here’s a little video of my man David doing his thing. Skip ahead to 2:30 and keep watching to get a better idea of what I’m talking about. (Sorry I called you a moron Dave!)

Enjoy! :)

4 months ago  /  65 notes

It all started with a viral video… 

Okay not exactly, I’ve been practicing yoga with varying degrees of enthusiasm for many years, and although I’ve always gotten a lot out of it, nothing has inspired me to commit to my practice quite like watching this video of Brihony Smyth did. Apparently there has been a bit of contraversy swirling around the internet about it being “too sexualized”. I don’t get it. She’s practicing in her underwear, okay, I guess, but how many inches of fabric away from a sports bra and those tiny shorts I see all the time in hot yoga class is she really? Maybe I’m oversimplifying things, but I think peeps be jealous. I see nothing but strength and beauty and grace and the possibility of what the human body is capable of accomplishing with time and dedication. I want to be this strong too, but I don’t think being envious and critical are going to get me there. Instead, I’m starting my own daily practice, and I’m going to write about it here!     

4 months ago  /  1 note