YOGA Awareness Month!

That is correct, people. You read it right--September is home to Yoga Awareness Month. Plus Labor Day, the Jewish New Year, and my birthday, but who's counting?

Aaanyway... back to the subject at hand. Everybody knows I'm a fan of yoga. If you didn't know that about me, you're about to. I think everyone should do it, unless you have vertigo cause you'd almost certainly pass out in 90% of the poses. Yoga is for everybody and Every Body. Get it?

Yoga Awareness Month wasn't just made up by a bunch of hippies--it's actually sanctioned this year for the very first time by the Department of Health and Human Services. Yes indeedy, the government that brought you the DMV, the Post Office and the IRS is now offering up a month of yoga support! I knew something good was bound to happen.

So get out there and find yourself a yoga class! If you've never done it before, keep and open mind and try it out, just for me. And it you can't find a class, hit me up and I'll hook ya up! I AM able to teach now, in case you hadn't heard...

***Photo from Yoga Journal web site

Maybe I Can't Do It All...

Lately I have taken up sewing. With gusto! I decided I wanted to sew, bought a machine, and sewed. I was at first quite amazed that I was able to create an actual wearable garment. And then I made another, and another, and another. And then I thought to myself--Why am I so shocked that I can do this? I can do anything.

In addition to my sewing, I've decided to start cooking dinner. It's in the job description of "homemaker" and "stay-at-home mom" so I figured I should do it lest I be fired from my jobs. Besides, I can do anything. Remember?

My gym schedule of six days a week remains, though I did skip today since I went twice yesterday. I stayed home and hosted Keri for coffee and cinnamon rolls (we did go to the gym twice yesterday, so it doesn't count). Also, I am gearing up for taking the remaining classes I need to get my 200 hours RYT (Registered Yoga Teacher). It will take about a year. But that's okay, cause as you may recall, I can do anything.

School starting has thrown me for a loop. Someone should have warned me how much it sucks to have to get up five mornings a week, pack lunches and get all three kids in the car, even if I am only dropping off one or two at school. Had I know what I was getting myself into I would have kept Mason's preschool schedule on the Monday, Wednesday Friday rotation to give myself a break. I will survive though--I can do anything.

So with all the sewing and cooking, gyming and schooling, other things are suffering, like laundry folding, bill paying, and mailing birthday gifts off to out of town relatives. And, I don't know, relaxing every once in a while??

This has led me to revise my statement: I can do anything. I can do everything. I just can't do everything all at ONCE.

Parivrtta Ardha Chandrasana

"Say what?" you say? Today I did this really challenging yoga pose and boy did it feel good.




"Parivrtta Ardha Chandrasana" translates to "Reverse Half Moon." This is "Half Moon" or "Ardha Chandrasana" (the pictures look similar, you'll notice his arm is switched so he's getting much more of a spinal twist in the first picture):

I was in my standard Friday yoga class. The teacher, Laurie, was switching things up a bit today and did a class focused on strength. She threw this pose in and demonstrated the three modifications: Level One where you kept both hands on the floor; Level Two where you lift your arm and did what the second picture depicts; and Level Three where you reverse it like in the first picture.

After seeing the demonstration from Laurie (who is wicked flexible and makes yoga look so beautiful and effortless) I decided I was sticking with Level Two. She typically gives modifications in this manner and I feel like I'm generally a Level Two. She also was talking today about how you should respect your body and work yoga around your body and not to try to work your body around yoga.

So we went from the Level One pose into the Level Two pose, and then Laurie instructed the Level Three people to move into the Reverse Half moon, which I had already decided I wasn't going to do because I deemed it beyond me. As I'm chilling there, balancing in Half Moon, sweating freakin' buckets because it's not as easy as it looks (try it), Laurie comes over and whispers to me, "Don't you want to try it?"

To which I responded, "I don't know, should I?"

And she said absolutely and helped me do it.

I couldn't freaking believe it! I was doing it! When I started regularly practicing yoga four months ago, my skills were so bad you couldn't even call them skills. My main reason for starting yoga regularly was my flexibility was so lacking. At first I was a wee bit disappointed with how long progress was taking. But lately I've noticed my flexibility is really improving--I'm able to reach father in poses and do so much more.

I have a lot of fitness goals going right now. I'm running three miles three times per week, working on increasing speed through intervals, hills, and sprints. I'm signed up to run the Disney Half Marathon in January, so I'll starting really training for that in September. I'm cross training with spinning twice a week. I strength train three times per week. And I practice yoga twice a week.

It was slow going at first, but especially considering how much I'm squeezing in right now, I'm amazed at my progress. I really am.

If I keep patting myself on the back like this I'm likely to hurt myself!

Namaste

My hip has really been hurting a lot lately. I'm not sure if it's from running, spinning, weight training, all of the above.... but it hurts. So in addition to my regularly scheduled yoga classes, I've been spending time at home trying to ease my misery.

Mason comes along to the gym a lot and is very aware and interested in the fact that I exercise. And now that I think about it, go me for setting a good example for him in this respect. But I digress.

Tonight I was stretching and contorting, again, trying to ease the misery. And Mason wanted to get in on the action. So I decided to teach him some simple yoga poses. It ended up being a super fun little activity for us. And the kid's not half bad.

Here's his down dog...

His up dog, with a little Lila interference....

His tree...

And his triangle...


He did a pretty impressive forward bend too, but I didn't get a picture. Now if only I could figure out how to be as flexible as a four year old...