Natasha Rizopoulos

Snow day! Great day to do a little home practice. In my pursuit of finding the right home practice I'm once again exploring a variety of yoga DVD's. Today I tried Yoga step by step session 2 and 3 with Natasha Rizopoulos. Session two is about twisting and three inversions. There is a lot of material on the disc but the actual practice is short, about 2o minutes. The instructor waste no time in getting into the postures. One quick tadasana and your off into sun salutations. I enjoyed disco two. It's short, sweet and to the point. Perfect for a morning or late afternoon practice when you have little time or energy. Session three is not my cup of tea. First of all if you don't have the time or space to re-arrange your furniture this is not the practice for you since a good part of the practice are inversions using the wall. This is absolutely not a beginner or intermediate practice and I highly caution trying these inversion without supervision especially if you are new to head and hand stands. The instructor is clear and moves at a comfortable rate. Demonstrations include modifications with use of blocks, blankets and straps. I give session two a thumbs up but proceed with caution if attempting session three.

Happy snow day!

Miss. S.

Silent Flow

White Calm 1936

Dali

Snowy winter Sunday. I really have no desire to leave the house today so I decided now would be a good time to try out Seane Corn's breath session. This is a silent flow, no words, no music, all breath. It's a relaxing 60 minute flow. This feels good, while giving a constant reminder to breath. In the beginning I had two dogs wanting lots of attention and laying on the yoga mat while I practiced around them. I think they caught the wave because both settled into a nice little snooze soon after. Near the end Cisco came over for a sacral stretch and hip roll then sauntered back to dream a little more. By the end I felt calm and stretched. My only complaint was that since I haven't tried this before I kept craning my neck around to see what I was suppose to be doing next. If one were to do this session repeatedly I don't think that would be an issue.

There was an interview which came with this. WOW! Seane Corn said quite a few things that really resonated with me. She spoke of staying present in the moment. In yoga you can unleash layers of tension. There are deep layers of tension in the body which hold memory, emotion and experience. They lay in the muscle and can be unleashed with breath. One of the reasons yoga is so powerful is its helps the student let go of emotional, spiritual and psychical junk their holding unto through the body. She also spoke about yoga off the mat into the spiritual practice of the everyday. " I'm in a challenging pose right now metaphorically and I'm going to make a different choice and respond with love. I'm not going to come from fear, but love." In closing she made a statement which rings true in my heart. Each and every one of use are all sons and daughters of God.

Peace be with you.

Sweet Dreams

Thursday evening after a mountain of errands, obligations and a rather long workday I finally settled unto the mat. Destination: Kundalini yoga with Gurmukh. I'm tired and I wish I had a yoga nidra DVD or CD but it's this or vinyasa. I must say much to my surprise I had a good time. I am going to have to do this yoga DVD a couple more times but I really got a lot out of just one session. Gurmukh gives good directions and explains why, what your doing relates to the chalkra system which is the basis of this yoga. By the end I had worked up a good sweat and settled down for a nice savasana after one hour. she has a sweet dispostion and I felt encouraged to carry on although all I really wanted to do was sit in front of the television and veg out with a bag of chips. I slept like an angel Thursday night and woke up Friday without giving my alarm the usual sound beating it gets every morning.

The Namaste Experience week one

My one day juice fast could not have gone more miserably wrong. I did not bring enough juice and water for the day, broke down and had junk food half way through the day, followed by sardines and cheese when I got home. So, needless to say..... things didn't go so well. I am going to have to plan this out more carefully next week and have a little more restraint and endurance. Part of my problem is not having a schedule or a plan yet. I need a schedule, I need to get organized, basically I need to get my shit together. On a good note I did review the basic flow sequence from Yoga Shakti with Shiva Rea. I liked it for a lot of reasons. The flow was only 30 minutes and this is all the time I had, she had a savasanya long enough and calming enough to fall asleep to (you can insert a snore or two here) and the yoga was practiced on a lovely beach, far far away from the maddening crowd! So far five stars for Shiva. New from the kitchen: tonight, Spanish Paella with tempeh.

One Down

Yesterday the Man and I went to a lovely beach to wile away a little time before the bell goes off, the gates open and were off and running. Knowing this week is going to be a shock on the system I thought I should get the first meal cooked and done before Monday. I made this very easy on myself, fried rice with vegetables. The only modification was herb instead of fresh burdock. I also spent the week trying Mantra Girl's Kundalini yoga DVD. I like the idea of cleaning out my aura but I'm not particularly fond of her approach or sequence. I'm sorry but I am not going to be able to recommend this based on the yoga. I would strongly suggest checking out her music and chanting. Truly her voice is divine, and I fully intend to incorporate her music into my classes. In a couple of weeks I'll be trying a yoga DVD with Gurmukh, a renowned kundalini teacher. This may give me better insight into the practice. Next up, Yoga Shakti with Shiva Rea. It's going to take me at least a week to get through this , there is a LOT of yoga in this vinyasa series! Tomorrow I think I will try my hand at a one day fast.

OK then.... one meal down, one fast one yoga video to go! Bliss factor: not bad.

End note.... How to make the Man ecstatic; be a rookie, pitch a no hitter, make it happen after we've lost five in a row. You should have seen him beam. Talk about bliss factor!

Mantra Girl

Mantra Girl has a DVD which is an introduction to Kundalini yoga and chanting. I thought, "Yeah this seams really good. A gentle yoga session with lots of chanting and breath, perfect for a vacation at the beach." Well true to word Mantra girl did a lot of breath work. She had us doing breath of fire through at least half the session. The rest of the time was spent with repetitions of asanas I have never done before. I'm not implying there not yoga poses I've just never encountered the majority of what she had us doing in any of my classes, but then again Kundalini is new to me. I found a nice quote from Mantra Girl describing the basis of this yoga, " Kundalini Yoga is different than other forms of yoga in that it uses the chakra system of the body. Other yoga styles often focus only on stretching. Kundalini uses chanting meditation and long deep breathing to awaken the energy of the body. The goal Kamler says, “Is to move the energy from lower more primal points of the energy body to the higher chakra points which awakens the consciousness." Ok so there you go.... A lot of what was presented were exercises to clear out the aura and create a healthier field of attraction. I have never done any work to clean out this area and perhaps that 's why I had such a hard time with this yoga session. Although I'm fairly active and physical it was difficult keeping up and I found I needed to stop and rest at times. Mantra Girl does not give verbal words of encouragement to keep you going but she does emit a peacefulness and with the music and chanting you really don't want her speaking anyway. She has a beautiful voice, I can't wait to use her work in my own classes. This DVD is not a one shot deal I think you have to do it several times to get something out of it. I'm going to do a trial run for the next week and will report back with my findings.

peace out!!!!

Yoga at Home

We are on vacation and I have a DVD player at my disposal so I brought a couple of yoga DVD's to assist me in building the home practice. I brought Vinyasa flow yoga with Sean Corn, one I have done a few times before. This is simple, clean and does the job in an hour and fifteen minutes. I also brought a new one along, Ashtanga Yoga: beginner's practice with Nicki Doane. This is 68 minutes which was plenty. Beginner Ashtanga is still Ashtanga. Lots of repetitions of downward facing dog, plank, upward facing dog back to down dog, over and over and over again! Nicki Doane is very encouraging and she kept a steady pace. I definitely broke a sweat with this one. This instructional piece goes through suryanamaskar A and B which is the first part of the first series of sun salutations in Ashtanga. The entire sessions is done standing. I will check out another of her DVD's, she has a couple. she's an interesting teacher living off the grid in Maui.