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Nov/18/11 living room/2230/ 30min/video/ Kim

I'm not sure I should count this one as a practice? LOL!

I was in Child's pose for most of the video. It is funny, I learned a very good lesson today. It is important to make a date with your yoga mat. Otherwise, as I learned today, when doing home practice, there is always something to clean.

I do this with my art as well, my studio set up is in my living room and I tend to clean before getting to my art project.

Art and Yoga are one and the same for me. I must clear my mind before I'm able to get into my paintings or my yoga practice. If my head is busy, I clean.

When heading to a studio I leave the other stuff on the doorstep. I am much too tired to try and make sense of this.

I did get to my mat. I'm happy about that.

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Nov/17/11 Yoga and Beyond Studio/noon/60min/Gord

Today was a great class Gord , as a Teacher, was incredible! I have never had him as a guide before and it was a wonderful session. It was a yin yang class and his voice was both energizing and calming. I was so busy listening to his words and q's that I had no time to let outside thoughts distract my practice. At the end of class it felt like I had dreamed the practice but felt all the physical benefits.

I started to read Meditations from the Mat a book by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison. I started the book the first day of my 30 day challenge and read one passage a day. Today's read was very insightful it starts with the quote "If you do what you did, you get what you got." It explains how there are two spiritual aspects to our practice. Non-attachment or renunciation ( vairagya) and practice ( abhyasa). I have started to feel the benifits of yoga practice in the short time I've been doing it. I feel more energy, I feel more compassion, I feel less stressed and excited for the day. I have even noticed I don't hit the snooze button. But this is only one aspect of my journey, with out renunciation how am I to grow spiritually. I need to work on both the physical and the inside stuff. Its the balance of both, that will make all this work.

As Gord said corpes pose ( savasana) is a way for us to take the hard work we did during the class. And be reborn to live off the mat. Savasana is a difficult pose. We spend a lot of time trying to perfect the ability to turn off our mind so we can be in the pose. I don't think this is renunciation I think when we turn off our busy mind we are avoiding the problem. It's all of our past moments, the ones we chose not to deal with catching up to us. That is because we were not living for that moment. What renunciation means is to acknowledge that business in our brain and remove it. As the book says, "The old behavior must be faced and renounced." The more we spend gardening our minds the more space there is for calmness and beautiful things we want. More time for us to view our present world with no attachments. Then we get to see the world as it really is. So next time you are in Corpse pose or have a moment to yourself, garden your mind, weed out the thoughts from the past or the future and start allowing space for the beautiful moments you're in to be planted.

As the reading states: “Once we take the first step of renunciation, our practice nourishes and sustains us as we are reborn. Practice without renunciation is avoidance. Renunciation without practice is not long-lived. Together, practice and renunciation make all our dreams possible.”

Have fun Gardening. :)

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Nov/16/11 Yoga and Beyond Studio/0930/75min/Tara

Wow what an amazing day! I started with a yoga class and the rest of the day has been full of exciting wonderful events. When I say full, I really mean that. I couldn't have fit in anything else. The best part is I feel like I lived today. I don't feel stressed at all. Every moment today was a moment I was a part of and present for and was suppose to happen. It was a great day! The crazy part is that it's 10pm and I'm still full of energy and thinking clearly. I don't think I complained about one thing today! :)

Today's yoga class was 5 of my 30 day challenge. The instructor was sweet, strong and worked us hard today. I just turned off my mind and let her guide me. Something that stood out for me today was she asked us to close our eyes as much as we could. This is the first time I really trusted myself to be in the poses with my eyes closed. I felt strong and balanced, when I went into the pose with my eyes open it took me longer to feel comfortable. It was a great feeling to feel the pose instead of having a gaze point. Something I struggle with is where I should be looking when holding a pose.

My favorite pose today was the Camel pose AKA Ustrasana. I do find it very interesting that there is an animal ( downward facing Dog) or element ( tree) for most of the poses. So I did a little research on Camel pose. I like what I found out about Camels. I have never seen one but have heard from others that they are stubborn and will spit, so, watch out! lol I found out after some "Google exploration" that they have terrible vision but are great at navigating through the desert. I also learned that they will not under any circumstance carry more weight or unbalanced weight on a journey. The Camel will lay down and not move until the weight has been removed or re-balanced before it will go anywhere. Funny! Camel pose in yoga is a very challenging pose in that it has made me nauseous, dizzy, and weak. When I feel these symptoms all I want to do is lay down . Similar to the Camel and not move until those feelings go away. What I never realized before is I truly have to focus on my internal compass to get into the pose. I have to be balanced before I move into the pose. That way my body will be able to handle the journey into the pose. Otherwise I will feel sick and need to lay down.

Every day, in yoga and in life we are looking forward, " Goal setting" we are always looking and moving forward. I think the reason why so many of us(I'm not the only one) find the Camel pose so difficult is it turns our life upside down.

We are truly looking backwards and upside down. When we do this its so overwhelming that it creates symptoms like anxiety, nausea, weakness, dizziness and we forget to be curious and let the moment happen. We seize up, we close up, and our muscles tighten up pulling us forward. In order to really enjoy, to be like the camel we need to navigate from within. We need to start trusting what weight to carry and what is too much. We need to stop looking to the future or looking to our past for the answers. We need to let what we feel now to be ok. That is when we start to enjoy Ustrasana.

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Nov/15/11 Yoga and Beyond Studio 1945/ 75min Ashley

It was a hard class, I wasn't feeling strong in my downward facing dog. I'm wondering if I'm doing the pose wrong? The back of my elbows were feeling shaky and weak.

I do remember when I first started to do yoga and I had so much trouble with my wrist hurting. I don't experience that anymore. I have also noticed that the numbness in my fingers when I wake up is gone. I'm very happy with that. That pain scared me a lot I would wake up with pain in my wrist and numbness in my fingers. After about an hour of moving the pain an numbness would go away. It had become a chronic condition that I inquired about it with my Family Doc. She said that my muscles in my shoulders and arms were unbalanced causing this pain. She believed because of the repetitiveness of labor type activities from my job I was having this muscle imbalance. She recommended massage, if massage didn't work we would have to look at other options. I did get massage and it helped. The massage therapist worked really hard to released the pressure that was effecting my nerves. Built up scar tissue etc. When my health benefits changed at work it didn't cover the massage and the issue came back.

I'm sure the yoga that I have been doing is balancing my muscles. Resolving the issue with my hands.

All in All a great very hard class. It was a flow class, The teacher did a very good. At first I was trying to keep up to all her q's and get into the pose's quickly. I was finding my balance was off and breathing was uncontrolled. I took child's pose and re-centered myself and decided to move into each pose slowly. To enjoy the movement and stretch. After that I had no problem keeping up. I stopped worrying about being behind and ended up in the same place.

Namaste
namaste is a simple act made by bringing together both palms of the hands before the heart, and lightly bowing the head. In the simplest of terms it is accepted as a humble greeting straight from the heart and reciprocated accordingly.

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Nov/14/11 Yoga and Beyond Studio/Noon/60min/Ning

Today is 3 of 30 and I just finished a noon session at the Yoga and Beyond studio. I am still sick today runny nose, head is full of yuck. I was surprised at how excited I was to wake up and start the day. I had an excellent sleep and didn't even hit my snooze button. I was excited to get into the studio and have a yoga session.

Things were going great. I was energized and happy. When suddenly, someones cell phone started beeping. I decided not to let it bother me, they must have forgotten that they had left it on? I removed the thoughts from my head and continued with my practice. It went off again! This time it really bothered me. I was shocked that someone would have their cell phone in the studio space and especially that they didn't turn it off after it rang the first time!

I showed compassion and decided that maybe it was a Doc on call and they just wanted to get a practice in. They would be leaving soon and I returned to my practice. Nope not a Doc, not anyone on call. The cell phone continued to ring thoughout the rest of the practice. Each time I tried to refocus and continue on although, I noticed my back started to hurt. So I lay down to calm my thoughts and take a moment to relax.

I'm not sure why someone after hearing their phone go off wouldn't turn it off? I'm not sure why they decided not to show the same respect the rest of the class had and not bring their phone into the studio space? I just feel bad for the person now. How are they to really relax and move deeper into their practice when they can't even put their cell phone away for 1 hr. Let this be a lesson: How are you going to connect to the world you're in, when you are living in a world where your cell phone is more important to you? LET it GO!

It is time to eat lunch, warm soup, on this snowy day. Take the dog for a walk. Then work a night shift.

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Nov/13/11 Home living room/60min/Video Kim

I made it! Wow what a long day. So much happened I'm not even sure where to begin. Guess what? I did my own home yoga practice..... It was great I followed a video with Kim Weibe a yoga instructor here in Calgary. I did the 60 min video and it was challenging to say the least. It felt great I used my breath to warm my body up and even broke out in a sweat. I'm happy, happy, happy I was able to get to it.

So Day 2 of 30 is complete. I reached for a block today. I had a little help from my roommate. He was out for supper at one of my favorite restaurants. I asked if he could pick me up the the best War Won ton soup in the city and it was waiting for me when I was done my practice. It also came with a nice surprise, a fortune cookie. The cookie told me that something great was to come my way this time next week. That will be Day 9 of 30. So stay tuned to find out.

Till next time. TC loaded TC out!

1 of 30

Nov/12/11 Yoga and Beyond Studio/ 5pm/60min/ Ning

Well today is day 1 of my 30 day yoga challenge. I can tell you that I have never done anything like this before. So I am completely open minded to the journey. It was hard to come to class today though, as I am sick with a head cold and was home sick from work. I was all tucked away in my warm bed when my alarm went off to tell me to get up to go to yoga. This was a struggle, I went through the motions and was on my way. Traffic was terrible, every light was red. I was secretly hoping that I wouldn't make it on time and could turn around and hop back into my already warm bed. (After kicking the dog off my spot, I suppose he was just looking out for me and keeping that spot toasty warm.)

I park the car and see the door to the studio still open. "Hi Teresa!" Ahhhh! No turning back now, I've been spotted.

"Hi Ning." I put a smile on my face, take my shoes off and tuck them away on the shelf.
Ning is the owner of "Yoga and Beyond", the studio and I have a membership. It is a wonderful studio, I just wish there were later classes offered. Maybe someday that will happen, although, it also forces me to do home practices.

I scurry into the studio and sat on my mat.

Instantly feeling calm, NOW, happy I am here. I take a second to review how I'm feeling. I am feeling weak, but happy. I have a runny nose from my cold and I'm hoping I don't slip on the snot dripping onto my mat :) this makes me smile and Ning walks in to start class.
She starts with a review of the previous days workshop and follows up with some thoughts.

I love this studio for the openness and lightness of the classes she runs. Ning's class always feels so inviting to me, I feel connected to the room when she does something silly and I hear giggles around me. Maybe its because she is so open and shares her life with the class.
First downward dog, man! does it feel good. Everything is feeling good, everything is warming up. My breath is deep and flowing and I'm moving.

I'm always so humbled when I'm corrected by the instructor. It seems the pose that I think I have is the one I need correction for. The simple touch of a teachers hand can send my mind and body into a completely different place. It came time in class when Ning had her " yogi moment". She was explaining how using the blocks are an important part of yoga. It's important to have the block beside our mats. Many of us feel we are strong and don't need the block or off the mat a helping hand. What do we really accomplish by trying to do it all ourselves? The risk of getting hurt, feeling of frustration when we realized an extra hand would be nice. Time spent alone when we could be sharing the experience with another person. Not that we always need the block. Not that we are weak when we use the block. It makes us stronger, for asking and reaching for help. It is sometimes the hardest challenge. Letting your guard down, allowing yourself to be vulnerable. Opening yourself up to let someone in. But this is the only way I think to connect, to see we are all one. And in turn it allows you to be patient when others need a helping hand. It was a nice lesson to learn.

I am very excited for this 30 day journey.