Every now then I think, yikes!, I’m going to be 74 in a couple of months. I better do something quick as I seem to be losing the battle with ageing.
What’s been happening is that I’m not as strong as I once was. I’m stiffer and achey in some of my joints. I have a bit less muscle and more flesh around my middle. And I get fatigued more easily than before.
Uh-oh. I forgot to mention the occasional bouts of sciatica.
Obviously, I need to join the gym, become more flexible, lose the middle chubbies and have power naps.
Who are the Shedders? If you know me at all, you would know I’m a community junkie. I’ve created several yoga communities over the 35+ years that I've been teaching. I’m part of the Manning Valley singing community. There's our Mitchells Island community that includes...
On this International Women’s Day there are yoga classes being held around the globe in celebration of womanhood.
I will dedicate my own practice today to women everywhere in this amazing time of #metoo posts and consciousness-raising relating to gender inequality.
Coincidental with IWD, my Australian Yoga Journal arrived in the mail today, with a surprise. There was Nude Yoga Girl on the cover, a woman whom I’m told prefers to remain anonymous. If you want to see the full cover, you may need to do it in person.)
Nude Yoga Girl and the magazine are exercising compete freedom of expression in displaying nudity in such an out-there way. The staff at the magazine say that they are willing to take this risk knowing that it may offend some people. The reason why? Because we need to know about the many offshoots that represent the way the image of yoga is changing. Does this mean that yoga has lost its soul? No doubt, you’ll have your own opinion. If you read the magazine, you can find out what some yoga ‘authorities’ have to say on the topic.
Grumpiness can be sparked by various transgressions. It annoys me if someone doesn’t recognise the importance of my personal sensitivities or take into account my pet peeves. Unfortunately, annoyance and grumpiness leave bad energy–like a black cloud over my head which sits there even though there are blue skies all around.
Pool community
Do you ever feel overcome by feelings of gratitude for the communities to which you belong? I feel awash in gratitude each time I participate in the little pool community at Old Bar Beach. During the warm weather, I wake early, excited by the prospect of an aquarobics session at the pool.
I should let you know that I was born in Chicago, far from the ocean. Then, as an adolescent I lived in the desert town of Tucson, Arizona. As a consequence, I lacked many of the things that Aussies take for granted. […]
Adapt your practice
We’re facing a solid week ahead of temperatures in the low 30’s in our region, accompanied by high humidity. (For Americans, that translates to low 90’s.)
For me, that points to doing my best to stay cool when I do my yoga practice. And I use yoga tools, like meditation, pranayama, relaxation and passive yoga poses, to cool my body and brain.
Consider some of the ways you can support better breathing, for instance, lying supine over bolsters to open your chest. […]
Camp Creative–Fertile Ground for Creativity
It’s several days now since returning from a week at Camp Creative. This event, based in Bellingen, has something for everyone. Sixty different courses representing music, visual arts, writing, crafts, young people’s activities, dance, lifestyle, and voice. A remarkable time, as evidenced by the concert of performing artists who came together on the last night. This is a showcase for creative work in the areas of instrumental music, singing and dance. Some performers were first-timers, others more seasoned, all with their creative juices flowing.
I particularly like seeing the range of ages represented. […]
Feeling somewhat ‘death illiterate’, I did a year-long training in 2014 called Midwifing Death. I had an idea that this course would be good to do, a way of looking to my future. It would help me be more able to face, in a full-frontal way, my own ageing process, which will lead eventually to my own dying.
I’m part of a yoga teachers practice group which meets monthly. We get together for a led-practice and then breakfast afterwards.
It’s a mutual gathering. No one person is the boss of it. The person leading and venue of the group rotates each month. This is semi-rural Australia, so we teachers come from all over. Some have to travel 1.5 hours to attend.
Besides enjoying the benefits of learning from each other, we get to float questions. For instance, last Saturday we were talking about how some teachers present their yoga classes off-the-cuff. […]
Pop Up Yoga
Pop Up Yoga is the sort of yoga that might turn up in your local park or at the beach, especially as the weather warms up in Australia.
I went to a pop up kind of event at Flynn’s Beach, Port Macquarie, this morning. It was partly organised by the Yoga Shala and partly by the Coastal Warriors. Seventy-five people attended and funds were raised for the Coastal Warriors. They are a dedicated group of volunteers who clean up the local waterways. […]
Beware of the preface, ‘Back when I was a girl’. Or, boy, or youngster. What is about to follow this phrase is likely to be a thinly disguised judgment about the way things are going to hell now. Life used to be simpler, the air was cleaner, and people could still afford to buy their own home.
Yet in many ways, life is better for us. […]
Like many of you, I do gardening. Which means I know firsthand how hard gardening is on the body. When my yoga students arrive at class with achy backs or sore shoulders or gardeners’ knees, I know it’s time to break out the poses that target these complaints.
Maintaining the yoga practice presented here will help us all sail through this Spring gardening season.
I believe in the importance of community so much that I’ve chose to live communally. We are three couples, living under the same roof, sharing our lives together. This experiment in a different way to do retirement has been highly successful. We’ve been the subject of media attention even from the inception of our vision thirteen years ago.
Yesterday’s guest blog post, Yoga and Age, written by my friend Collyn Rivers is proving to be one of Yoga Suits Her’s most popular.
So, riding on this crest, I thought I might publish this excellent little video that Daniel made of Collyn a little while back.
If a picture’s worth a thousand words, maybe this will go viral?
Collyn Rivers at 86
https://youtu.be/ktWtlO40gVE […]
Am also encouraged by recent findings that the body may cease aging when one is past 91. The study (reported in a 2016 New Scientist) by Michael Rose (a professor of evolutionary biology), says that if you are lucky enough to live that long, you stop ageing. He notes that one’s health may not improve but it certainly does not get any worse. Whilst that advice is far not mainstream, population statistics do show that ageing seems to stop at 93 – and does not speed up again until we get a telegram from Queen Elizabeth (the Last) at 100.
Thus, if one makes it to 99, you are no more likely to die at any given point than someone of 93. (From 110 plus may be a different matter but I’ll let you know).
Yoga is an important tool for many different kinds of musicians. Whether you sing, play the piano, guitar, or flute, yoga and other exercises can help you improve your alignment and breath support.
In the U.S., the stifling stickiness of the hot weather season is undeniably upon us so we yoga practitioners need to adapt to this climate. It’s not as humid here in Tucson as in the buildup to The Wet of Australia’s tropical north, but this weather can still be mind-numbing and body-immobilising.
Insomnia: The Night Prowler
There was a time when I slept the sleep of the innocent. That was in the dim distant past.
Menopause first threw a spanner in the machine, with its 3-4am wake-ups. Once I was wide awake, too bad, that was it for the night.
Man-o-pause sleep, I’ve heard, isn’t any better. No matter what our gender, eventually we all succumb. What is it? The influence of waning hormones?
Recently, my husband went to The Sleep Clinic to investigate the cause of his brand of insomnia. Its likely cause is sleep apnoea. […]
Days of extreme weather might be the way of the future. Who knows? Most scientists say this is the way we are heading.
If so, we need to include reflective practices as part of our yoga routine. We need the tools that create mental and emotional space to deal with difficult situations. It’s not enough to keep up with a strong physical practice. Meditation, savasana, yoga nidra, and pranayama are necessary to weather all conditions. Not only extreme climactic fluctuations.
