The Yoga with Eve Grzybowski Blog
I’ve been blogging for 15 years now. At first, I was quite nervous about publishing my thoughts. Because I was shy about writing, my old posts were almost exclusively photos of the view from our bedroom in our Tambourine Bay house.
Remarkably, my original Ville Blog still exists. Does anything on the internet ever go away? It ran from November 05, 2006 to January 12, 2010 and it’s still just where I left it. If you’d like to have a look, the address is http://thevilleblog.blogspot.com.au/.
These days, because there are way too many YSH posts to browse through-over 1200-I’ve put some major themes together in The Vault. I hope this makes it easier to find exactly what you want.
Your Yoga Practice Gets Derailed: It Happens
I’m heading north to Byron Bay this week to teach for the sixth consecutive year in a yoga therapy course. My friends and students think I am blessed to spend time in this warm, sunny paradise of northern NSW. But the truth is, Byron has had miserable weather each time I’ve been there – rainy and cold (apologies to Byronshire Tourism).What difference should weather make to an equanimous yogini such as myself? Well, gloomy, chilly days can be depressing and even put some of us off our yoga practice. […]
It’s Never Too Late If You’re a Grey Warrior
Late bloomers in yoga are the Grey WarriorsA week ago, I had a phone call from a woman who I want to describe as a ‘grey warrior’. […]
Yoga First Aid for Tight Hamstrings
Are Your Hamstrings Wound Tight as Piano Wires?Tight hamstrings are the downfall of many a student who might otherwise have enjoyed a glorious lifetime of yoga practice. It could be one reason that men and peak athletes drop out of yoga classes.Believe me, when we’re talking about ‘screaming hammies’, I understand. Jogging, tennis, and cycling are all activities that toughen up your hamstrings. […]
Yoga And Hip Replacement Surgery
Hip replacement surgery is a daunting prospect for anyone. Fortunately, the first suggestion of the surgical option usually comes well in advance of the need for the actual operation. You have time to get used to the idea. Nevertheless, a visit to the orthopaedic surgeon starts to shape your thinking towards the inevitable. This is especially true when levels of pain and physical limitations are increasing.
If, like me, you try to find more natural ways, of dealing with health issues, then surgical intervention can seem scary in the extreme. Now that I’m five years on the other side of double hip surgery, I can say that your hip replacement surgery may give you your life back. I’m thankful to modern technology performed by a highly skilled surgeon.
Chase the Rain Blues Away with Yoga
Enough Already!Extropical cyclones, low pressure troughs, East Coast lows, whatever you call them, they all have the potential for giving us the rain blues. On the eastern seaboard of Australia, and even inland, we’ve had record-breaking rainfalls this autumn. What’s a yogi to do to keep his or her spirits up? A specialised yoga practice, of course! You want to do a sequence to balance your energy and dispel any negative moods. When the humidity has been high for a period of time, it creates excess dampness. […]
Luck – Bad or Good – is a Very Thin Wire
When Luck Wears ThinI’ve heard the expression a few times this week, ‘Aren’t we lucky?’. That is, we’re lucky to live on the mid-north coast of New South Wales because we dodged the torrential rains and gale force winds that our southern friends and relatives did.It’s been a shocker of a week down south. The Newcastle, Central Coast, and Sydney areas all experienced almost-cyclonic conditions, river flooding and power outages over several days. Inland, the little town of Dungog endured 145 mm of rain in a three hour period. […]
Murray River Down But Not Dying
An Ancient Landscape
Why is it that we admire things from Nature that are tremendously old but that we have so little regard for aged people?
Recently a group of us plied the Murray River in South Australia on a houseboat.
As the sun set on our first night out, I stood on the upper deck awestruck by the millennia-old ochre cliffs, seemingly on fire. […]
As the Seasons Change, Be Prepared
Winter is Coming!
Down Under we’ve gone off daylight savings, and the weather has turned chilly. I’ve started to think of the ways I need to prepare for the coming winter. I’ll be putting away those short shorts and sarongs and bringing on the jumpers. But I’m not quite ready to order our winter’s supply of firewood.
Meanwhile, my doctor has reminded me that this season’s flu vaccine is going to be available soon.
At my age, I’m in one of the ‘at risk’ categories for flu. […]
Yoga – A Compliment to Palliative Care
The Class of 2015
The happy group of seniors pictured above are the latest crop of palliative care volunteers to have completed an inspired training on the mid-north coast of NSW. The photo includes facilitators Karen Rudge and Rob Crombie. You might notice yours truly in the front row.
While pride is not always an admirable trait, I can’t help but feel proud to have trained over the last eight weeks with such a genuine and generous group of people. […]
Yoga + Influence: A Good Combination?
‘Be great, none of this humble stuff!’, said friend Heather to me as I trundled off to teach an out-of-town yoga workshop. I can see why she would advise me thus.
I probably come across as not overly ambitious when I teach. I don’t mean to be blasé. I do a lot of planning for any seminars I teach. If anything, I over-plan. When I do that, I end up more worried about my plan than being present to workshop participants. […]
Judith Lucy on Mitchells Island to See the Shedders!
Here’s a little look-in at our home and gardens and us.
In this film excerpt below we are being interviewed about our inspiring communal lifestyle by Australian comedian Judith Lucy. It’s part of a six-episode series called Judith Lucy is All Woman. You can view all of this episode or even the whole series on the ABC’s iView. […]
Judith Lucy is All Woman and So Are We
See the Shedders
We ‘Shedders’ were privileged to be filmed for the ABC series Judith Lucy is All Woman. The last episode which went to air tonight featured all six of us living our communal lifestyle on Mitchells Island.
Listen to the Best
As part of that final episode, Lucy organised a collaboration of some of Australia’s most recognisable female voices to sing a rendition of the Helen Reddy classic, “I Am Woman.”
The collaboration comprised Ella Hooper, Deborah Conway, Vika and Linda Bull, Bertie Blackman, Liz Stringer, Lisa Miller and more.
Listening to this might just make you […]
Yoga Workshops: Upside-down But Not Inside-out
I’d like to invite you to two workshops with me on Sunday March 22nd from 10am to 3:30pm.
There are several places left in this full day devoted to a close look at what is needed to do inverted yoga poses with ease.
The first one is suitable for beginners, but yoga teachers might want to attend to learn a few new tricks. […]
Girl Friends
I attended the Divine Feminine conference this last weekend, as a participant and a presenter. As a result, I feel filled up from the experience of hanging out with wonderful, powerful women (an oestrogen high?)
The Sunday program coincided with Internatiional Women’s Day. As I taught my yoga session, I pictured myself as part of a gigantic web of global solidarity with many the events happening around the planet in support and celebration of women.
What I think makes women special is sometimes what we are criticised for: our caring, emotive side. […]
No Single Right Way to Do Yoga
My way or the highway
The way I learned yoga was according to strict rules. […]
Will Dancing Make You a Better Yogi?
I’m a yogini, without much expertise in dancing. Nevertheless, I love music and dancing. I identify with a colleague of mine who says the reason that he does yoga is so that he can be flexible and strong for dancing.
Yesterday I participated in a dance class, one of a series of six that are being held at the Mitchells Island Hall. I had a ball – pun totally intended. Our instructor told us he’d been dancing for 57 years. […]
Yoga and Surgery: Good Companions
The All-Clear
Five years ago today, I was a patient at Hunters Hill Private Hospital in rehabilitation after double hip replacement surgery.
I’ll give a little time to let that sink in. Yes, two hips at the same time. I had bi-lateral surgery, a 3.5 hour procedure, whereby I received titanium protheses. I had to learn to walk all over again, and I did. Then, within 3 months, I resumed yoga practice and teaching.
Last week my orthopaedic surgeon viewed my recent x-rays and gave my new hips a good report. […]
Headstand: A Pose for all Occasions
Headstand: Weddings, Anniversaries, Birthdays… Anything
The above drawing was done by Soo Balbi on the occasion of our wedding in 1994. I like the message that the card proclaims: this is a non-conformist marriage. It also says that yoga is an important part of Daniel and Eve’s lives, and it can also be done anywhere.
A few years ago I created the YogaAnywhere practice cards. My mission was to encourage people to do yoga wherever and whenever they wanted. ‘The more personal practice the better’, I thought. […]
A Love Affair With Headstand – Is It Possible?
Headstand preparation
Do you love doing headstand (sirsasana)? Or, does it strike fear into your heart? Maybe you like the idea of headstand, but only for other people?
Without meaning to ‘big note’ myself, I did a headstand in my first yoga class in 1971. How crazy is that? First of all, what was the teacher thinking in letting me go up into such an advanced pose?! She didn’t know me or my body, but I guess headstand was in her lesson plan. […]
Time, That Old Dominatrix
I wish I had a gold coin for every time someone said, ‘I don’t have time to do yoga.’ Or, ‘I don’t have time for socialising.’ Or, ‘I don’t have time to read a book.’
I might add that I’m as likely to be dominated by time as the next person.
There are plenty of variations on the theme of not enough time, for instance:
Time gets eaten up by my work (… so I don’t have time to do stuff I love, like walking on the beach.)
I’m time poor. […]