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.
Is Yoga Enough?
I want to set the record straight.
The choice is not yoga or Pilates. I’d like to have a Lindt chocolate for every time that someone says when asked if they do yoga, “No, I do Pilates.”
Don’t get me wrong, I like Pilates. Feeling the awakening of transverse abdominus (TA) after years of neglect or abuse is a wonderful experience. I think there’s plenty of evidence that strengthening TA can help heal all kinds of back problems.
But really…! Yoga is a holistic system that offers gifts on all the levels a human is comprised of. […]
Dare I? (Y.T.A.P.T.)
I guess not. I’m not game to put it right up there in the title.
Nevertheless, I would like to talk about sex. In the spirit of Yoga Teachers Are People Too.
The ancient sage Patanjali comments on the topic of sexual energy in the Yoga Sutra and his writing has been variously interpreted as Don’t Do It (Brahmacharya). […]
Proof
Here are the photos that prove we are not living a life of sloth and indolence. Everyday there are jobs that call to us. Creating garden beds has kept us well-occupied for months.
Daniel and I spent this lovely sunny afternoon working on our acreage. After cleaning up after the horses that we agist on our back three acres, I had a wheelbarrow-ful of manure – just the thing to top up the extended no-dig garden below the shed. […]
Radical Acceptance
Over the last week I’ve been writing about the ways yoga teachers are expected to behave by their students or the general public. Paragons of virtue and purity, it would seem, is what is wanted, not adulterated weaklings.
In the spirit of coming clean, I’ve been revealing some of my frailities.
Here’s another way I can prove to you I’m human. I get grumpy when tired. Yoga teachers are not even supposed to get tired. To add crankiness to the bargain must certainly threaten the paragon’s credentials.
The problem is I get tired every day. Since my surgery Feb. […]
The Other Drink (in the Series – YTAPT – Yoga Teachers Are People Too)
Yoga and coffee go together like your two interlocked hands. A good yoga class builds thirst and appetite for a good cafe latte, or some version of that delicious brew. Why is that? And, does it matter? The stimulant loosens people’s tongues and makes them want to stay around chatting for hours. It’s the stuff of community-building.
I started drinking coffee when I was 16 because I thought it would help wake me up for my early morning summer school classes. I’m embarrassed to say it was instant coffee, but what did I know of the world of coffee. […]
Drink (YTAPT – Yoga Teachers Are People Too)
Another thing, my friend Maarit reminds me, that some people are shocked to discover about yoga teachers is they like a wee drink now and then. I’m talking about a glass of wine once in a while or a frosty beer on a summer’s day after working up a sweat in the garden.
The trouble that occurs when you do yoga over a long period of time is that you really sensitize yourself to the effects of over-indulgence, so gradually “bad habits” become less attractive.
I really enjoy a glass of fine wine now and then. […]
To Meat or Not to Meat
I wish I had a dollar for every time that I’m asked out for dinner at someone new’s place and they say, “But you don’t eat meat, do you?” The assumption being that if I’m a yogi, I don’t eat animal foods.
Yes I do. There it’s out. As much as I admire people who have foresworn eating meat, especially if they are thinking of the slaughtering of innocent sentient beings, I haven’t renounced a meat diet.
Actually I’ve come full circle. […]
Yoga Teachers Are People Too
Eve and the Gelding
I’ve been wanting to write about the ways that yoga teachers express their human side, so you might just see a series of vignettes over the next few days telling it like it is.
Let’s start with yoga gear. When I was new to yoga, women performed shiny, day-glow poses in lycra. If you were a bit trendier, you would buy your leotard and tights at the suppliers to the ballet industry – Bloch’s in the Strand Arcade. […]
Next to Godliness
Did you know there is a past tense of the word forego and it is forwent? Just so you don’t think I’m being showy when I say, I forwent my regular yoga practice this morning. I substituted 18 minutes on the stationary bike and two hours of cleaning the yoga studio.
Once you’ve seen the 72 squares space I practice in, you’ll wonder how someone could spend so much time tarting it up. Well, the usual dusting and vacuuming was de rigeur, as well as shifting spiders and skinks to the garden. […]
The Element of Earth
Do you feel like you’re too much in your head sometimes, perhaps even most of the time. I have a great remedy. Make compost.
Take several wheelbarrow loads of grass clippings, throw in a couple of buckets of kitchen scraps, and mix liberally with shovelfuls of horse poo. Deposit the mixture in the compost bed, cover with a tarp and let “cook” for some time. […]
I'm back!
As of today, I’m announcing to the world I’m back on deck teaching – in the Yoga Shed at Mitchells Island.
Yesterday was exactly 3 months since my surgery, and I’m fit and well. Certainly beach walks, fresh air, green vistas, and daily yoga practice have gone a long way towards my feeling reconstituted. Life is good. […]
Rather Than Wrestle with Stress, Do Restful Yoga
It’s not news to anyone that many of us suffer from a frenetic pace of life these days. Life gets fired at us point blank and we just have to deal with what comes up – often in a way that doesn’t let us take care of our bodies and minds. At the same time, we are fortunate that the popularity of restorative and therapeutic yoga has co-arisen with what seems like an increasingly complicated and stressful world. I live in the country and, as much as I love it, it is not a problem-free lifestyle. […]
Lettuce
I’ve never been properly appreciative of growers, being basically a city girl for most of my life. Produce was always something that you bought at the grocery store. These days you get designer or heritage or organic produce and it tastes like the real deal. […]
Something New Under the Sun
It’s not often that someone beats me to the yoga room, but Mike did today. So lovely to have his deep appreciation and experience in yoga beaming into the Shed. He did some thoughtful backbends, and I did my arm and shoulder weights routine, followed by an abbreviated yoga practice. Mike exited and Heather entered.
All of us Shedders ended up at the Waterbird Cafe for our regular Saturday morning breakfast, with the SMH quiz to tease our brains.
The beach walk is a daily ritual, you must know by now. […]
Heaven
What makes for heaven on earth for you? Reading the SMH at your favourite cafe early in the morning before the brunch crowd arrives? Sleeping in on Sunday morning – I mean all morning – with your darling? Seeing a five star movie that really deserves all of its rating? Maybe your kid gets his first paid work doing something he/she really likes? […]
Home
What a treat! I was able to practice with the Simply Yoga teachers this morning. Sigh. I miss having that routine in my life.
Speaking of routine, I waived my regular yoga practice while staying at the Fallows. Good thing it was only a week long. No walks either, but plenty of drinking and dining at Sydney eating establishments. As a result I feel trendified and rather overfull. […]
What Have I Done?
Perhaps it has something to do with being in the big Sydney smoke these last several days. Away from the purified air of Mitchells Island and the happy routine of my yoga practice.
But I’ve done it now. […]
Finally, I Love Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand)
I don’t know exactly when the tide turned in favour of doing shoulderstand, but turn it did. Maybe it was 30 years after I started yoga. Was I a masochist for hanging in there for so long? Or merely stubborn? It helped when I discovered supported shoulderstand and halasana. These are the user-friendly approaches to the standard unproved way of doing the poses.
Happiness is a Headstand
I know I’ve referred to Sirsasana (headstand) as a happy pose before. It is an individual thing, I realise. But I’m one of those individuals who loves being upside-down on my cranium. If you observed me in Sirsasana, you would hear me sighing profusely as the floor massages my scalp and the underlying plates of my skull. Such an overload of sunny sensations! Oh my!
I’ve heard that the eminent yoga teacher B.K.S. Iyengar doesn’t approve of sensual impressions being the goal of yoga, but sometimes they just come to you unbidden. A gift. […]
Easy-peasy
I participate in an on-line writing group called Scrivener’s: http://aussie-scriveners.blogspot.com/ My motive in joining was that the more writing I do the better writer I become. Each week we write a relatively short story, the theme for which is suggested by a “prompt” by one of the group’s members. […]