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.
Take Care: It’s Good Yoga Practice
Welcome to Take Care
From today Yoga Suits Her blog will feature daily posts relating to taking very good care of oneself. Being kind to oneself. Practising self-care.
Why do I want to emphasise self-care at this time? Because I’ve noticed recently that I haven’t been doing well in this department.
I have much room for improvement in the area of self-care. And maybe you do too. Little things, like resting when I’m tired, taking time to prepare meals carefully and eating mindfully. […]
Allowing Yourself to Feel: Being With Sadness
Recently, I’ve had two episodes of feeling overcome with sadness. Not depression, but awash in sadness. You might have had times like this, too. They seemingly come out of nowhere and when I experience them, I feel compelled to figure out what’s going on. My hope is that I can defuse the melancholy as soon as possible, once I understand it. Thinking can take me out of the experience of being sad, as I build a narrative around the emotion. Sometimes the sadness is simply a black cloud that envelops and it’s not something to be understood. […]
Yoga and a Hysterectomy Recovery Program
Recovering from a hysterectomy can be a daunting process. There’s an emotional side to it: the loss of a major organ. A hysterectomy can also precipitate the sudden onset of menopause. On the physical side, the suggested healing time is six weeks, a long time to be dealing with discomfort and restricted activity. Mentally, it’s a time for taking it slow and easy, perhaps a difficult discipline if there are children to look after and home and work to juggle. Yoga was the perfect companion in my smooth recovery from a hysterectomy.
Yoga Practice For Wintery, Windy Weather
If you are situated high up on a windy hill as we are, or even in one of those urban wind tunnels created by high-rise buildings, be prepared. For winter, rug up, muffler up, and go head down, bum up, in your yoga practice.
Choose Healthy Living: Limit Future Pain
It would be a very nice thing if we were able to get through our days and years without pain. I’m talking about any sort of pain–emotional, mental, physical or spiritual. A nice thing, but we know it’s not going to happen.
I’m here to tell you that getting on in years is a further impediment to being pain-free. There are ‘inconveniences’, such as loss of hearing and changes in vision. And there are the discomforts of stiffening muscles and rusty joints. Then there’s the outright pain of that goes with serious medical conditions which can happen at any age.
Lately I’ve been thinking more and more about how I can preserve the relative good health I enjoy. I want to avoid future pain, too, to the extent that is possible.
Housing for New Times: The Shedders
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...
Alison Rose Gray 1952-2018
Walking out of the Manning Great Lakes Memorial chapel yesterday, I overheard a couple talking. He said, ‘We used to go to weddings.’ I completely got him. The service that I had just attended was the fifth funeral in the last year, with nary a wedding in sight.
Alison Rose Gray was one of my first students when I began teaching in the Yoga Shed eight years ago. She loved yoga and would often enrol friends in coming along with her. […]
There’s Nothing Like a Dame: Women Together
I’ve been happily immersed in a woman’s world recently.
It started with reading an advanced manuscript of Ana Davis’ rich and empowering book, Moving with the Moon. Ana has written a yoga book, which will be available later this year, that is for all women, . It describes how yoga best applies to women. It shows us how we can benefit from doing feminine yoga, for all of our lives.
Almost as I finished the book, it was time for me to catch my flight to Adelaide. […]
Supported Bridge: A Healing Pose
The healing benefits of supported bridge
Do you have poses that you do rain or shine and in all seasons. Your body and mind say, ‘This is an every day pose. Bring it!’ Supported bridge (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana) is one of these.
It can be performed in a variety of ways. […]
Yoga Retreats Are The Way to Go Forward
Sometimes we need to retreat to go forward.
In my mind, attending a yoga retreat is the best way to go forward in your yoga practice. I would venture to say, even in your life, as retreats offer you periodic renewal.
When Sydney was still my base, I lead retreats in the lower Blue Mountains over a 12 year period. Twice a year our students attended these weekends of inspiration, regeneration and enjoyment. We yoga teachers of Sydney Yoga Centre experienced similar benefits to the students and returned to the city renewed. […]
Yoga Forward Bends: An Inside Job
Have you noticed that there seem to be an infinite variety of yoga poses? Truly! If you are doing home practice it can be confusing what poses you’ll do and what sequences.
Equally, you may get stuck in a rut if you just do the same old, same old postures for efficiency’s sake. I noticed this had happened to me and, in particular, regarding forward bends. I had fallen into a routine of doing the splits, head-to-knee poses and double leg forward bends, and that was about it. […]
On This International Women’s Yoga Day: Nude Yoga Girl
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.
Rx for Age-related Grumpiness: Meditation!
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.
Awash in Gratitude: Yoga, Choir and Pool Communities
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. […]
Cool Yoga for Hot, Humid Weather
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. […]
Yoga Quotations: The Spice of Teaching
Why we don’t make up our own quotable quips? Why do we rely on celebrity or guru quotes, which are sometimes misquotes or misattributed)?
Yoga teachers-in-training tend to spout their teachers’ words exactly when they begin teaching. I still do. My Iyengar teacher from the eighties, Martyn Jackson, pops up in my classroom instructions on occasion. As do more recent influencers, like Donna Farhi or Judith Laseter.
As yoga teachers become more seasoned, they fashion their own phrasing. And then, their quips, quotations and word pictures will undoubtedly plant find their way into the next generation’s repertoire.
Discover the Power of Everyday Rituals
My ritual morning cuppa
There’s a certain morning ritual that I have performed ever since I was 16 years old. This is the age when coffee and I started our long and friendly relationship.
I enrolled in a summer high school class which started at 7am. Everyone knows that teenagers are not biologically designed for early mornings. I was in shock when that first alarm went off. Making and drinking a cuppa soon became the ritual that got me going each day. […]
Colour Your Life With Creativity At Camp Creative
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. […]
No Matter How Much Yoga, Age Takes No Prisoners
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Time to Take a Break: Plotting and Perfectionism
It would have been nice to start out in my teaching career as a completely relaxed yoga teacher, but that doesn’t often happen. Perhaps that old line about it taking years to be an overnight success is valid.
Planning and plotting have been long-held habits in all areas of my life. I could also say that they have been expressed as perfectionism. Little by little, though, I have been learning to trust what I know and what I have embodied.