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.
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.
I Say, There’s a New World Comin’
If you haven’t been paying attention recently to news and social media, you’ve missed the millions of women getting out there, telling tragic stories of being sexually assaulted.
The’ve used the hashtag #MeToo on Facebook and Twitter to declare instances of sexual harassment and abuse. These allegations point to men in all areas of life: the entertainment industry, sciences, academia, and politics. Women are being taken seriously and supported in their allegations by men.
The Big Question: What Are Dying and Death For?
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.
Yoga Lesson Plans: Surrender to Adapting
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 is All About Enrolment
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. […]
Is Gentle the New Advanced Yoga?
From the one, the spread of many
Does the phrase ‘gentle is the new advanced yoga’ make your mind do a little backflip? Well, that’s the point. How about, ‘slow is the new strong’. Change is a constant. We see that yoga keeps on transforming almost before our eyes. Slow and gentle may be the next revolution in yoga. Perhaps a reaction to Power Yoga and Hot Yoga styles?
The many ways that yoga has morphed into different styles in recent times is mind-boggling. […]
The Case for Joining Yoga Associations
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. […]
Recover from Gardening Labours with Yoga
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.
The Flower of Meditation–Resilience
I may be an elder but that does not always make me wise. One of my goals in doing regular meditation is to develop the quality of resilience. To be able to get myself out of a heavy mood in a reasonable timeframe. To get up off the floor when I feel like I’ve been run over by a Mack truck. The Japanese have a saying, “Fall down 7 times, get up 8.”
Communal Living and Another 15 Minutes of Fame
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.
The Disciplined Yogi Sticks to the Program
At present, early in the season, it’s hot and sultry. I feel lazy. I don’t want to do anything except lie in my hammock, dozing off with an unchallenging book.
Returning from a long overseas winter holiday has done nothing to improve my discipline. It’s been so very hard to kickstart my practice after two months of travelling. Yet I have done it now.
Getting back into the routine of writing weekly blog posts has been harder. I’ve been sitting at my computer and immediately think of chores: watering, laundry, grocery shopping. […]
Yoga Shed Classes on through the School Holidays
The Yoga Shed…
These are the days of artisan foods and organic clothing, and all manner of things that promote a simple, healthy lifestyle. […]
Yoga and Age: A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words
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 […]
Yoga and Age: Do Yoga Practitioners Get Old?
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).
If You Are a Musician, Do Yoga to Improve Your Music
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.
A Gratitude Practice: Give Thanks for Everyday Things
Objectify: degrade to the status of a mere object.
I don’t know why mere objects aren’t shown more respect. And why is it that objectifying is considered a pejorative word?
Think of all the things that we use daily that make life easier or more pleasurable and yet we take these objects for granted.
I had cause to reflect on the importance of certain objects on our recent camping trip. […]
Eve and the Art of Adjustment Workshop in Byron Bay.
I will be teaching an afternoon workshop on The Art of Adjustment in Byron Bay Sunday, August 20th, 1-5 pm.
At the risk of punning, I’m an old hand at hands-on adjustments. […]
Hot Weather Yoga: Do Flop-asanas!
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.
Politics, Opinions and Yoga Kindness
We yogis can do our bit to create more connection in the world every time we get on our yoga mats or cushions. We can breathe in kindness and breathe out rancour. We can be kind to our bodies in our asana practice. We can practice loving kindness in our meditations. When we join hands in prayer position, we can make that gesture mean it, that is, I see the divinity in me and you, too.
The Yoga Approach to Hysterectomy
In the absence of internet information, I decided to create my own holistic way of dealing with my upcoming surgery.
I started talking with my friends to share my journey. The simple fact that I was willing to be open and vulnerable helped eliminate any residual shame.
I started keeping a journal in which I could collect information on hysterectomies, and more importantly, write down questions and feelings as they arose.