(Eve – 3 yrs, 5 months post-op)
Are you having a painful time with your hips and avoiding seeking medical treatment? It’s a good idea to get an x-ray to see what’s going on. The problem may be muscular, structural misalignment, or, as in my case, osteoarthritis of both hips. When I saw an orthopaedic surgeon a few years back, I discovered I needed to have hip replacements, and it was scary news. But ultimately, it was better to face the diagnosis than hang out in denial. […]
We’re so happy here at our digs on Mitchells Island! (‘We’ is Michael, Judy, Daniel and me, while Heather and Rick are in Canada.)
Since last night, it’s been raining, a gentle but steady precipitation that’s washed away weeks of accumulated dust. Eight mm of rain collection measured in our gauge and a good slug for our tank. […]
via pinterest
My husband and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary last week. For many people this milestone could be considered an improbable achievement, given that the median duration of marriage was 12.2 years in 2012.
Twenty years of marriage is almost time enough to experience three seven year itches. It’s time enough to fall into dull routines and think that you’ve said everything there is to say to each other. […]
image via Pinterest
News flash: the holidays are coming!
Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah or just a big nosh up picnic on the beach with friends and family, the time for festive assemblages is rapidly approaching.
There will be shopping for gifts. There will be parties at work and clubs, and lunches and dinners. […]
Sometimes you just don’t have much energy by the time the weekend comes, no matter how much you’ve enjoyed your working week, because you’re just too pooped.
Here’s a restorative yoga practice to recharge your batteries on a Friday evening or Saturday afternoon so you can be at your best all weekend.
Supta Badda Konasana Bound-angle pose Equipment: blanket, belt and a bolster.
Lie back on a bolster or several blankets folded lengthwise to support your back and head. […]
I watched a video today featuring Richard Freeman talking about yoga while his students were doing Ashtanga Vinyasa – Mysore style – in the background. Some of the poses they were performing were ones I used to do. Others I’ve never been able to do, and, at this stage in my life, am unlikely to achieve.
(If you can’t see the video below, try refreshing your screen….)
Do I feel sad about not being able to do these sorts of advanced poses? Not at all. […]
Every now and then, I like to remind my readers about this healing pose: Setu Bandha Sarvangasana or the supported bridge pose.
Using props make this a restorative version of the more active bridge.
I’ve been in the pose every day this week as a way to counter the low back compression I’ve experienced from gardening. Part of why the pose is so good for the lower back and sacrum is because it stretches the abdominal area, a part of your body that tenses when your back is tight. […]
I woke up this morning feeling weary. That’s a bad sign because it could have meant that’s as good as I was going to feel all day. I’ve said before in these posts that yoga teachers are not at all immune to exhaustion. So, my current condition has given me cause for reflection.
There are so many words for being bone-tired that you might wear yourself out just reading this partial list:
frazzled
pooped
bushed
sapped
drained
spent
prostrate
enervated
A phrase for extreme fatigue that seems to be popping up more and more is ‘adrenal exhaustion’. […]
We on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, the region that’s known as the Manning Valley, are incredibly privileged to live and in such a stunningly beautiful area.
Today I got to explore the coastal part of it that includes Khappinghat Nature Reserve and Creek, and Saltwater National Park.
Friends John and Julie took Daniel and me on an adventurous bike ride up and down dirt tracks and bush trails for 2.5 hours.
It was tough for me – not being a regular cyclist – and also, I was the only one in the group who’s sporting titanium/ceramic hips […]
comfortinstylemag.com via Pinterest
If you have been doing yoga fairly regularly, has your practice improved over the years? What I’m talking about is your ability to do more and more advanced asanas over time.
Isn’t this what motivates many people when they take up yoga classes? They have noticed a gradual deterioration of certain physical abilities and they’ve heard that yoga might be able to fix this decline and even improve their condition.
It is true that there are myriad benefits that accrue from doing yoga routinely. […]
Today is the second day that my husband Daniel has been feeling unwell. There are few ailments more frightening than a “man cold/cough”. Sadly, he is suffering more today than he was yesterday, so I racked my brain and my intuition for what I might pull out of my yoga tool box for him.
Here’s a simple, nurturing practice I created for the kind of cough that makes your chest hurt. The program is also good for cases of mild asthma.
1. Supta Baddha Konasana – Forehead higher than chin, chin higher than chest, chest open. […]
If you know me as a teacher, you probably also know that I am the Prop Queen. It would be a rare class where I taught without the students using props. I find they are beneficial for beginners to advanced students for a variety of reasons, and they work great for me in my personal practice.
I wasn’t always like this. I learned hatha yoga originally like a lot of people do in a community hall with a hard wooden floor, well before the advent of non-skid mats. […]
Sometimes my body does my bidding without complaint, and other times she is just 68-years old cranky.
After 2-1/2 hours of weeding, shovelling, and mulching in the garden, my lower and upper back and hips were demanding some nice treatment.
Thank goodness I had a few of these restorative poses up my sleeve. […]
As a blogger ensconced in my little Mitchells Island retreat, I walk a thin line between being open and revealing in my writing but not so much that I come across as neurotic and narcissistic.
Really, I do rein myself in at times. Also, I don’t want you to lose confidence in me because I don’t show up as the epitome of a strong, well-balanced yoga teacher (which I’m not, certainly not at all times…ask my husband). […]
After I completed two long days of teaching yoga therapy in Byron Bay, I had pause to stop and reflect on my efforts.
The night before my 14-hour teaching day, I typically had sleep difficulties, culminating in just three hours of sleep. It’s not the first time this sort of pre-teaching insomnia has occurred. Part of it has to do with what a quiet lifestyle I ordinarily have in the country contrasted with suddenly meeting 13 new students in a new venue. But I also admit to being somewhat of a perfectionist, still, after all these years. […]
Why do people try to keep it together? And, sometimes they have to work very hard at it, too.
I do it myself. I was reminiscing tonight about how I took up bicycle riding again eight months after I’d had hip replacement surgery. I hadn’t ridden a bike for 20 years. I was using the bike at the Burning Man Festival, covering miles of desert on and off over several days. […]
Next week I’ll be teaching in the Byron Yoga Therapy Course which I’ve had the honour of doing for the last four years.
What is yoga therapy? In one sense it’s a contradiction in terms because the basis of Patanjali’s meditation yoga is that an individual is whole and complete and doesn’t needing ‘fixing’. […]
I went back to school in the year 2000. I was definitely a mature age student, but about two-thirds of my class were too. We were enrolled in a yoga teacher training.
After having taught yoga for 15 years, I decided to learn some new things. […]
Judy is in a rehabilitation centre at the moment ‘finding her legs’, as she is 15 days out from double hip replacement surgery. She is a veteran yogi and also trained as a yoga teacher, and probably has about 35 years of Iyengar yoga under her belt.
Judy’s doing another kind of training now with the physiotherapists at Hunters Hill Private Hospital. […]
Out of all the thousands of poses in the world, how do you know which of them to practice.
Or, if you’re a yoga teacher, how do you know what to teach?
Of course, it depends on many of variables, the most important one being, read your body. Another indicator is read the seasons.
At the moment we’ve been doing summer gardening – especially cutting back weeds and hauling full wheelbarrows of them for disposal. […]