There have been quite a few books published on the topic of doing yoga “off the mat”. Click here for an example. The idea is that we practice yoga on the mat with a certain philosophical approach in mind and we take what we learn into our everyday activities. So thus, yoga off the mat is informed by new wisdom.
Today, I was felt nicely chilled out from my early morning practice (despite very chilly winter temperatures outdoors). […]
Yoga practices
Equanimous?
A yogini has to be detached in any circumstances; that is what she is cultivating: equanimity.
In this view, I probably let the team down this morning when I went out to the Yoga Shed to practice. I got a shock and I might have even said, “What the f#@*” in reaction to the mess I discovered.
By now, I should be prepared for certain wild events, living in the country as we do. Last weekend we were threatened with minor flood warnings which very nearly eventuated, but didn’t. We have been isolated before, only for a day. […]
Grooming, etc.
I started today – Sunday – with a proposition to hubby Daniel (men love to be propositioned) that we give each other massages. He accepted.
Actually, this is an activity we often share on a Sunday morning…a way of connecting physically, in the spirit of giving. […]
Discipline?
How’s your yoga practice going since the colder weather has arrived?
Sometimes yoga students think their teachers bounce out of bed, raring to get to their yoga practice.
I’m not bad, but I notice since recent holiday disruptions of my practice routine that now that I’m home again, I’m not bouncing back.
In fact, the last two mornings, I was very happy to practice in the late afternoon – when my body is more warmed up, when the weather has warmed up. […]
Wonder
I always wondered why people who visited Kakadu went on raving about it so much. Now I understand a little more, having had two and a half days there, introduced to the park by my friend, Carole Baillargeon.
Kakadu is Darwin’s backyard, so to speak, if a yard can be as big as a small country. The fortunate Darwinians can go there for a weekend, and do.
These photos are from the 2-hr. […]
Top End
For some people, dying and going to heaven is staying in the Gold Coast Versace Hotel or a 4-hour shiatsu from Mardi Kendall – www.mardishiatsu.com.au. To use the French cliche, chaqu’un a son gout.
In this moment, for me, it is to be accommodated as I am in this loft bedroom at the Darwin Yoga Room, founded and directed by Carole Baillargeron.
I can open the curtains of our little mezzanine and look down on the big yoga warehouse space, replete with all manner of delicious yoga tools. […]
Bali Belly
I miss my home yoga studio on Mitchells Island, but can I really complain about doing yoga in my current paradisal venue: Our Bali Villa –
www.ourbalivilla.com
I think not.
I experienced a happy surprise the other day when I was practising uddiyana bandha breathing. I decided to follow it with nauli, a kriya or cleansing exercise for the abdominal organs. Here’s a wikipedia link of you’d like more information and even a photo. […]
Gifts Keep Giving
The other night I was honoured with an invitation to a Buddhist meditation led by an ex-pat, Rio Helmi, an amazing international photographer – www.riohelmi.com.
He’s a “civilian” rather than a lama, who has set up an amazing sangha space in his Ubud home. […]
Privilege
This morning the first view I had from our villa window was of the rice paddy workers planting tender shoots. For me, even as a yogini, and for most Westerners, the planting would be considered back-breaking. These workers seem to work without breaks, sun-up to sun-down.
While they were bent double over their planting, I enjoyed the enormous privilege of doing my yoga practice.
Here in Bali I’m easily reminded – against the fiil of this poor island – how fortunate I am to be able to pursue my practice..
The mortar of Bali is spiritual practice. […]
A Tidy Mind
One of Patanjali’s niyama – precepts – is Saucha (which translates as purity or cleanliness). When I was training yoga teachers in Sydney, I would test the trainees to see if they could recall all 10 of the yama and niyama. Saucha often would be the one left out. I thought maybe, as precepts go, it was not so cool as Satya (honesty) or Ishvarapranidhana (devotion to a higher power).
How many these days would want to be considered pure? I like Donna Fahri’s interpretation of Saucha as wholesome. […]
Pushy Pushy Pushy
I’m in Sydney at the moment, where the cafe society is a way of life. Up our way on sleepy Mitchell Island, we travel to the soporific Waterbird for our coffee. […]
Amazing Grace
Tonight I became all choked up while singing “Amazing Grace”, as our community choir was using it for our warm-up.
What was that about? I don’t follow any faith so it wasn’t a religious experience, but the group singing was palpably moving. It just caught me in the throat and that was it.
Many years ago at Sydney’s Circular Quay, I was waiting for a ferry when I found myself drawn to a young man positioned right in the middle of the pedestrian traffic singing show tunes, of all things. […]
Practice Makes Practice
Yoga teachers have an agenda.
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). […]
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. […]
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. […]
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. […]
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? […]