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A writer sitting before a blank page is like a swimmer poised on the edge of a diving board.
With any luck, there ensues the clicking of keys, and words start to tumble onto the screen. […]
Yoga practices
Meditation: The Clock with No Hands
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Have you ever notice how we humans get hypnotised by time. As we mature into being adults, it’s as though we develop an internal clock, something like an invisible heart pacemaker.
For instance, when I go for a 30 minute beach walk, I know pretty much to the second when the halfway point, 15 minutes, has gone by. […]
A Pose Poised as Lovely as a Tree
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I’ve recently heard of a few people who have suffered falls related to various medical conditions: vision impairment, alzheimer’s, faints, and cancer.
While younger people might pick themselves up, dust themselves off and move on, falling can lead to more serious problems in the aged population. Some will suffer bone fractures and breaks but also the gradual diminution of confidence. This may lead to loss of independence and perhaps the eventual need to move into an aged care facility.
Yoga is often touted as beneficial for improving the sense of balance. […]
Meditation: An Inside Job
The small ruby everyone wants has fallen out on the road.
Some think it is east of us, others west of us.
Some say, among primitive earth rocks, others, in the deep waters.
Kabir’s instinct told him it was inside and what it was worth,
And he wrapped it up carefully in his heart cloth. – Kabir The Kabir Book
This is a poem about what? About knowing what is important and taking good care of it. Keeping the focus on it. […]
How Can I Know What I Think Till I See What I Say?*
Photo by Julie Slavin
On January 1st of 2010, I launched the “Yoga Suits Her” blog. That was 999 posts ago and lots of writing practice under the bridge.
Writing has parallels with yoga practice. Do enough of it and something changes. It may that your technique improves, or you will get more life experience which gets poured back onto the page or into what you do on your mat. Writing or practising yoga over a long time will change you, you can be sure. […]
You're Only as Good as Your Last Success
You must know that expression. It has a few spins on it: you’re only as good as your last sale; you’re only as good as your last performance; you’re only as good as your last game….
I watch my stats on “Yoga Suits Her” carefully to measure how popular my posts are, that is, how many views I get on a post. My mood lifts when I see numbers in the hundreds. […]
For Your Weekend Refreshment
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. […]
Good Yoga Practice: Listening With Your Eyes, Seeing With Your Heart
I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday who was having a bad day. Not only was she in some physical pain, but there was some psychological upset going on, too. My heart went out to her, and before I knew it I was pouring out words that sounded a lot like advice. […]
Permission to Rest
Generally speaking, I think people (including myself) don’t know how to be tired.
Think about it. Do you recognise when you are weary and stop and rest?
First of all, you have to be in touch with your body and mind to notice when fatigue symptoms are arising. But often, we are out of our bodies when we are driving ourselves to get a job done. […]
This Week: Begin Your Home Yoga Practice
Hey it’s a brand new week. Maybe this is going to be the week when you are finally going to start doing home yoga practice. I know you’ve thought about it. All it’s going to take is getting yourself organised. Here’s a suggestion that’s worked for me and others. Spend a little time at the beginning of the week, say, Sunday evening or Monday morning, and think out what you want to do in your practice over the week. […]
Thankless vs. Thankful
We live on 4.5 acres of semi-rural land on Mitchells Island. Some of our property is tamed and most is not. Not that we haven’t been working on it on and off for the last nine years. It’s a big job trying to do bush regeneration.
Today, as I was cutting and poisoning lantana and blackberry bush, I was thinking how much more work there was to do compared with my current feeble efforts. […]
A Healing Pose: Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (Bridge)
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. […]
Natural Erosion?
Our closest beach on Mitchells Island has lost about a half kilometre of its length in the last couple of years. That’s a big chunk.
The area concerned is at the mouth of the Manning River, but the dunes all along in a southerly direction, including Old Bar Beach, are seriously eroded, too.
The encroachment of the sea has devastated the little tern breeding ground. These tiny birds are very vulnerable and have been declared endangered. […]
Loving It All
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There’s a phenomenon that we humans participate in whereby we dissociate from parts of our bodies. This can be because we don’t like those parts, we find them unattractive, or they are uncomfortable or even painful.
Here’s an example: I have had problems with my teeth ever since I can remember. I was a dental patient from the time I got my adult teeth. The drinking water where I grew up in Chicago wasn’t fluoridated, and I was a big sweet eater, besides. […]
Inspiring Each Other
“From just one spark we can create one fire. And from one fire we can create one light. From that one light, we create vision and that vision is how we share just one spark. […]
Practising Ahimsa (non-harming) in the Garden
People think I know a lot about yoga because I’ve been doing it and teaching it for so long. I do know some things, but yoga is a big subject, so there is still plenty of learning for me. […]
Yoga For When You’re Just Plumb Tuckered Out
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’. […]
Yoga: The Circle Game
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After class today, a yoga student and I were discussing the different ways that yoga is currently presented. He’s experienced classes where the teaching came across as shallow… insubstantial. I think I understood what he meant, but it made me think about my own teaching approach.
So much of what yoga teachers present involves the doing of asanas. I’m one of those teachers. Ninety percent of what I ask the students to do involves physical exercise. […]
Did You Have an Adventure Today?
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 […]
Yoga: Head to Toes Embodiment
The miracle that our human body is goes unnoticed most of the time. A yoga teacher has the privilege of bringing people home to their bodies in the way she conducts classes – and hopefully to a sense of wonder and appreciation about our embodiment. Over the years I’ve done several studied of anatomy and physiology. One of the reasons I love those sciences is that they present a map for one way of understanding our bodies. […]