Yoga practices

A Pose Poised as Lovely as a Tree

A Pose Poised as Lovely as a Tree

 
 

via pinterest
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

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?*

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'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

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. […]

Permission to Rest

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

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

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)

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?

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

Loving It All

via Pinterest
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

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. […]

Yoga For When You’re Just Plumb Tuckered Out

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

Yoga: The Circle Game

 
via pinterest
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?

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

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. […]

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