Two yoga practices that are very popular among yoga teachers are the sequence for “boosting the immune system” and the one for “fighting colds”. Too often, instead of taking time off to recover from an acute illness, teachers try to push through, even though they know better, and even though they tell their students to rest and recover. […]
It was so beautiful coming home to Mitchells Island after 5 days away because of:
• The Yoga Shed – I did Richard Miller’s “Meditative Heart of Yoga” practice and fell back into myself (Essential Self).
• Strawberry cuttings that neighbour Mandy had so generously left for me to plant in our garden.
• Fresh cucumbers delivered from Jacqui’s garden to our dinner table.
• A heavenly lavender sunset framed by a balmy, breezy atmosphere.
• My four beautiful yoga students who came for their lesson this evening, and left with love shining on their faces.
This is perhaps […]
We’re enjoying the company of Collyn and Maarit Rivers at our Mitchells Island home over the next couple of days. […]
One of the most important ways to cultivate a feeling of community among yogis is for them to participate in a yoga retreat, whether it’s for just a weekend or for a week. It’s a privilege and a pleasure to be able to get away from the daily grind and immerse yourself in undistracted yoga practice, preferably in a peaceful, natural setting.
A popular venue for staging yoga retreats of Sydney Yoga Centre and Simply Yoga was out west of Sydney, between Richmond and Kurrajong, a place called Camp Berringa. […]
It was just as well I didn’t encounter the gesture of “Namaste” until I’d been doing yoga for many years. […]
About six years ago one of my beautiful yoga teacher trainees from Nature Care College designed these posters for me. Her name is Hui Yi and she’s from Malaysia. I thought her images were too great not to be shared with a wider audience. […]
We all need to relax. Cyclones and flooding in Queensland, bush fires in Victoria, mega-snowstorms in the U.S., and insurrection in Egypt.
Even over here in peaceful Mitchells Island, this evening the neighbour’s dog monstered the gelding who got loose and ran all around our property. Daniel calmed the horse but the dog bailed me up till help arrived.
Pshew!
So, here’s an Eve Relaxation for you. Of course, it works best if you can put it down as an audio recording.
Lie down with your head and neck supported, arms and legs a comfortable distance apart. […]
Most yogis who get interested in teaching do so because their teacher is going away on hols and asks them to cover for her classes. Thrown into the deep end, dog paddling to stay afloat, I remember watching the attendances of classes I was filling in for go from 20 to 2 in no time. Certainly I was audacious to have said yes in the first place. […]
Imagine if Beethoven had had his hearing restored and he actually heard his magnificent Ninth Symphony as he conducted it at his Austrian premier. Because of hearing nothing, he wept.
Or imagine if the incredibly prolific Pierre-Auguste Renoir had not been severely crippled by arthritis and wheel chair-bound what his contribution to painting and sculpture might have been.
On February 1st, 2010, my orthopedic surgeon replaced my osteoarthritic hips with 2 shiny ceramic & titanium ones. It’s taken time and dedication to yoga and other exercise, but I’ve restored much of my former mobility. […]
Very few people seem completely content with the way their hips work, a sad thing to say about such a pivotal part of one’s anatomy. For some of us, our hips are too tight and for others too flexible.
Here’s a sequence that will give your legs, groins and hips a good workout. For you supple yogis out there, focus on keeping firm to centre, holding the muscles around upper thighs and hips close to the bones. […]
Australia has a hard, even at times cruel, climate, one that keeps complacency at bay. It seems one of the most extraordinary things to me that our farmers keep going back to husband the land after fires, floods and plagues. Tragic stories of lost properties and livestock abound accompanied by stories of communities pulling together for mutual support, as in the recent Queensland flooding.
We’ve been very blessed this season on Mitchells Island – spared, as we’ve been from the 40 degree temperatures of the Drought Years and saved from the northern floods of this year. […]
One of the comments from yesterday’s post, a question really, is from Amanda who says:
”Eve – could you say something about ways to assist those with this problem [shoulder problems} to recuperate without surgery…I have been exploring alignment of the muscles around the rotator cuff and strengthening them also and working sensitvely with the cuff tears area/impingements…with students and self…seems to happen when people have had a regular practice (4/5/6 days a week) over many years and then irregular for some years and then come back in with a new determination, and an assumption/wish that the body will respond […]
For reasons that are sometimes all too obvious, armpits are an often maligned part of the anatomy. Perhaps if we referred to armpits by their anatomical name, axillae, we would be more cheerfully disposed toward them. I find I feel more friendly about my axillae since I discovered the word is diminuative of “ala”, wing.
Axillae are absolutely crucial to many yoga poses. Take adho mukha svanasana, as an example.
This photo of me was taken in my pre-armpit-activating period. […]
There’s Attitude and attitude. The monk I snapped in a Burmese market was obviously not shy about being photographed and demonstrated plenty of Attitude.
Yoga practice is a place where one’s attitude (in Sanskrit “bhava”) shows up. Putting yourself on the yoga mat, you can observe various attitudes and work with them. Here are a few ways things to consider about your attitude while practicing.
• Alignment. […]
I first came across this pose (above) at the Iyengar Institute in Pune, where it was used extensively for students in the “medical classes” (read therapy).
So, it seemed like a good one to pull out of the rabbit hat in the weeks after my hips were operated on nearly a year ago. I was reminded of it yesterday, visiting with Maarit who is a couple of months post-hip surgery.
The Institute’s medical classes are like a multi-ring circus. […]
I sleep like a baby through the night.
It wasn’t always so. I used to teach early morning yoga classes several times a week. My alarm went at 5 am, but I’d try to be asleep the night before by 10 at the latest. […]
January is the month of Good Intentions – the time to do a yoga intensive to hopefully kick off a year of disciplined practice or a time to go away to a writer’s retreat to finally become a writer.
Then, you come home, unpack, do your laundry, fill the empty fridge and think what’s next. Or maybe you don’t have time to think because you have to go straight back to work.
I used to lead country yoga retreats for many years. The participants enjoyed the structure of the weekends. […]
“Enough is enough.” That is contentment. – Ram Dass
Doing forward stretches in your yoga practice is a great way to test your ability to balance effort and repose. If you are pushy, your mind will be agitated. If you are slack, you will be left feeling dull. […]
At this time of a brand new year, we are disposed to thinking of moving forward into 2011, into our lives, maybe into a healthier, happier lifestyle. On Dec. 31st we leave behind the old year and wake up into a fresh Jan. 1st.
Let’s take the family of yoga postures, forward bends, as a metaphor for going forward in a peaceful, simple way.
To be honest, forward bends can stir up a range of emotions from love to hate. […]
January 1st of last year I launched Yoga Suits Her.
Therefore it seems auspicious (a word often applied to felicitous Indian things!) to re-launch today – Jan. 1, 2011.
I never realised when I started out e-musing that I would like doing it so much. To be able to stay in contact with friends and students through this medium, and even garner new yoga friends along the way, is a delight. […]