August 2011
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William Carlos Williams
Emma read us a poem today in our mighty yoga class (SO HOT) and it reminded me in savasana about how much I respect and want to be like WCW. He is just so amazingly deft at his word choice in his creation of imagery, and that is something I consistently struggle with in my writing. This poem, much like my favorite of his “The Red Wheelbarrow” is short and sweet and full of an image...
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One thing I hate about yoga: some of the straight...
I get it that everyone checks out everyone else. Yeah, everyone’s pretty damn hot. But can you please be subtle about it? It is extremely uncomfortable for me when I realize that you’ve been staring straight at my ass for most of the class. By the way, the reason why I don’t want to talk to you after class isn’t because I’m a frigid bitch, it’s because...
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We all have our own strengths and weaknesses.
I was reminded of that this week when I started doing yoga again after a week’s break, and this time, my boyfriend joined me for class. He sporadically does yoga, but he remains fairly flexible and strong despite the fact; the following day, he rarely has soreness. Me, on the other hand: very flexible but weak. After a year of yoga, I now can do chaturanga (narrow-armed push ups) properly on...
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fuck yeah Mighty Yoga
First class at Mighty Yoga! It felt so great to sweat out Orientation Weekend :P On our way to class, Kendra witnessed Street Violence for the first time, complete with aggressive walking, spitting, and loud vapid threats.
During savasana I thought about the cities I’ve lived in and how I felt walking around them. From Pittsburgh I have this one memory of my mother and I walking from our...
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Right Under the Glass Disco Ball.: Yoga blocks. →
fuckyeahyoga:
unebonnevivante:
So, I just got back from a GREAT Vinyasa class, and some of the focus today was put on the use of blocks and how some people don’t want to use them - they don’t want to feel like they “need help” or “can’t do” some of the poses. I wish that more yogis understood that using a block does not make you “weak”. In fact, if you don’t quite have superb flexibility...
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Guilty Confession (actually not feeling so guilty...
but—the influx of freshmen (and their parents, and their lanyards, and their maps, and their exuberance) signals the start of the school year and, more importantly, yoga classes! Like Karin, I too am going through severe yoga withdrawal, though my symptoms include reckless sleeping, having clean feet (wtf), and wearing non-sports bras. WEIRD.
—yan
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"Simple Words, Serious Consequences: What 'Fat... →
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"Working out Shouldn't Be about Getting a Perfect... →
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Guilty confession: not a huge fan of Tara Stiles.
Her “Slim Calm Sexy” mantra bothers me. Those three things don’t have anything to with each other, and two of them have nothing to do with yoga. Or at least they shouldn’t.
-Karin
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Going through yoga withdrawal.
I hate it when they cancel classes for a week, and I turn into a paranoid, jittery spider monkey.
-Karin
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Just saw a license plate that read "YOGASL."
And the plastic border holding it in read “Namaste.”
-Karin
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“Silence is not silent. Silence speaks. It speaks most eloquently. Silence is not...”
– Sri Chinmoy
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“There is no such thing as an advanced variation. My body can not be more...”
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Michael Taylor on Twitter about “advanced” variations in yoga.
I saw this quote at a very fitting time. That same morning my yoga instructor was talking to us about motivation that stems from our desire to compete with—and look like—our neighbors in practice.
He reminded us to always ask...
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Yoga: 5 Tips to Improve (Almost) Any Pose →
yogaislife:
We all have different body types and different challenges when it comes to asanas, or the physical poses. In my own practice, I’ve found there are five little adjustments I can make that improves my form in almost any posture.
Here are my five tips for improving almost any pose. I hope they’ll help you, too!
1. Find your roots. In standing poses that means pressing your feet...
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Emma read a poem to us before savasana.
Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over...
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Heartbeats
The other night I was laying in bed snuggling with my boyfriend and he said how my heart was beating really strongly because he could see my whole body move with each heart beat. I was really jealous because when I looked I couldn’t see it, and when we were in savasana the other day that’s all I was thinking about, because this time I could FEEL my hearbeat in my inner right thigh and...
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Karin--
that was not a dream. Pack your bags, we’re fleeing the country.
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I fell asleep during savasana and started...
Yan, Kendra and I were in the middle of a heist from the Credit Suisse vaults. Each of us had bags filled with diamonds, gold, Gutenberg Bibles and blackmail on the world’s leaders. Security had found out, and we were setting up explosives but they prematurely detonated (which oddly sounded like someone coughing). The explosives still managed to blow a decent hole though the wall, but then...
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My wish for today's class
No rolling on to either side of our faces, please, as yan and i got new piercings yesterday and the thought of touching them is terrifying!
—kendra
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Balancing poses ftw, please.
A wish for today’s yoga class. Also no lizard/gecko, please! Let us stretch our hip flexors in other animals.
—yan
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Order in the Universe
In savasana today, I was thinking of how finding order and significance in the arbitrary and unimportant gives me a huge sense of satisfaction. For example, the three of us have to put our mats down in the same order in every yoga class: Kendra on the left, me in the middle, Karin on the right. Always. I think this is just how we started doing yoga last year, and now it doesn’t feel right...
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happy birthday karin :)
just pre-empting you for the real thing on Monday :P
MISS YOU LOVE YOU
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How much more I feel like I GET yoga now
Once I started taking emma’s class, I think I really started to pay attention to what she said at the beginning of every class, that our practice is about culturing and nurturing the relationship between us an our bodies. Before, yoga was something I made myself go to because I knew I wasn’t getting enough exercise, but once I started thinking about how I treat my body and listen to it...
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August 4th, 2011 | Yoga Playlist
steadyandjoyful:
whoa, awesome, I’m obsessed with that rerub and Animal and Au Revoir Simone! Zach always plays “Bruises” by Chairlift when we go upside-down and “Man in the Mirror” during savasana :D
—yan
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Meditation in Motion
In class today we focused on settling the mind and body while doing variations of the sun salutations, “around the world” style. I kept thinking back to what Elaine said yesterday about practice becoming life and life becoming practice. And Zach talking about doing yoga for five hours a day everyday; he says he loves feeling sore.
I think that yoga has completely changed the way I...
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What a difference four years makes.
Back then, I was lowering my intake to 1200 calories a day to try to lose more weight. I thought that being fit and being thin were synonymous because that’s what all the magazines say. I thought that being thin would make me a better person, a happier person.
What I knew, but refused to accept, was that to be thin was to fight against my body; that I was already fit, and losing weight...
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That's how you spell psoas?
I always thought it was soaz. ha.
—kendra
