This Time of Year

Feel like I've been out of control but I'm giving myself big credit for the leaving the house last night at 7:40 p.m. and going to Zumba even though the temperature was in the teens.

I'm off my regular schedule but the world is off its regular schedule during the end of the year so I'm not alone. 

I've done a couple of Amazon Prime exercise videos, including Fitness Kickbox and Latin Zoom Cardio Workout. I enjoyed both but especially the latter. 

Went to yoga after work today and found it hard to settle down because it was cold in the studio and I had been cold all day at work but I just kept a blanket around me and finally relaxed. The teacher, who's really on maternity leave, subbed for the regular teacher. I loved her yoga-talk about embracing choices during practice. She was essentially saying modify poses if you need to. She also talked about not putting so much New Year pressure on ourselves and to think about adding elements to our lives as opposed to eliminating things. 

I also like what Sean Haleen had to say about this time of year...

This time every year, I'm bombarded by advertisements and posts that imply the "right" thing to do is work extra hard, diet, cleanse, etc., Especially within the context of Yoga, this communicates to people the fruits of our practice become attainable through punishing ourselves for the past few weeks of indulgence. This also reinforces that "harder" is naturally better for us. I used to live for punishment and it lead me down a hard road of addiction and starvation. One message I can't repeat enough from experiencing this, is that if you beat yourself up, all you'll feel in the end, is beaten up. This is what drew my so strongly to the teachings of the Buddha many years ago. Neither lavishing yourself nor depleting yourself leads to fulfillment and we often ricochet from one to the other. Teachers, practitioners, yogis, remember that using Yoga to punish yourself doesn't lend itself to self-realization, it formalizes the bond we have with seeing our bodies as "wrong" "unworthy" or "needing to change." Let yourself feel full, nourished, and okay during this time where the pressures to make certain choices are inescapable. #yoga #yogateacher #yogamen #yogalove #yogalife #instayoga #stopdropandyoga #yogaeverywhere #yogaeverydamnday #downdog #yogatime

A post shared by Sean Haleen (@sarcasticyogateacher) on Dec 27, 2017 at 9:07am PST

The Travel Penguin's post about being organized made my Like List as well.

XYZ

Went to yoga on Monday* night even though I have large crowd fatigue right now. Four of the people that I know and who are in teacher training were sitting front and center. As I went to the lobby to put away my iPod, Joy said that she felt like a piece of the puzzle was missing and she just feels like I should be in teacher training.

Yes, there is a part of me that would like to do teacher training but...

Hell, what I would really like to do is get a Master of Arts in Yoga Studies. I've been listening to yoga podcasts which is how I even knew that there was an M.A. in that area. The person who talked about getting a yoga degree is actually my first teacher in some ways. When I ordered a DVD from Netflix, it was Sara Ivanhoe's Crunch: Candlelight Yoga so it was nice to hear the story of how she arrived at making her first DVD before yoga became so popular in the U.S...

Loved what Gina Murdock had to say during a Yoga Revealed podcast:

If you don't do the work, you're like a puppet; it's like what you say sounds like bullshit.

After Monday's class I went to visit with one of my colleague's new kitty. He is so freaking cute, well, until the moment when he went behind my back and starting scratching on my yoga mat. Luckily, my colleague knows more about kitties than I do and caught him in time...

Recon...

I signed up for a yoga workshop in December and I made myself sign up then because I didn't want to miss out on visiting yoga teacher because of apprehension that I had over the level that a chair yoga class can be taken to.

Even though I felt that I was out of my lane and out of my league because the class had so many yoga teachers in it, including one that was super bendy, I just tried to remind myself that yoga is all about what happens on your mat. As Annie likes to say, have the courage to do XYZ -- if that's what you need during a yoga practice.

At any rate,  I survived -- despite toppling out of  my chair once. Sean Haleen, who led the workshop, is extremely knowledgeable about yoga. One of my favorite moments happened soon after the class when he splayed out on the floor. Sean had taught and demonstrated yoga for five plus ours that day. Sharon met him where he'd dropped and she moved his legs to one side and did other stretches and Sean said that no one ever touches him -- because they're afraid and I could see how that can happen because of his level of expertise but, of course, everyone likes appropriate touch.

Yoga Class!

Seven-ish hours down, two more to go...

Tweet of the week:

Many hateful comments on social media after standing for up refugees. On behalf of the refugees, in the words of FDR, I welcome that hatred.

— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) January 29, 2017

*Lots of distractions, including being TKO'd by the common cold.