The Energizer or The Gospel According to My Yoga Teacher

Hold the posture but not the breathing.

Balance postures are good exercises for the mind.

I'm careful about what I put in my mouth and about what comes out of my mouth.

...We only achieve balance in death.

It's a good idea to push yourself beyond your comfort zone but not to the point of pain....

The more you stretch, the more you relax...

Child's pose...good for the spine; good for the legs; good for relaxation.

Through the breathing, we energize the entire body.

Take a moment to feel the benefits of the practice. Feel the difference in the mind, body and emotions.

Usually said after savasana...

I definitely felt the difference tonight. Since we were a small group, someone wanted to have fun and do Vinsyasa Flow. I don't know if it was fun but I was on point with the breathing.

When The Student Is Ready

Having worked my abs yesterday, it made perfect sense that we did ab-related postures during yoga class; that's just the way my life works.

It took me a while to settle down too but I totally enjoyed the lion pose. We did the Mountain pose modification with tongues hanging out like Michael Jordan when we roared.



During corpse pose, the instructor talked about feeling the benefits of yoga and how we were in the perfect position for relaxation. Yeah, I ruminated on that comment and plan to get in the perfect position often.

After yoga, I went with my friend Lori to get baked falafel. As we enjoyed our dinner, we got chatted up by a yoga teacher (Michael) who was reading the Anatomy of Hatha Yoga. I may or may not go to one of his Hatha classes and he may or may not go rock climbing with me.

I swung by Whole Paycheck after dinner looking for spelt flour and I honestly didn't know there were so many flours: coconut, amaranth, soy and arrowroot...

I also needed tahini but left the $8.00 + jar of organic tahini on the shelf. I know an international store where I can get it for much less.



Line of the night by way of Michael from his yoga teacher:

Americans like to work out -- not work in.

Let's Twist

And my yoga teacher was not talking about Chubby Checker.

We did a little bit of this move -- sort of but without a chair; body twisted, hands together with one elbow pointing toward the ground and the other toward the sky:





We always do shoulder shrugs and rolls. And who knew that shrugging and rolling one's shoulders while breathing could be so beneficial?









Favorite lesson of the night: be gentle to your neck. Hope that you all regularly get in a fair of amount of twisting, shrugging and rolling...




*Disclosure: I received YSS
without charge at a time when I wasn't doing yoga on a regular basis. Now, it's me and the cards and I'm going to use them in small and big places.