Tag-Archive for » flow «

Jun
08

Shake, Shake, Shake! Utkatasana…

utkatasana-yoga-art-chris-carter-020908-137x255

Chris Carter, Artist

This is a posture I really do like…  oh yes.  In fact, it’s a posture I play with a little to give the old thighs something to really scream about!  As I near the end of my series of Sun Salutation A, I’m already anticipating the bliss in the delicious agony that is Powerful Pose… or to some, Awkward Chair Pose.

It’s a posture that challenges your focus.  Not unlike other postures, there’s a lot going on at once.  Utkatasana requires- no, demands- attention to everything happening in your body, with muscles calling out in unison, in synchronistic pleasure and pain, from nearly head to toe.

I really couldn’t describe it any better than the lovely Shiva Rea does here, so I’ll let her do the honours of offering the posture step-by-step.  I’ve included a little video supplement too…

Credit for watercolour yoga imagery goes with thanks to Chris Carter, watercolour and ink artist.

Category: Postures, Practice, strength  2 Comments
Jun
02

So Angry I Could Spit… Where’s My Mat?!

angryThere are moments in this life… work-at-home husband, homeschooling the kids,  large dog, three new kittens, impending spousal unemployment (read: formerly work-at-home husband somewhere-on-the-golf course)… where the tension just seems to mount.

In mere moments, fear, frustration, and just the build up of stress and anxiety, plain and simple, yanks you by the sharp tongue, unwillingly of course, to that place where all bad energy resides and manifests in bad attitude, negativity and sometimes- ahem- just nasty, toxic interactions with those close to you (read: husband).

We’ve all heard the sage advice to ‘count to ten’, of course.  But my question, as the aspiring yogini I profess to be, is how can my practice enhance my ability to manage my frustration… retard my tendency to fly off the handle… or ease my propensity to suffocate on my anger in seething silence.

I meditate.  I practice.  But sometimes… sometimes… in the heat of the moment… is there something, yogically, I can draw on, to provide me with much needed support to get me through it without letting my anger undermine that which I am working so hard to control?

Or should there be?

more »

Category: health, Meditation, Spirit, surrender  Leave a Comment
May
21

Work Your ‘Guns’: Yoga… Model Style

Combined with some form of cardio, yoga is without a doubt and effective choice if you are interested in an alternative to conventional strength training.  I, for one, have never been very good at sticking with a routine of dumbbells and free weights.

If you are looking for a great routine to target the ‘guns’, toning and developing strength in one sha-bang, check out the video below.  Sure, I know that the lovely Miyuki Fox is a model.  Yes, I’m aware that for whatever reason she has about 7 percent body fat, tops.  And OK, so in all likelihood the girl is eight feet tall.  So… I guess I have to admit, those facts alone set her apart from the rest of us in her ability to show off miles of bicep-ial sinew with little to no effort… but please, keep an open mind.  Take a gander… even better, give it a go.

I’m willing to bet, that model or no model, you’ll feel it… and maybe, with a little consistency, you too might be boasting model worthy ‘guns’… OK, perhaps not model worthy, but perhaps a little less chicken wing worthy.  How ’bout that?!

Category: health, strength  Leave a Comment
Mar
23

Snot Begone!! Some Yogic Solutions.

too congestedI don’t want to characterize myself as a fair-weather yogini… or, to be more precise, a fair-sinus yogini… but in the spirit of full disclosure, I do believe I am.

The first signs of a cold are one thing.  I work through it, snuffling and snorting a little, until I get back my breath.  Several minutes into Sun Salutations I can count on the excess runny boogers fluid draining away… somewhere.

However, once I am suffering with full-fledged head congestion, I give up the yogic ghost.  I just have no patience for struggling for breath through a narrow passage  in my snot, the diameter of the head of a pin… and only one nostril. Nothing cramps my Ujaii style like a nose full of sticky goo.

I recall asking a new yoga instructor years ago, having spent an entire class fighting with my stuffed head, what her best recommendation was for getting the most out of a practice when congested.  After first a long hesitation, and then stammering, her suggestion was ‘well, maybe, holding Downward Dog?’

Erk!  Yes.  Nothing like draining all of the fluid clogging my head…. back into my head!  And so, in the years since, I have managed through congestion, or more often, bagged it altogether once the thickness in my head and the gasping and choking for breath just became too bothersome.  Ahhhhh… holding Child’s Pose… now, that I can see.

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Category: Articles, health  One Comment
Mar
01

Look and Feel Younger… Anti-age With Yoga!

Use yoga to stop the clock!

Slow the signs of aging and feel younger with a simple yoga regimen. These are huge claims, but as someone who has had, shall we say, an undulating habit of practice, there’s nothing like the feeling of a body fresh from the mat.  And the various positive effects last throughout the day.  Without a doubt a regular practice has effects that extend far beyond just the hours following….

Eight years ago, when Sharon Gothard Weisman turned 40, backaches, dark undereye circles, forgetfulness, and fatigue made her feel more like 60. In the hope of finding anti-aging relief, Weisman took a yoga class. An hour later, she felt more relaxed than she had in years. She’s been doing yoga three times a week since and says, “I have more energy, strength, and flexibility than most women half my age.”She recently ran into an old high school friend who asked, “Don’t you get older like the rest of us?”

Many women try yoga for stress reduction, but they stick with it because it makes them feel–and look–younger, says Larry Payne, PhD, a yoga director at Loyola Marymount University and coauthor of Yoga Rx. Unlike traditional exercise, yoga blends anti-aging moves that improve circulation, balance, flexibility, and strength with meditative techniques such as deep breathing. “My students call yoga a natural face-lift,” he says. “It cleanses, relaxes, and restores.”
Read more of the advantages of yoga….

Category: Anti-aging, Practice, Tri training  Leave a Comment
Feb
18

Practice. Schmactice.

Perhaps if I had a dog that required yoga-ing, I’d take my commitment to a regular practice more seriously.  But, alas, my lovely beast of a dog would rather be walked than yoga-ed.

And as a result of this tender, gentle, affectionate, needy beast’s need for exercise, it is given priority in my day.  Just about every day.  As it should.  On those days that I am unable to fulfill my commitment to her, we both feel it.  Guilty.  Irritable. Just plain not right.

The benefits to walking are abundant.  As are the benefits to yoga.  Unfortunately, however, I don’t have a pair of big, brown doe eyes staring at me, following me, urging me to be sure I get in a practice everyday.  Perhaps there’s a business idea in there somewhere…. What I have is the wondrous feeling, laying in savasana, my body limp and damp, and sinking into the floor, longer, lighter and more invigorated than before.  Not eager eyeballs, just the joy of well-being.

So, as I talk myself down from the “Doh…I haven’t practiced in a week already…” ledge, it is this feeling I have to keep in mind when I am putting it off and putting it off, a seemingly perpetually unchecked activity in my dayplanner, with morning disappearing into lunch, lunch fading into afternoon and afternoon evolving quickly into the mayhem that is the late day activities, supper and bed-time rituals.

It’s the feeling of light and opening… and it’s as essential to me as our walks are to my lovely beast of a dog.

Although, to my credit, my daily meditation has taken hold as something of an early morning habit.  Wonderful.  Not unlike most, mine is a mind full of thoughts and images in freaking TechniColor and SurroundSound, even at five in the morning, I still enjoy aspiring to the stillness.

Just me, a freshly lit fire in the fireplace… and my lovely beast of a dog.

Category: Good Intentions  Leave a Comment
Jan
27

New! All New!

A new site design… to represent our renewed vision and spirit!

Mommy Om is shaping up to be the formost presence of yoga for families on the web.  In addition to first hand accounts of parent’s practice, with or without their children, Mommy Om will provide a wealth of resources for introducing and involving your children in the remarkable world of yoga.

Category: Blog, Practice  Leave a Comment
Jan
06

Ebb and Flow

Wow!It’s been quite some time since I announced I’d be back NEXT WEEK!!

So next week came next year….

Anyways, after the turn of a new year… and the turn of a new decade, I turned 40 last month, and in the last months and years leading up to this milestone birthday I have come to better embrace the ebb and flow that is my creativity, my motivation and my progress. Basically, my life. That isn’t to say during certain points I can be found lolling endlessly on the sofa until the flow kicks in… no. I just know that there is an ease that can be found and luxuriated in at times and at others, things come with a little more difficulty and can’t be forced.

That said, as we settle into 2009 and back into our homeschool winter, I am also in the face of some exciting challenges professionally and need to look to yoga and meditation as a means to best approach and overcome these challenges helping me to meet my goals. I am leaving a period of relative ebb into a wonderful flow, where I want to be able to access the inspired, the creative and the most productive in me.

I know a regular practice to be, in times of busy-ness and a little craziness, an effective tool but also a welcome respite, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

To keep me from losing my mind.

Category: Good Intentions, Meditation, Practice  One Comment
Sep
30

And So It Was…

Look… I take help where I can get it. And where I got it- where I needed to get it- was from my old stand-by when motivation is hiding somewhere under the carpet, Baron.  Baron and his Bootcamp in a Box.Baron Baptiste Bootcamp in a Box
I did not intend to rely on a CD.  However, I know myself… which is why I carry the Box with me– on most every trip!  Anyways, I never did get up early.  Husband was off golfing.  It was lunch time.  I set the kids up- yes, in front of the tube- so I could get an uninterrupted half hour.  While, perhaps not entirely uninterrupted, Baron’s 20 minute Core Flow CD followed by his guided meditation was what I needed.

Understand this is no paid plug.  While not a true devotee, I am partial to my own practice… when I do it, I do love his style of yoga and the way he teaches.

I also enjoy his guided meditation.  It’s only 10 minutes and perhaps tomorrow I will try to extend it on my own.  I swear, today I saw colours through my third eye this afternoon.  Colours, I say!  And tingly fingers….

Category: Blog, Features, Meditation, Practice, Products  One Comment
Sep
29

Tomorrow… Abso-freakin’-tively!

We have officially settled into our Mexican vacation.  Day #2 has come to an end and I do believe everyone will be in a better sleep cycle beginning tonight.  Which means, an early, uninterrupted, practice tomorrow morning.  I love practicing yoga when we’re here… it’s just a matter of making time for it and early mornings are my favourite here.  The waves, the sunrise… before the workers are up clanging down by the pool… before the other vacationers are up, all boisterous, setting up for the day or heading to breakfast… before the smell of bacon fills the air.

Doors open, breeze off of the Caribbean…. breathe….. tomorrow it is!

Category: Blog, Destinations, Good Intentions  Leave a Comment
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