A dear friend just posted this link…. and I just gotta pass it on. Just beautiful
Author theresalom
Getting Old Blows
Of course, the option to getting old is a bummer too.
Been fighting insomnia again. Shoulder pain pretty consistently wakes me up around 3 am. Once ya get it a weird sleep cycle, it is hard to break. I lay in bed, overwhelmed by all the things that I’d like to be doing. So I get up, do a few chores functioning like a zombie.
Thank God for my yoga practice. I might be a zombie now, but after I finish my thrash on writing this and send it to cyberspace, I’m gonna do me a little Yin. Mid-morning I will take a hot yoga class. I’ll rally and I’ll have a great day. Hopefully I will officially clinch a PTA position today. We’re in negotiations right now. I really want this job and the wait is rather interminable.
I’ve embarked on furthering my Yin practice/teaching. I am largely self-taught as a Yin teacher. My formal training is in Raja-style yoga, which is quite athletic and decidedly Yang. I taught a Yin sequence back in my Ashram days that is heavily influenced by Brian Kest’s take on Yin Yoga. I’ve read books by Bernie Clark and Paul Grilley which have further deepened my understanding of Yin.
I find learning from Bernie in video forum is far deeper than reading a book. He possesses great wisdom and humor. His suggestions on props and pose modifications are fantastic. I love to stretch, But being quite bendy I have to go pretty deep in most poses in order to feel the target stresses. So it is super important that I learn to modify for a given student. I want to be the best freaking Yin teacher that I can be!
Bernie also holds poses incredibly long. I have my students hold most poses for a minute or so. A few for 3-5 minutes. But Bernie holds for about 5 min and the experience becomes extremely intense. I want to scream sometimes. One must also release fro a pose extremely slowly to let tissues safely rebound. Time is far more important than depth. The wisdom Bernie is imparting has already affected my own teaching style and I’m sure this will continue to be the case.
With that being said, I’m gonna do me some studying!
P.S. Harlan and I continue to play with duo yoga and boy is it fun. 🙂 I am enormously grateful that we are starting to geek out and have a lot of fun
urdva dhanurasana on down dog
stacked dog?
child’s pose stack
Spider? Double straddle?
We’ve been looking at more pictures of basic duo poses. Geeking out a bit, actually. It is a lot of fun.
Baby Steps
Harlan and I are learning to better fly into basic duo partner postures and it is so fun! I find myself checking out IG for ideas and goals. Will definitely be practicing before and/or after Lisa’s class today at vivifynm.com.
These are from our driveway. I usually shoot in front of our amazing view of the Sandia Mountain Range, but there is enough of an incline and it was breezy that day. So my base wasn’t into that idea. Kinda have to roll with what the base says when playing duo yoga. 🙂
Totally struggling these days with attending to home management issues. Need a plumber, need a handyman (we are not handy), never-ending dog duties (our Basenjis are amazingly spoiled.)
Our Minions are totally worth complying with their numerous expectations . However, walking them can be a total drag. Walking 3 Basenjis in jackrabbit country currently in windy season is not a cake walk. The winds kick up sand and blow the tumbleweeds and grasses. My sight hounds become quite naughty. Pulling hard, extra tangles in their 3 leashes. Argh! Romeo, my very special doggie, has been his usual fun dog to walk with. Lucien was just terrible yesterday. It is good that he is so cute and I must remember that he is still very much a puppy in his brain.
Lucien (aka Moose)
Ro and Z are sizing up the frontier ahead
Romeo can be so goofy
The first time Lucien saw me invert
Unfurled Tail.
I so wish I could spend more time on this blog. To make it more informative/interesting first and foremost, and not just limited to my yoga photography. I am an ardent yogini, but I am also a fledgling Physical Therapist Assistant.
I am self-diagnosing myself with Blogging Block. I hope that it ends soon!
Namaste, Have a great Tuesday.
-T
More on Trust Issues
I have been having so much fun messing around with Duo Yoga with my husband. We have only just begun – and it would be a lot easier on my base if I would just have faith and relax. We’ve still got to get smooth on a basic fly, but why not shoot for the stars and trying something else to dream about?
I share this knowing that we will be doing this pose again and pretty sure it will be a lot smoother. This is one of the reasons I love my yoga photography. Seeing what’s going on from the sidelines offers much to learn. Stills are great – but can impart a false sense that I know what I am doing. I think that this proves otherwise.
One thing is clear – I gotta learn to trust in my base. He is a whole lot steadier than I, in so many ways. I hope I don’t crush his skull .
Teaching Yin at Vivify today at 4 pm!
I am so stoked. Today WordPress is letting me insert pictures. I’ve been having issues with photos in general on my laptop, so a Trip to the Apple Store is in my future.
Anyhoo, I have been filling my life with as much yoga as I can whilst looking for a job. I need to ramp up my desire secure a new job . It’s just so fun to attend to errands and projects that have been back burner-ed for a long while. But it is also nice to eat and have a roof over your head. So I need to get serious.
Trust Issues
My husband and I have started to mess around with duo yoga. I think we will pull off some cool stuff. I am really happy. I am also a total chicken, so this will encourage me to get over it! I would post a more recent shot – but WordPress is not letting me post my recent downloads. Grrrrr!
There are a lot of things I’d like to discourse. I continue to procrastinate Churching Up my blog. I want to make it so much more, but I’m getting distracted with home nesting and spring cleaning right now I guess. And my left eye still “wears out” during the day. Naps are time consuming 🙂 Oh, and I’m getting to do a whole lot more asana. Perhaps I should start balancing out my 8-limbed path. 🙂
Anyways. my belated post…… Go Ladies!!!
Potential end of Writer’s Block?
I *really* want to rearrange my blog. I want to share my yoga pictures but i also want to provide a format for general info about yoga. And Basenjis. And New Mexico. But I find that overwhelming, so I tend to just share pictures about what I’m up to and thinking about. Admittedly rather superficial! Hopefully now that I can look at computer screens for more than a few minutes I will start to chip away and “church it up”, so to speak.
Five weeks of eye b.s. has pretty much up-ended my life. It was simply terrifying to consider permanent loss of my vision. It was really head-trippy to witness what I could see, it was like being on a hallucinogen without it wearing off…. It was very relieving when my vision started to improve…. But finding myself suddenly unemployed has definitely stung. I understand, I really do, but holy heck it stings. They couldn’t wait for me to come back to work when I had no idea when/whether I could do so. I’m relieved that a few days ago I retrieved my state license, my belongings, turned in my key, and hugged many of my beloved co-workers. Chapter officially closed. Time to move on. Glad I didn’t cry because Harlan accompanied me and he is my anchor.. After saying my good-byes we went and saw The Black Panther (big time recommendation). Great diversion. The characters were all so bad-ass.
My vision is still fucked up in my left eye, but each day brings some improvement,. It’s frustrating that my gains now are not nearly as marked as previous weeks. Scares me but the eye doc assured me that it was going to be a long recuperation which might not be fully complete. Thankfully I have been given the go-ahead to drive, work, and do my headstands. Life is good.!
In retrospect, the Santa Fe job wasn’t the best fit anyways. i really enjoyed my co-workers but the commute was simply an emotional drain. No time for self-care at the end or the beginning of the day for the entire work week. I love caring for others but we do need to find time for self-care. I didn’t have the time to hydrate, eat, nor even go to the bathroom during my shifts. That rather sucked. I’ not super surprised I had 2 UTIs and optic neuritis during my SF stint The Gods Spoke that it wasn’t gonna happen and I’ve no choice but to move on
Ideally my new job will welcome my belief of appropriate yoga exercises coupled with therapeutic exercises personally designed for a given patient’s functional goals and always within their specific plan of care. I don’t personally believe in modalities and I know I’m not alone. I also yearn for a situation where I could continue to teach yoga with clients interested in doing so post PT discharge, with knowledge of any limitations they may still have. I couldn’t do that in SF, since i don’t teach there. But in RR/ABQ I could certainly offer such services.
In the interim, I know I need to take advantage of the extra time I have to get on my yoga mat. I’ve definitely done more, but I really want to make it a daily event while I can. I am sub teaching his morning, which is always my best motivation to go. 🙂
So here are a few pictures of Harlan and I dabbling in some Partner Yoga. super glad that we’ve started to practice together. I’ll mull how to church the site up, but I first need to focus on getting my day underway and to walk my minions before I’m off to teach! And a few pictures of my Basenji Pile.
