327: and i'm back

life caught up with me recently and while i have been practicing, i haven't been posting. the best practices i've had recently have been with my daughter, V. she is nearly 6 and approaches yoga very energetically. i recently gave my girls a new yoga deck which has game ideas and partner poses as well as traditional poses. one sunday, they played and play with the cards for hours.

then, while my little one napped, V and i laid out a sequence and she went through the whole practice with me.

after we finished our little practice, V showed off her fierce dragon:

now, we're going to peanut yoga with a local instructor on sundays. V loves it. we also learned peaceful gorilla at last week's class which has come in handy as my girls have gotten over excited lately. we just do peaceful gorilla for a couple breaths and start again. parenting with yoga isn't too bad.

peaceful gorilla, credit des moines parent

365 days of yoga: take a tall seat

25 minutes: nice and easy

this morning, i slept a little late and got started a little before 9am. (i have a little cold and i've taken nyquil the past two nights. i slept the sleep of a medicine induced sleep coma.)

i rolled out my mat, took a tall seat and some deep breaths, and started the de-stress practice from this month's yoga journal.

i ended in corpse pose, but rather than stay there and fall asleep (a real possibility this morning), i rolled up to take a tall seat again. i remember when i first started practicing and my instructor would say to imagine a string pulling up from the top of my head and down into the ground. today, i pulled that idea into my practice and sat a little taller. i breathed a little deeper.

it felt wonderfully grounding.

the rest of the day, i've been calmer and more centered. i have hope for my year of daily practice.

T25 - totally tough

this morning, i totally hit the snooze twice. i just wasn't feeling like jumping all around at 5:15am, but i still rolled myself out of bed, got downstairs and realized i had left my clothes upstairs. finally, clothes on, shoes located, i hit play on the DVD.

today's workout focused on doing a total body circuit. at the beginning, i felt like i could really do it. i ran in place, i punched and squatted. and then, the planks came along.

from: yoga journal

now, i've been practicing yoga for something like 15 years and i can hang out in a plank position. but this was a little more than i am capable of doing. my point of no return was when we were supposed to go from plank position and take 3 jumps up to a pike position (like downward dog, but a little tighter). then 2 jumps to get to pike, 2 jumps back. then 1 jump to pike and 1 jump back. who can do that?!

not me.

the hardest part about this workout was not being able to see the modifier for the really tricky stuff. and also being frustrated that i can't do it.

from theblackdogblog

but, i realized this morning, that i'm not sure i want to be able to do it. i always laugh at those memes where people say they can't do yoga because they're not flexible enough and i know it comes with time and practice. i'm not sure i'm willing to dedicate myself to reach the point where i can jump from plank to pike and back again.



i'll still finish the week, but i'm leaning toward a more low-impact program. this blog offers a workout calendar and links to her youtube workouts. realistically, i think that's more my speed.

T25: jumping isn't my thing

today's workout was speed 1.0. it was actually easier for me than yesterday's because i understood better what i was supposed to be doing.

but there's a lot of jumping.

turns out, i don't really like jumping all that much. it's kind of like running. i can do it if i have to, but if i don't, i really rather not.

but, there's also punching in this one (along with the jumping) and i do like that. i felt like i could actually do most of the workout without modifying. and then i would get my feet all confused and have to stop to find my place.

at least i didn't have to stop because i was winded.

i've committed to myself to do the full first week according to the program, but i'm thinking this kind of workout is not for me. to the vendor's credit, there is a 30 day money back guarantee. if i hate it, no harm no foul.

i hope there's less jumping tomorrow...

T25 - day 1

this morning, we started the T25 program i mentioned last week. *and* M did it with me.

to be fair, we didn't get off to a great start. i hit snooze and then V had a bad dream and we finally got started about 20 minutes after we planned. oh well.

the first workout is cardio. M is an avid runner. me, not so much. as we did the workout, he's jumping and running in place all fast and i'm barely able to figure out what we're supposed to be doing before we change the motions. it's like zumba, but less dancing.

i kind of felt like an idiot, but it's not my usual style of exercise. M on the other hand really was able to do all the running, jumping and knees-up-in-the-air things. i'm hoping i'll get better at it once i'm more familiar.

on the little calendar that tells you which workout to do on which day, you can check a box that says, "nailed it" or "barely made it". even though i wasn't dying at the end, i felt like i had to check barely made it since i fumbled around and modified just about everything.

here we go...

am/pm practice

monday afternoon, i remember that i had signed up to do a 21 day yoga challenge through yoga journal. when i first read about it in the magazine, the page hadn't been updated yet and kept telling me that the program ended last december. eventually, it updated and i somehow signed up.

but i didn't get the first workout until around 3pm. too late for me to practice. so, i thought, oh, i'll just do all the workouts one day behind. no problem! however, at 5:30am the next morning when it failed to load after repeated attempts (and my technology solving skills are not the best at that time of day) i gave up and did a random dvd from the shelf.

and then i realized that we had on-site fitness that evening. i started my day with a fairly vigorous practice and ended with a more relaxing practice. we have an instructor who just received her certification and i really liked how she talked us into each pose and then held us there.

i find that holding a pose for longer breaths takes my focus somewhere different. i'm not trying to keep up, i'm trying to finesse my form. and it's exhausting! chair pose for 8 breaths is some serious business.

i actually set my alarm to get up this morning, but i felt kind of sore and rather than push it to try for a video that won't load, i chose to rest.

rested.

5 day detox: i'm really doing it

for day 3,  my morning started with yoga. i spent 5 hours in the car yesterday driving up to a meeting and back again so stretching felt pretty good. i focused on hip openers and finished with a brief seated meditation. (that didn't last too long as M started making breakfast and packing lunch in the next room.)

i ate leftover cooked oats with berries for breakfast and had a hard boiled egg for snack. another big green salad served as lunch today with arugula, mushrooms and other raw veggies plus brown rice, chic peas and a little oil and vinegar to dress it. i would have preferred lemon, but they didn't have any where we were.

one avocado, a bunch of grapes, an apple and peanut butter and edamame later and here i am writing this evening. i spaced all that out over the afternoon and evening, but i'm pretty hungry at the moment.

i have to say, i'm surprised at how good i feel physically. i read those testimonials about people who eliminate something from their diet and poof! they're cured of whatever ailed them. i tend to be a bit of a skeptic when it comes to pre-set programs and revelations through diet, but i feel really great. and my digestion is excellent. for me, this stands out as a really big deal as my health issues all revolved around digestion.

although, while i'm not usually a person who craves sweets, i could really go for something sweet to munch on. like a pastry. or bread with jam. fruit tastes sweet, but i crave something with more substance. and i did have a moment today when i was ready to quit early and have some french fries.

in the scheme of things, i'm glad i decided to do this.

jumpstart with detox plan

it turns out, quitting smoking and drinking are difficult. so, i'm going to re-start my plan by diving into a 5 day detox program.

now, to be clear, i'm not talking about a formal order-my-product, pay-for-my-plan kind of program. i simply realized that by trying to eliminate habits that occur as part of my normal routine and keeping the same normal routing is not working for me.

starting tomorrow, i'm going to eliminate all smoking, alcohol, caffeine, processed sugars, processed everything from my diet for 5 days. i'm going to add in as much water as i can swallow. (everything i've read suggests 10 glasses per day. i have a big water bottle, so i'm going to shoot for 3 full water bottles.)

i will eat, but only whole foods, grains, fruits and vegetables.

i find that my resolve is excellent when i wake up, but falters as soon as i hit a stressful situation. for example, my littlest one completely fell out at breakfast this morning. i have no idea why. offering her cereal is apparently sob-worthy material.

i'm also going to use chains to track my progress with one chain each for yoga, no smoking, no non-water beverages, eating whole foods.

i am determined to make a change. i just have to find the right switch in my brain.

back to back fitness

for yoga tuesday this week i attended our on-site zumba class with a handful of co-workers. the class lasted a very short 45 minutes. for me, i felt much less awkward than the first time i participated. i don't know if it was because i knew the moves a little better or if i just felt better generally. regardless, my arms felt sore this morning from all that pumping and punching.

from yoga journal

then, this morning, i rolled out of bed with the full intention of a good 30 or 45 minutes of practice, but instead ended up cleaning up cat puke. and then following the cat around the house as she continued to puke in various rooms. awful.

eventually, i managed to find a little cat-puke-free space and practice for about 10 minutes. i started with a couple sun salutations, then moved through warrior 2, side angle pose and triangle on each side. using vinyasa to transition, i ended with pigeon pose, seated forward bend and cobblers pose. i tried to sit quietly at the end of my practice, but i just couldn't let the thoughts move past.

stupid cat.

good/bad

10 minutes - morning stretch

one of the really good/really bad things about quitting smoking is the moments when my sense of smell starts to properly revive. i can smell everything. (wild mint! truck exhaust!)

credit: survival in the wasteland

one of the good/bad things about our new house is the downstairs bedroom which is currently serving as an office, spare bedroom, yoga studio, playroom and cat litter closet.

this morning, M and I both woke up around 5:30am- he to get ready for cross country practice and a pre-work day and me to practice yoga and get ready for work.

good: M cleaned the cat box.

bad: i couldn't even walk in the room, let alone practice because all i could smell was the cat litter. (granted it was clean cat litter, but it still smelled like chemicals.)

good: we have a playroom, now. i can practice in the playroom.

bad: we didn't clean the playroom last night before bed so i had to clear a little circle for myself to settle in.

good/bad: i still practiced, but it wasn't the practice i woke up imagining.

yoga tuesdays

75 minutes - vinyasa 1/2
30 minutes - yoga for core strength

tuesday is officially my day to go to the yoga studio. and, they even offer 2 choices on tuesday nights- a level 1/2 vinyasa class or the full primary series. this week, i chose the vinyasa class.

we flowed in and out of poses, but kept coming back to side plank. first, with a knee on the ground, then the full side plank, then lifting one leg, then binding the lifted leg with the same side arm. i nearly toppled over several times, but so did everyone else. it was a supportive and fun kind of class.

this morning, i did a little practice i found somewhere on the internet. i didn't keep the page, but just wrote down the series. (i think i meant to print it, but the internet failed me.) i added a little here and there, but i understand why they called it yoga for core strength:

1. cat/cow
2. hand/knee balance (from table, lift opposite arm and leg)
3. down dog
4. plank
5. side plank
6. high lunge
7. half moon pose
8. chair pose
9. eagle pose
10. boat pose

i will say, i wish i'd look ahead a little because it makes much more sense to come into half moon pose from the high lunge. i figured it out on the second side and had to go backwards to get the first side. also, i would add one more pose at the end to counter the boat pose. i chose cobbler's pose. a seated forward bend would work, too.

happy yoga tuesday!

good morning hips

30 or 40 minutes - hip openers

credit: balanced yoga

after feeling like a lump yesterday, i set my alarm for 5:45am and actually made it out of bed by 6am. i headed downstairs armed with a little home practice i found on yoga journal last night. they have a whole section on home practice which can be nice especially if you're a little out of practice.

i started with a couple rounds of sun salutations to warm up and added a standing forward bend before i started the series appropriately called hip enough? i liked the flow and i added a vinyasa here and there to help the transitions, but overall i felt like i flowed right on through.

and now, i've started my day a little more open and a little brighter. i had to refocus my focus to remember that i'm choosing to do this. it is my choice. i choose to wake up and practice yoga.