Day 31...AKA One, or the other

Yeah, I know. It's been awhile. Like, AWHILE. But guess what, I'm still going :)

Life intervened, and suddenly a daily post seemed laughably impossible...like when? WHEN? would I have time to post, between work, life, more work, dance, actually doing yoga, work and weekends full of fun? Have pity on me people, I was too busy having fun!! (bwah hah hah!!)

Yup. So I figured I had time for one or the other...post, or bend.

I chose bend.

So where am I after 31 days of yoga? (Seriously...never missed a day. Not even when my head was so stuffed up that I think it hermetically sealed every time I shut my mouth...big thanks to YogaJournal.com for listing poses that work for the breathing-impaired.)

1.) I sleep better. Way better.

2.) I have triceps!! Actual triceps. Better triceps than what I had after 4 months at Curves.

3.) Better balance. Dance feels easier, I have better endurance.

4.) I'm proud of the commitment, and I really love it. Like, I'm hooked...and I'm convinced that Downward Dog is the best exercise ever.

5.) I'm happier. For real. I feel it, others have commented on it, and it's a daily occurence.

And really, that's all that matters.

So, I'll endeavor to post more...because I like to, and that was the whole point of starting this blog, as a sort-of diary of this whole experience. But on those days, which is most days, where life is keeping me running without pause, I'll be choosing to do yoga, rather than write about it.

Day 10

Jan. 10

Asanas: take a g(aiam)uess...

Anatomy of a Sunday:

9:45 a.m. Get up, grumpy sleepy tired headache stuffy wah.

10:30 a.m. Pub breakfast with the usual suspects, and additional gang. Mmm...melt-in-your-mouth bacon. Despite transcendental bacon, my head still pounds.

1:00 p.m. Driving, Starbucks, teaching a lesson in deductive sculpture to an interesting 10 yr. old. We sling mud and talk about the injustices of grade 4, and being 33. They are surprisingly similar.

3:45 p.m. Crawling through the supermarket looking for greens. They all look like crap, and come from very, very far away. I am sidetracked by pork and broccoli and cheapo boxed pastry shells (note: these ingredients were not used together...although...)

4:45 p.m. Home, kitchen attack. Warming of tourtière filling, thawing of soup, chopping of fruit, making of crisp, washing of dishes (mothaf$#@...)

5:45 p.m. As tourières bake, I yoga. Moment of meat pie-fragranced peace is SO AWESOME. Quad muscles rejoice in stretching (also scream at me, but mostly rejoice.)

7:30 p.m. After WASHING MORE DAMNED DISHES, I step back to admire the awesomeness of meat pie and fruit crisp belated holiday gifts that I have baked for beloved coworkers. I finally feel like I have created a fitting 'thank you' for their continued awesomeness and hilarity.

8:00 p.m. Brother shows up for dinner, tourtière and garlic sautéed broccoli and apple/pear/cranberry crisp. We are all satisfied, and there's an hour and half of Simpsons on. And, during this hour and a half, we get to see pasty, awesome Morgan Spurlock in a really small speedo...essential to a successful Sunday dinner...

10:40 p.m. Mr. Awesome enjoys a slice of hand-pie (you'll have to ask him about that) while I blog, and remember the 296 things that I didn't get to this weekend. Oh well. At least we're full.

Day 9

Jan. 9th...stepping back into the dance...

Asanas: my own 'stretch' blend, from the Yoga Stretch iPod app, with a better flow this time.

Mountain pose, forward bend, warrior variation, downward dog, cat, cow, child's pose, spinal twist, knees to chest, savasana

I danced for the first time in about a month today. Tonight, I am SORE. My feet hurt, my shoulders are tight, and my core feels like it's had it's ass handed to it. I couldn't believe how rusty I felt after the break from it all, but I was also impressed with how focused my balance felt during spins and slow moves, and I'm sure that I have yoga to thank for this.

It was freakin' awesome to dance again, I was happy to be with my girls and Valizan and back in the studio with the music and energy.

Tonight's practice was short and sweet, with a focus on stretching out those parts of me that worked hard today. I feel that tomorrow's practice will need to be more of the same. I am slowly starting to figure out what poses work with one another in a sequence...part of me feels like I should just listen to myself and put whatever poses that seem good together, and part of me really wants someone to show me how to do this whole shebang 'cause I suck at transitioning between poses...I'm considering finding a drop in class for a once-a-week learning session. In the meantime, I'm scoping out more yoga apps (god... there are a lot of lame-ass apps out there...I was searching under 'belly dance' for shits and giggles and I was totally dismayed to find porny-photo apps of photoshopped belly dancers, and super lame 'diva dance' type crap...LAME) and I think that a trip to the library this week might be necessary, in the hunt for more ways to be bendyer.

I'm seriously starting to fall asleep writing this, Mr. Awesome has been put to bed with a nasty cold and I'm feeling totally zombified myself, however, I want to share this one piece of fabulousness. Back in October Maya Fire (our ATS dance troupe) had applied to perform at the International Belly Dance Conference of Canada this coming April. We received confirmation yesterday that we had actually been selected, and for a main stage performance!! I am speechless...

So...it is good to step back into the dance. The break was needed and enjoyed, and I am even happier to be back in step once again.

Best part of tonight's practice: doing my own thing according to my body's needs, and feeling fine about it.

Day 8

Jan. 8 (posted Jan. 9th...for reasons to be revealed...)

Asanas: Gaiam same old same old DVD, 'cause it just works this week.

Points of note:

1.) I have been doing yoga now for one whole week. I am pleased. I lie in bed with Mr. Awesome as we are falling asleep, and he asks me "so, do you notice a difference having done yoga everyday for a week?" and I think about the week past and notice a thread of 'goodness' running from thought to thought. So I tell him yes, it's been good, I feel...calmer, I do feel more flexible, in every sense...and it's true. I had a really great Friday yesterday...it was just so damn pleasant. Better yet, I actually noticed that it was.

2.) Mr. Awesome's computer went kaput. 2 years old, just finished paying for it, and it goes hamsta' bwain on us. $310 later, it's at the shop for a brain transplant. Hence, he's on my computer more until we get the iMac back early in the week. I tried posting from my iPod last night after my practice, but couldn't without an app that I then couldn't find. I went to bed instead.

3.) Apart from mechanical and digital devices giving up the ghost yesterday, it seemed like a lot of people were having good stuff happen to them.

We are both feeling a bit under the weather, so this weekend is about slowing down and relaxing so that we can hit the week running. Oh, and it's about dancing, too...as I will describe later.

Best part of practice: naptime with Nono

Day 7

Jan. 7th

Asanas: Gaiam Yoga maintenance weight loss DVD sequence...'cause I LOVE it so...especially at night. Especially tonight. I swear I did at least half of the sequence with my eyes shut, or shutting.

I'm too tired to write anything. I need to get way more sleep...the lack of it drives me into the arms of red wine and a bit of the sugar that I've been so good to avoid this week and makes me feel like utter crap. Both myself and Mr. Awesome feel a bit under the weather, so it's time to dose the oregano oil like mad and hit the hay.

Best part of the practice tonight...feeling that the distance between my hands was a little bit less when clasping my hands behind my shoulders...and feeling my shoulders and neck open up.

Day 6

Jan. 6

Asanas: Mountain, extended side angle, triangle, warriors, forward bends, cobra, child's pose, cat, cow, camel, bow, downward dog, knee sit, savasana - a crazy quilt of random!

How is it the 6th already? My Dad told me that this was the day that my Grandma would traditionally take down the tree...ours sits still in it's finery on our balcony, sleeping now til spring. I'll get around to de-decorating it tomorrow night.

Was up at 6:30 this morning to yoga with Nono. The apartment was freezing, and I felt beyond irritated that I was out of my warm warm WARM bed. I finally tried out my Yoga Stretch app on my iPod, which enables the user to design their own sequences. I have discovered that I need to learn more about sequencing poses! My practice actually had me laughing at it's randomness; do mountain pose! Now cobra! Now camel! Now side angle! Now bow pose! (wtf!) Now downward dog! No transitions for you!!! It was a sequence programmed by a crazy person...and that person was me, apparently. So now I have homework...figure out some basic philosophy regarding what poses go together and why.

Regardless of the bi-polar-style practice, it really woke me up and I felt very ready for the day, even after a mere 6 hours of sleep. Mr. Awesome and I enjoyed a vietnamese dinner date (complete with comic books) this evening, and the pho was slurpingly consumed, fuel against the cold weather we've been having. We hung out on the couch and watched Food, Inc. afterwards, which was utterly fascinating and turned out to be somewhat of a companion to two of my favorite books, 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' and 'In Defense of Food'. In all honesty, reading both of these books changed my life, and I refer to them frequently. I was stoked to see that the movie was tied in to them.

I am now letting go of the anger, hopelessness and disgust that welled up in me while watching it. I'm not going to get into specifics. Just watch the movie. Read 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' and 'In Defence of Food' by Michael Pollan while you're at it. I am a food nerd, and have read endlessly on the subject of our food (mono)culture and industry, but the images from the movie are seared into my brain, and my resolve to continue voting with my food dollar has been hardened yet again. Everything boils down to respect, and I'm left thinking again and again that the reason things seem so broken most of the time in this world is because of a general lack of it, and the ignorance that keeps us from wondering where it went.

I'm heading to bed thinking that I'm going to let tomorrow dictate when my practice will take place...normally I plan in advance, will it be morning, evening? but I think that tomorrow will let me know tomorrow...I (again) have lots to think about tonight.

Best part of practice today? the extended side angle pose (utthita parsvakonasana) ♥♥♥

Day 5

Jan. 5th

The looooooooong Tuesday.

Asanas: staff pose, downward dog, a bunch of leg/hip/foldy/stretchy ones, legs over head, torso twists, courtesy of Gaiam's DVD Maintenance Yoga for Weight Loss with the infuriatingly slender and calm Susan Deason.

I work two jobs on Tuesday...first all day at my desk, then all evening behind a cash, or in the fine arts department, or fielding questions from (often dim) customers in the art store. It's a 13 hour day when it's all said and done. But, the upside is that I get to work with really good friends who make me laugh and we all hug a lot...hug and wrestle and beat each other up and make entirely inappropriate jokes out of mundane words like 'bag' 'batch' and pretty much any other double-entendre that can be abused...it's really quite friendly and happy, even when customers make us nuts. Which is always.

I had a great chat with my pal S tonight who practices yoga himself fairly often when he's not running a store or chas

ing after his 3 year old or generally being cool beans. I showed him my cool yoga apps and expressed my concern that I would never, ever, EVER be able to do half of the poses so beautifully executed by the perfect skinny people in the photos. He pointed out which people in the photos had the best tits and asses, and then told me that yes, someday, I would be able. It was just nice to hear it from a voice outside of my head. Also, good to have a 2nd opinion on who has the best tit/ass combo. Ahhh...boys.

I did the Gaiam dvd tonight...it's a great sequence

for night, it really puts my head in a good place. I like the flow of the poses, the feet-up poses and awesome stretching with a strap, and the music in the program is so so pretty, it's just lovely to sit and be present and listen to it.

Best part of the practice was Nono, fresh from dinner, quietly fighting for a sliver of mat space with me while I finished the sequence. He then stretched out with me and we both did savasana, then flipped on our sides for extreme belly-rub action. Yoga + cat = awesome.

Tomorrow morning, for the first time, I will do yoga before work. This means that I have to get up at 6:30, which means that I have to go to bed. Now.