note to myself: do your practice and all is coming
Thanks to my new dvd does my Ujjayi breath get better and better.. it helps so much to let go of all these things that can shoot thru your mind when in downward facing dog or triangle pose.
All your hear is your heart and you breathing (I have to admit a little like Darth Vader) in and out!
My biggest problem right now is unfortunately the jump thru.. when I see it on videos, it looks so elegant and amazingly easy. In real life.. it's super hard and far far off from elegant!
I found a dvd that is claiming to give you some techniques to train it, so that you will be able to do it over time. I am considering ordering it!
I am also going to a local Yoga class twice a week, and I think that this is super important. Nobody can tell you in a dvd, that you are not working yourself into the right holding of the posture or helps you with some questions you might have. And it is amazing for me to have an hour away from home and kids you need some breakfast in the middle of a shoulder stand! Nowhere else does Savasana feel so good than in an actual Yoga class!
And cause my Ashtanga practice is the same everyday.. I really do enjoy a little shake up of my workout!
Last time our teacher asked us to think about something that we would never do.. where we would say.. "No way.. I would never do that". Something that we are scared of or maybe just to smart to do that.. and I of course, had in my mind right away.. Rollercoasters or huge Water slides.
So a couple of days later at the pool with my kids.. they opened up the big water slide (which is not that big at all... but still for me a NO WAY object) and I looked at it and catched myself saying NO WAY.. and than I stopped.. and thought and said.. whatever I will try! And omg it was fun!
Loved the way Yoga affected my life right there!!!
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Thursday, August 9, 2012
day 4 & 5
note to myself: need to work on relaxation in corpse pose!
Relaxing in Savasana is so much easier when I go to my weekly Yoga class.. at home I just can't get myself to lay down long enough or to just drift away a little.. every time I feel so eager to get up and relax.. have a drink of water. So much stuff is running thru my head.
This is so not the point of corpse pose!
I finally did it, and got up at 5.30am to do my daily practice.. and I am ashamed to admit, that the only reason I got up was my little son Damon squeaking in bed and by the time I made me some coffee and was ready to feed him.. he was back asleep. So I said to myself.. awesome.. well.. I guess I will do my practice now.
And I opened my sliding doors and practiced in a beautiful morning breeze.. which made it so worth it! It was amazing!! I have to say.. 5.30am practice makes your day start just so much better!
Relaxing in Savasana is so much easier when I go to my weekly Yoga class.. at home I just can't get myself to lay down long enough or to just drift away a little.. every time I feel so eager to get up and relax.. have a drink of water. So much stuff is running thru my head.
This is so not the point of corpse pose!
I finally did it, and got up at 5.30am to do my daily practice.. and I am ashamed to admit, that the only reason I got up was my little son Damon squeaking in bed and by the time I made me some coffee and was ready to feed him.. he was back asleep. So I said to myself.. awesome.. well.. I guess I will do my practice now.
And I opened my sliding doors and practiced in a beautiful morning breeze.. which made it so worth it! It was amazing!! I have to say.. 5.30am practice makes your day start just so much better!
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
day 2 & 3
note to myself: getting up early has to be top priority from now on!!
I again haven't made it out of bed before 6.30am.. which would be I guess an early rising, but I am getting up together with my 4month old who does not care at all about Mama wanting to do Yoga for an hour! So 5.30am would be a good time.. 5am probably even better.
Oh well.. do your practice and all will come.
So, I was super happy to find the two DVDs that I ordered from asthanga.com in my mailbox on Saturday. First of all, of course the Guru DVD, of which I hoped to learn a little bit more about
Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and I have to say, that I am a little bit disappointed. I must have overseen that the DVD is primarily about his 90th birthday celebration and quite short with 28min. But I found an interview with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois in the features, which I really enjoyed. So overall.. an ok buy.
The second DVD was the Introduction to Ashtanga Yoga with Kino McGregor, Tim Felmann and Greg Nardi, and this one I love! It's split up into 4 sections.. the Introduction, Yoga Philosophy, Breathing Technique and the Practice.
The techniques and practices to help you with your Ujjayi breathing where fantastic.. I am breathing so much better since I did these exercises. And I also know now what to look for too.. so I feel like I figured it more out now.
And the practice I just love so much better is, cause first, it's faster.. and I told you before, that I am having some problems connecting my breathing to the slower movements of the other Ashtanga Yoga DVD. Second Tim and Kino are showing how to get into some more difficult poses over time and how to vary them and also they always tell you where to be careful and what not to do. I only wish they would have talked a little bit more about the bandhas and the focal points. I loved that in the other DVD, that Nikki always tells you where your focus point is right now!
So both of my DVDs have great aspects and I am really happy I got to do my practice to both of them... helping me to advance more and more.
I again haven't made it out of bed before 6.30am.. which would be I guess an early rising, but I am getting up together with my 4month old who does not care at all about Mama wanting to do Yoga for an hour! So 5.30am would be a good time.. 5am probably even better.
Oh well.. do your practice and all will come.
So, I was super happy to find the two DVDs that I ordered from asthanga.com in my mailbox on Saturday. First of all, of course the Guru DVD, of which I hoped to learn a little bit more about
Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and I have to say, that I am a little bit disappointed. I must have overseen that the DVD is primarily about his 90th birthday celebration and quite short with 28min. But I found an interview with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois in the features, which I really enjoyed. So overall.. an ok buy.
The second DVD was the Introduction to Ashtanga Yoga with Kino McGregor, Tim Felmann and Greg Nardi, and this one I love! It's split up into 4 sections.. the Introduction, Yoga Philosophy, Breathing Technique and the Practice.
The techniques and practices to help you with your Ujjayi breathing where fantastic.. I am breathing so much better since I did these exercises. And I also know now what to look for too.. so I feel like I figured it more out now.
And the practice I just love so much better is, cause first, it's faster.. and I told you before, that I am having some problems connecting my breathing to the slower movements of the other Ashtanga Yoga DVD. Second Tim and Kino are showing how to get into some more difficult poses over time and how to vary them and also they always tell you where to be careful and what not to do. I only wish they would have talked a little bit more about the bandhas and the focal points. I loved that in the other DVD, that Nikki always tells you where your focus point is right now!
So both of my DVDs have great aspects and I am really happy I got to do my practice to both of them... helping me to advance more and more.
Monday, August 6, 2012
day 1
note to myself: have to get up earlier! relaxation and letting go.. does not work with two kids jumping on top of you!
I wanted to start with my daily routine already last week, but after doing a Kettle ball workout on Thursday, I could hardly bend my arms all day Friday and into Saturday! Bad bad feeling! I even had to sleep with bend arms all night.. learned my lesson there!
But in Ashtange Yoga, Saturday is anyway your resting day and oh well, I thought.. than I will start Sunday and hope that by then my arms are in full function again. And thank goodness they are!
So, I had planned on getting up around 5am, to have some peace and quite for my practice but.. I overslept. So i waited till my little Mister went for his first nap around 9am and than started. I rented me the Ashtanga Yoga - Beginners Practice video from Nikki Doane via Amazon Instant Video and I have to say.. I had to get used to the way she talks for a little bit.. cause she is so very slow and dragging.. but in the end, I kinda liked that calmness.
The only thing that gives me a little hard time, is that her practice is a little slower than I can breath, so I always get completely out of breath during the second Sun Salutation. So I have to take an extra breath in downward facing dog pretty much every time. But I bet over time this will get better and better.
I guess the first day was somewhat a success.. until the girls started asking for snacks and drinks.. and cause ignoring doesn't really work at all.. (little Mia took my face into her hands and squadded down in front of me yelling "MAMA!!!! DRINKY!!!! NOW!!!") I had to pause twice to help em out while trying to keep my Ujjayi breath going! lol
Oh well... tomorrow is another day!
I wanted to start with my daily routine already last week, but after doing a Kettle ball workout on Thursday, I could hardly bend my arms all day Friday and into Saturday! Bad bad feeling! I even had to sleep with bend arms all night.. learned my lesson there!
But in Ashtange Yoga, Saturday is anyway your resting day and oh well, I thought.. than I will start Sunday and hope that by then my arms are in full function again. And thank goodness they are!
So, I had planned on getting up around 5am, to have some peace and quite for my practice but.. I overslept. So i waited till my little Mister went for his first nap around 9am and than started. I rented me the Ashtanga Yoga - Beginners Practice video from Nikki Doane via Amazon Instant Video and I have to say.. I had to get used to the way she talks for a little bit.. cause she is so very slow and dragging.. but in the end, I kinda liked that calmness.
The only thing that gives me a little hard time, is that her practice is a little slower than I can breath, so I always get completely out of breath during the second Sun Salutation. So I have to take an extra breath in downward facing dog pretty much every time. But I bet over time this will get better and better.
I guess the first day was somewhat a success.. until the girls started asking for snacks and drinks.. and cause ignoring doesn't really work at all.. (little Mia took my face into her hands and squadded down in front of me yelling "MAMA!!!! DRINKY!!!! NOW!!!") I had to pause twice to help em out while trying to keep my Ujjayi breath going! lol
Oh well... tomorrow is another day!
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Do your practice and all is coming
Alright.. so here I go.. onto my journey of hopefully a lot of enlightment, some inner peace, a great health and hopefully the body I enjoyed before my 3 amazing kids.
Well, at least this is my goal.. will I ever gonna get there, that is written in the sky but as Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois said: “Do Your Practice and All is Coming”. And that is exactly what I will be doing and I will be writing about it.. here a little bit about me:
I am 29 years old, I spent half of my 20ies pretty much pregnant or with a newborn and way to lazy to seriously working out or giving up certain eating patterns. I pretty much fell for the idea that if I only took enough of these super expensive diet pills and starve myself or even dumber, eat just like before, I would get the body of my dreams in no time. Of course it didn't work the way I imagined it. and honestly I don't even wanna know how much damage I did to my body swallowing this crap.
After my pregnancy with my first daughter Ally, which took me from 125pounds to maybe (ah that hurts..) 163pounds which I never really recovered from, I wanted to be wiser with my second pregnancy with Mia. I ate a lot of Tomatoes with Mozzarella and started walking every day for around 30 minutes. In that time I started to read a lot about nutrition and a little while after Mia arrived I stumbled upon the book "Eating Animals" from Safran Foer and since than I am a Vegetarian. I also tried to go Vegan for a while which helped to bring my weight down to 145pounds.
And than along came baby number 3.. Damon! He is now almost 4 month old. I kept fairly active during his pregnancy, I even walked two 5K's and did some Yoga but it did not help... cause here I am now again up to 163pounds.
My pregnancies have been an amazing experience and having these three buggers around is the greatest thing ever but now that I am feeling that our family is finally complete, I am really ready to whip myself back into shape. Or at least try it...
I have always been interested in Yoga.. it is always the thing I go back to cause I just plainly enjoy the stretching, the breathing, the time for myself and to just let go. I am not a person who likes to let go or maybe that is more correct, I have a hard time relaxing, so Yoga kinda forces me to relax or focus just on my breathing and that feels amazing. Trying to learn more about Yoga, I stumbled upon Ashtanga Yoga, which is a system of yoga popularized by K. Pattabhi Jois (1915-2009).
"This method of yoga involves synchronizing the breath with a progressive series of postures—a process producing intense internal heat and a profuse, purifying sweat that detoxifies muscles and organs. The result is improved circulation, a light and strong body, and a calm mind." - www.ashtanga.com
And this system of breathing and moving just has me fascinated.. it feels like that you are diving into a big pool of water and you won't come up until the hour of practise is over.. it is a little scary to me and amazing at the same time. But for sure it is something that I really wanna conquer. Thing is that half of the postures in the primary series are very very hard and you have to be very flexible to be able to hold them, but thank goodness does Amazong have a "Half Led Class" which stops right before these postures. So I will do what Sri K. Pattabhi Jois said in his famous quote,that I already mentioned at the beginning and do my practise and hope everything will come.. and I will, with time be able to conquer more and more of this amazing practice.
So the goal that I am setting for myself is to master the primary series of Ashtanga Yoga which will hopefully come with a great body or at least with loosing some pounds but Yoga is not just about postures it is so much more.. the way you think.. act.. breath! It is quite a path but well worth traveling!
Well, at least this is my goal.. will I ever gonna get there, that is written in the sky but as Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois said: “Do Your Practice and All is Coming”. And that is exactly what I will be doing and I will be writing about it.. here a little bit about me:
I am 29 years old, I spent half of my 20ies pretty much pregnant or with a newborn and way to lazy to seriously working out or giving up certain eating patterns. I pretty much fell for the idea that if I only took enough of these super expensive diet pills and starve myself or even dumber, eat just like before, I would get the body of my dreams in no time. Of course it didn't work the way I imagined it. and honestly I don't even wanna know how much damage I did to my body swallowing this crap.
After my pregnancy with my first daughter Ally, which took me from 125pounds to maybe (ah that hurts..) 163pounds which I never really recovered from, I wanted to be wiser with my second pregnancy with Mia. I ate a lot of Tomatoes with Mozzarella and started walking every day for around 30 minutes. In that time I started to read a lot about nutrition and a little while after Mia arrived I stumbled upon the book "Eating Animals" from Safran Foer and since than I am a Vegetarian. I also tried to go Vegan for a while which helped to bring my weight down to 145pounds.
And than along came baby number 3.. Damon! He is now almost 4 month old. I kept fairly active during his pregnancy, I even walked two 5K's and did some Yoga but it did not help... cause here I am now again up to 163pounds.
My pregnancies have been an amazing experience and having these three buggers around is the greatest thing ever but now that I am feeling that our family is finally complete, I am really ready to whip myself back into shape. Or at least try it...
I have always been interested in Yoga.. it is always the thing I go back to cause I just plainly enjoy the stretching, the breathing, the time for myself and to just let go. I am not a person who likes to let go or maybe that is more correct, I have a hard time relaxing, so Yoga kinda forces me to relax or focus just on my breathing and that feels amazing. Trying to learn more about Yoga, I stumbled upon Ashtanga Yoga, which is a system of yoga popularized by K. Pattabhi Jois (1915-2009).
"This method of yoga involves synchronizing the breath with a progressive series of postures—a process producing intense internal heat and a profuse, purifying sweat that detoxifies muscles and organs. The result is improved circulation, a light and strong body, and a calm mind." - www.ashtanga.com
And this system of breathing and moving just has me fascinated.. it feels like that you are diving into a big pool of water and you won't come up until the hour of practise is over.. it is a little scary to me and amazing at the same time. But for sure it is something that I really wanna conquer. Thing is that half of the postures in the primary series are very very hard and you have to be very flexible to be able to hold them, but thank goodness does Amazong have a "Half Led Class" which stops right before these postures. So I will do what Sri K. Pattabhi Jois said in his famous quote,that I already mentioned at the beginning and do my practise and hope everything will come.. and I will, with time be able to conquer more and more of this amazing practice.
So the goal that I am setting for myself is to master the primary series of Ashtanga Yoga which will hopefully come with a great body or at least with loosing some pounds but Yoga is not just about postures it is so much more.. the way you think.. act.. breath! It is quite a path but well worth traveling!
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