Showing posts with label blog award. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog award. Show all posts

Yoga in the Dragon's Den is now a Transcendent Site for Stress Reduction

15:58 | Labels: , ,

Although you wouldn't know to look at it. Just what is it about this blog that is so transcendent (because I sometimes give voice to semi-coherent philosophical thoughts?)? Just what is it about this blog that is so stress-reducing (I myself certainly don't ever recall feeling my stress level go down as a result of reading this blog...)?

But in any case, I take what I can get. Being a person for whom being honored is not an everyday affair (or even an every-other-day affair), I have to take what I get when I can get it :-) Anyway, here's the story: Just a couple of hours ago, I got an email from the people over at ADN to BSN.org, telling me that this blog has been put on their list of Transcendent Sites for Stress Reduction. So I simply decided to accept the honor, and have displayed the badge for this honor in the right-hand corner of this blog. This is what they have to say about this blog:

"Yoga in the Dragon’s Den is a blog at a cross-section of pop culture, yoga and meditation, and philosophy. It seamlessly flows from one area to another, tying them together for what are ultimately satisfying reads."

Damn... I am actually at a cross-section of so many things, and didn't even know that! You know, as much as I often pretend to sound very yogic on this blog, it is very difficult not to feel all light and floaty and shit after reading such a flattering account of what I do on this blog. 

Although, come to think of it, there is also a certain irony to this whole thing, given the fact that I haven't been much motivated to blog lately. But as some wise guy once said, "One does not stare a gift horse in the mouth." Well, let's just hope the gift horse is not a trojan horse...

Anyway. As you can see, I'm totally reduced to rambling incoherency these days. Do I actually deserve to be on this list? But then again, maybe there really is something transcendentally stress-reducing about the way I ramble on and on on this blog. Well, I can at least hope.      


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That sweet, delicious burning sensation in backbends; Yoga Blog Award

16:14 | Labels: , , , ,

Practice this morning was very nice and refreshing. Especially the backbends. After dropping back and coming back up three times, I succeeded in grabbing my heels in Chakrabandhasana for about two breaths. And then I tipped my center of gravity a little too far back, lost my balance, came down onto my forearms, and ended up in this position:

 You probably already know this, but this is Mr. Iyengar in this position, not me.  By the way, I think the Iyengar folks call this pose Chakrabandhasana instead of the version with the forearms off the ground. Oh anyway... what's in a name?
[Image taken from here]

Bummer. It would have been nice to have been able to stay in Chakrabandhasana for the full five breaths. But I was happy anyway, not least because the whole time I was in the backbend (and earlier on, in Kapotasana as well) I could feel that sweet, delicious burning sensation in the quads and psoas, the sensation that tells me that I am really engaging those muscles. 

Ever since I started paying more attention to the even distribution of weight between the inner and outer feet, and to really extending and lifting the spinal vertebrae out of the pelvis (see this post for more details), I have been feeling the burning sensation in the front body more intensely. It's a very sweet and delicious sensation. Really. I think it's only in Ashtanga (and maybe in certain body-building circles too, but I can't be certain of this, as I'm not into body-building...) that people would think of describing a burning sensation as "sweet and delicious". But it really is sweet and delicious. Besides, would you rather have a burning sensation in some other part of your body, like, say, when you're urinating? (Need I say more?)

In fact, my fascination with this sweet and delicious burning sensation in backbends has grown to the point where this sensation is seriously competing with depth as the thing that I most look forward to in my backbend practice. Do I value getting deeply into the backbend more, or I do value this sweet burning sensation more? I don't know, actually. But really, this is probably an academic question, because the two are actually very closely related: The more your quads and psoas burn, the more you are engaging them. Which also means that, all other things being equal, your backbend is much more likely to be deeper. So getting deep and getting burnt are virtually two sides of the same coin, if you think about it this way. So yes, get deeply, deeply burnt :-)

******************

Earlier today, Yoga in the Dragon's Den was honored with another blog award: The Institute for the Psychology of Eating has named this blog one of the Top 100 Yoga Blogs of 2012. To see what other of your favorite yoga blogs are on this list--I see that Grimmly, Claudia and Christine have also been similarly honored--check out this website.

What more should I say here? I suppose I should probably make an acceptance speech here (you know, thank my father and my mother and everybody else that has ever existed for making this possible...), but I just don't have the energy right now. I guess I'll just say this: Many thanks to all of you who have read and are continuing to read and/or comment on this blog, giving me the motivation to keep writing, whether or not there is light at the end of the tunnel (I hope there is...). I'm very honored that people would care enough about the random ramblings of an Ashtanga Fundamentalist to read, comment on, and even honor his writings. Namaste. Lokaha Samasthaha Sukhino Bhavantu.       



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