our-yoga

I have a confession to make. You see, I seem to have a problem. Sometimes, I start to frown. I get upset. In fact, I get downright cranky! It makes me feel like I'm a lot like this guy, and just as much fun to be around:

At which point my lovely partner - a truly patient soul - generally says something like "why don't you do some yoga, sweetie?"

Yes, it's true... I'm a yoga grump! By which I mean that when I don't do yoga, I get grumpy! Apparently yoga should come with a warning label: "Highly addictive. If withdrawn from yoga, the yogi may suffer from grumpiness, aches and pains, mood swings, loss of motivation, couch-potatoness, too much TV, and other symptoms of withdrawal."

The only cure: more yoga! Yoga, almost daily, morning, noon or night. 5 minutes, 50 minutes, or an hour and 50 minutes. Yep, a cup of yoga a day keeps the grumpy bear away!

Yogis, does this happen to you?

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I thought I'd balance out my last post by finding 7 (non-yoga related) things I'm good at! Here we go:


7 things I'm good at

• Dental hygiene. I'm an AWESOME tooth brusher - twice daily at least! And I floss, too. :D
• Wearing sunscreen. I wear SPF 30+ EVERY DAY on my face & neck, even if I'm not going out in the sun. If I am going out, I lather the stuff on. The only exception is if I'm in a high-latitude winter and it's an overcast day - then I wear SPF 15.
• Self-teaching. I am good at learning independently, and I'm a learn by doing kind of person. So much so that I actually make my living using software programmes that I have never had formal training in. Hooray for internet tutorials and you tube!
• Swimming. I guess I can thank my parents for this! They put me in the pool as a baby and I took weekly swimming lessons up until I was about 11. I had one teacher who was a former competitive swimmer and he really taught me how to do the strokes. To this day I'm a strong swimmer and I love the water!
• Scuba diving. Again, I have my parents to thank for putting me in the water at an early age! I first scuba dived at age 12 or 13. When I came to Timor, a diver's paradise, I took it up avidly and in 2010 earned my Divemaster certification.
• Singing. I have only the Universe to thank for the fact that I have a voice and can keep a tune!
• Cooking vegetarian meals. I got into cooking around age 17 and have been at it ever since. I'm not so good at following recipes, but pretty good at taking random ingredients and turning them into something tasty!

Readers, what are you good at?

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This post was inspired by a wonderful post at Fusion Massage + Movement (written by the artist formerly known as Suburban Yogini), which in turn she got from elsewhere.

Loving yourself is just like loving another person: you have to embrace that person wholly - and that means embracing their flaws as well as their best qualities. And us yogis and yoga teachers, just like everyone else, are full of flaws just waiting to be embraced! In that spirit, here are:

7 things I suck at

• Cartwheels. I have never been able to do them. Not even on - not even close!
• Finance (whether personal or at work). My eyes just glaze over and my brain floats away. I can’t help it!
• Math. This probably explains a lot about the previous point, but math just doesn’t make sense to me. In high school I was so bewildered by calculus that to this day my recurring stress dream involves not having studied for my math final. Seriously.
• Drawing. Apart from stick figures, just forget it! This is a bit of a limitation considering that I do graphic design work some of the time...  I have learned ways around it, and still can't draw much more than a scratchy doodle.
• Making decisions. Yep, I am the queen of second-guessing, third-guessing, and agonising for ages over the simplest things. I blame it on being a Libra.
• Saying "No". I am getting better at this one. But I am usually the type of person who wants to make everyone happy, and says "yes" to please others.
• Left & Right. Let's be clear here. I KNOW which one is left and which one is right. I just can't always SAY the one I mean!

Readers, what do you suck at?

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Some of you I connect with on a daily basis and yet, we know so little about each other.  So I came up with this little quiz to get to know you all better!  I'll start - by leaving my own answers in the comments section.


Please join in! Just copy, paste, and fill in the blanks.

-------------------------

Hello, my name is ________________.  People call me _________________.

I am a _______________ and a _________________ .

My favourite meal of the day is ________________, for which I like to eat _______________________ .

After that, I enjoy _________________ or __________________.

My favourite colour/s is/are: ________________, and you can tell because _____________________!

When I'm not doing yoga, I like to ________________________________.

One dream or goal I would like to accomplish is _________________________.

One dream or goal I have already accomplished is ________________________.

I looooooove _________________ , but I'm not really a fan of __________ .

Something that drives me crazy is ___________________.

My body is ________________, my mind is _______________ and my soul is _________________.

Oh, and one more thing: ____________________________.

Please to meet you!!

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This snap was posted in the media recently and my partner giggled and suggested I should post it in the room where I teach my yoga classes.  I figure this is the next best thing! 

I've blogged about this before, but when I first began taking yoga classes, chanting used to make me extremely uncomfortable.  It sounded so cult-y and just weirded me out!  Now I have come to enjoy that camp-fire spirit, and how the act of singing or chanting in unison brings people together.

That is, of course, in the ideal setting.  Then there are those other times...  The times when you, leading the chant, fail to hit the right key, falter and croak... The times when that one person in the front row seems to think that the louder they scream "OM" the better...  There are the times when everyone in the room picks a different key, and it sounds like you are all participating in a giant cacophony rather than a symphony of voices!

But then, there are the moments when it seems that everyone in the room is on the same wavelength... When the chant is neither too quiet nor too loud, when voices meld perfectly until you are not even sure which one is yours, and you lose yourself in the unity of sound.

Maybe some pointed signage would help to encourage those harmonious moments?  What do you think?  ;)

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