Thursday, February 20, 2014

Getting back in the saddle....or on the mat...

The past 9 months or so have not been a smooth ride. Who am I kidding, there were some serious bumps in the road and some heavy clouds in the sky.

This would be a great moment to bring up Karma and how I always was convinced that things would work out -- well, I would be lying. I tried, as I always do, to look at all the hurdles I was faced with and rationalise that it would be OK.... but my body started to send out different signals. I can confirm that being faced with a situation that has a huge negative impact on me but where I am not in the drivers seat really stresses me out - the yogi way of acceptance... not my cup of tea.

Now that the sky is clearing and the first rays of the sun come down, I'm ready to pick up yoga again.
Over the past months, I didn't practice a lot and defenitely not regularly.
I started doing cardio training on the crosstrainer while listening to pumping rave music - it felt great. 30 minutes me-time, sweating, enjoying the beats.... was that OK for a yogi? Or, was I still a yogi?

I did miss doing yoga. So I started wondering, how do I get back on my yoga mat.
I remembered a tip that my prana yoga flow teacher once gave me. He said that he would never ask his students to do x asanas or spend y time doing yoga -- he just invited them to do one thing every day: roll out your yoga mat, stand on it and take 3 deep breaths. Than, you are free to stop.

In reality, I never stop after the 3 breaths - I find myself doing a sun salutation quickly after that and than start doing some asana's - not a real flow yet, but asana's I feel like doing.

I'm focussing a lot on hip openers now - pigeon pose, lizard, happy baby, squat..... I figured that I need to loosen my hips again to be able to do my bends properly,  with a straight back. In the asana's that I do, I really focus on keeping my back straight....

My plan now is to do cardio training 3 days per week - I turned 40 last year and suddenly my weight started a life of its own.... I need to burn calories..... seriously. Then, 3 days that I want to focus on yoga asana's again..... and 1 day of rest (and I don't mean spending hours in savasana ;-) ).
Sounds OK?