What do you think of my new outfit? It was time for some new digs. I’ve gone from colorful, but lacking in necessary functionality and flexibility to a simpler, yet more personal coat. I’m talking about the changes to this lovely website you have taken the time to read (thank you!). This was done from the couch while I’ve been suffering from a viscous little cold. What do you think? Suggestions?

On the yoga front, I am thinking about heading to LA this weekend to participate in a yoga workshop on healing sadhana practices during the winter season and the upcoming winter solstice 12/21. This is the time of year to focus on warm, substantial foods, such as avocados, nuts, root vegetables, soups, and stews. It is time to eat more protein and fat than we would in spring or summer to nourish our tissues and prevent colds. Click here for more info on the workshop.

I am also teaching Mandala Namaskar from Shiva Rea’s Fluid Power DVD, one of my most favorite sequences of all time. It’ll work the congestion right outta your head.

The winter solstice is one of the oldest and most potent rituals of renewal. As the northern hemisphere of the earth reaches its darkest point of the year, the winter solstice is the turning point of increasing light from December 21 on. It is the sacred juncture within yoga and the Tantric Body that mirrors the drawing of the light and in-breath into the lotus of the heart – a linking of the individual and cosmic flow. This is further heightened by the alignment of the nurturing soma or inner nectar of the full moon.

For many world cultures, the solstice is the true New Year: it is the ritual marker to letting go, honoring and bringing closure to the past year while igniting our deepest visions and intentions for the coming year as the light is emerging. Our bodies as nature are intimately connected with this macro solar rhythm, giving us a powerful opportunity to align and be in harmony with the greater flow. While the outer world moves in a holiday flurry, this is a wonderful time of year to focus on yoga practice, meditation, and visualize your intentions for the new year.

May you thrive this holiday season! I encourage you to make a little gratitude list, even if you just take a moment to think about it now and don’t put it in writing. I have so much to be grateful for every single day: my health, even if it wavers at times, I am able to ride my bike, practice vinyasa yoga, and dance my heart out 90% of the time, my friends and family for being who they are and letting me be who I am, my teachers, yoga, work, my bicycles, my new love, kale, SLO, my kitty Bruce, sunshine, clouds, Detroit, and Elvis, of course, Elvis.

I am speed blogging from the MINDBODY booth at the Yoga Journal in Estes Park, Colorado while everyone is in classes. I arrived in the glorious Rocky Mountains Wednesday night after the Big Burrito Fiasco at Phoenix Airport. The Fiasco went something like this: “No tortillas at a burrito stand? What?!?! Ok, I’ll have a bowl. Why are there 5 people back there but only one person is making food? Oops, my burrito bowl goes down! Just give me some food, my flight is leaving, I’m starving and going to bite your head!” Then, our booth goes missing so we have no sales materials to hand out to prospective clients of our software. My talk at the Business of Yoga was magnificent though, of course. I shared Guerilla Marketing strategies. To market yourself as a teacher or small yoga business you should create a Simple Postcard and distribute it (think simple yoga pose, website, done), offer a killer Introductory Offer to get people into your business ($40 for first month of yoga), a competitively and appropriately priced Monthly Membership ($90/month for unlimitted yoga, wooooowwww), and if appropriate, train your staff to sell. That’s it. Do it and you’ll be successful.

Then on to the fun part, taking yoga classes. I accidentally went to a Vira practice (i.e. fire, active, sweaty yoga) with Shiva Rea this morning. “Great, 108 prostration push-ups first thing in the morning” crossed my mind. I survived it. In fact, I did more than survive. I feel great after, don’t feel so sore I want to cry or nap, (not yet at least).  I took it a bit easy, the 8010 feet elevation has me huffing and puffing like a smoker. She talked about how we sometimes have to step into the fire to initiate change. Often you’ll be in the midst of a shit storm thinking, “why am I here”, like I was this morning, but you survive it, and often you feel better afterward. I was reminded of my current yoga philosophy, “less is so much more”.

I also attended a class on Ayurveda and Weight Loss with John Doulliard.  It was great! He went into the science of digestion in detail, showing the stress and problems compromised digestion creates in the body. He recommends eating with the seasons, eating wholesome, clean foods that are appropriate for your “type”. To lose weight, improve digestion, calm your mood, and get healthy and more energy he suggested the following tips.  Only moving on in the steps if you can very comfortably adjust to the step above it:  (1) 3 Meals a Day, No Snacks, (2) Smaller Supper, (3) Earlier Supper, (4) Skip Supper.

Now, I don’t want anyone getting crazy and doing those things immediately, but if you’ve ever had a problem with weight, or even if not, Ayurveda is an amazing system of health and wellness.  Check out his website or books for more info.  Some of my favorite quotes from his lecture:

“If we’re not digesting greasy foods well, isn’t it naive to think we’re digesting healthy food well, and getting the vital vitamins and nutrients they provide?”
“Just eating well is not going to be enough. We need to ensure that our digestion and detox channels are working smoothly. Many metals and toxins from youth can live in the fat cells for decades.”
“You’re just old and must take digestive enzymes forever. I hate that. It’s a total crock!”
“When stressed the body thinks, this is an emergency, store fat, crave sugar.”
When asked what about eating 6 meals a day and keeping the metabolism roaring he replied, “Why should our metabolism be on high all day? It’s unnecessary and it wasn’t designed to be that way. We have lost our ability to digest large meals. If we eat a meal and crash shortly thereafter, we think we shouldn’t eat that much again, but that’s not exactly the problem. We just can’t digest it due to years of abuse. We’re reacting to the wrong problem.”
“Eating 3 meals a day helps your body become a more regular fat burner. Stabilizes blood sugar, so you don’t crave coffee and sugar all the time.”
When asked why we should lost excess weight, “We lose weight to connect with our more subtle layers in the body. It allows us to connect with our more true, happy, contented selves.”

Whew! A great conference so far. Yoga Journal does a great job of bringing great information and teachers together. The YMCA of the Rockies is the perfect venue, we eat together in a cafeteria, befriending yogis is the norm, hike to get to different classes, bond with Elk and Deer and Double Rainbows! Magical. I am so blessed and thankful to be here.

PS. They served nacho cheese at lunch. Just though you should know.

As a desk-dwelling, laptop-loving, cycling extraordinaire I have found my hips to be about as tight as the next person. So many of our forward moving and seated activities can wreak havoc on the body and tighten the hip flexors in particular. Even if you don’t know exactly where these muscles are, I bet you know if yours are tight. Otherwise you might be sitting in the splits right now reading this wonderful blog.

Imagine keeping your elbow bent all day, every day, you eventually lose any flexibility you might have once had. “With the best intentions, yoga students sometimes create a muscle imbalance between the hamstrings and the hip flexors that contributes to an anterior (forward) pelvic tilt. Most yoga practitioners work long and hard to improve their hamstring flexibility but spend much less time stretching their hip flexors.” says Yoga Journal. This can lead to back pain. Tight hips. Feeling jealous of your neighbor with flexy hips in yoga class. No one wants that.

Here are a couple articles from Yoga Journal I liked on the subject, Get Hip and Get Hip to Your Flexors.

I will be teaching a Get Hip about Your Flexors vinyasa style class tomorrow. It’s a great little sequence. Just do it.

Get Hip About Your Flexors Roxy-Style

This weekend I took yet another yoga workshop, this time with Kira Ryder of Lulubhanda’s Yoga Studio of Ojai, California. Yes, yoga is taking over the world muwahahaha.  Rumor is that Kira has given a lot of herself to to the yoga community in Southern California over the past six years and is one of our favorite “teacher’s teacher.” In fact, this weekend was designed with yoga teachers in mind and those seeking to broaden their perspective of the yogic arts and develop the ability to communicate from the heart.  What does that even mean you wonder?

We started by grounding into the earth with a yin (or more gentle, restorative) style yoga class.  We shared a little bit of info about each of ourselves and where we’re at with our yoga practice and/or teaching.  I found myself sharing how sick I have been of hearing my own voice lately.  Have you ever been sick of yourself?  Not that I don’t love myself, I’m just trying to find new words and inspiration in sharing myself and yoga with people.  I feel like I’m a solid teacher, but I want to get better, I want people to leave my class with that kind of yoga high you can only get on the mat. Similar to how I feel after Shiva’s class when I’m all gooey and I don’t even know what happened in class, but I know it felt good. It got me inspired to document why I teach yoga in the first place and what kind of class I’d like to lead. Have you ever thought about why you’re doing the things you’re doing, be it your job, relationships, or lifestyle?  I think it’s good to take stock of that reason every once in a while.  If I don’t hear a reasonable response maybe I should dig a little deeper or make a change. I teach yoga to help people become healthier, in body and mind. I teach to help people enjoy a few moments without coulda shoulda woulda thoughts. I teach to help people feel connected and inspired. Amongst other things.

Kira is an avid reader and I really enjoyed her sharing of reading recommendations and various information that related to yoga and life.  Saturday we conversed about The Effort Effect by Marina Krakovsky amongst other things. It’s a great article on research done by psychology professor Carol Dweck which attempts to answer the question, “What makes a capable child give up in the face of failure, where other children may be motivated by the failure?”  Dweck posited that the difference between the helpless response to challenges and it’s opposite – the determination to master new things and surmount challenges – lay in people’s beliefs about why they had failed.  People who attributed their failures to lack of ability versus those who thought they simply hadn’t tried hard enough.  I think that I often waiver in the face of challenges, more often than not I try harder, but I’ve definitely taken it personally and given up in certain scenarios as well. In college I tried harder, when it’s something not so natural to me, I tend to take it so much more personally.

How does this relate to yoga?  It relates more to who we are as human beings and the fact that this is what we have to face every day on the mat and in our lives.  Challenges aren’t easy, but they can be manageable if we learn to look at them as opportunities for growth.  We have to enjoy the learning process more than the results.

To be honest, I was feeling a little overworked and tired this weekend and didn’t want to commit to yet another thing to do on my schedule, even if it was yoga.  Yet as I predicted, I didn’t regret it once it was over.  I’m feeling pretty good for a Monday.  Kira is a wonderful teacher and she had me at her beautifully printed manual which I’ve been carrying around like a little puppy dog in my commuter bag.  I will continue to share thoughts from yoga workshop land. For now, I have to prepare to ride my bike home from work. The wind is blowing fiercely outside, at about 18 miles per hour.  That means that my leisurely ride home from work will be more like an uphill climb in my granny gear.

Never underestimate the sneakiness of yoga.
Yoga has taught me how to live. I never realized that before.
Learn how to feel grounded so that when what supports you changes, you can still feel safe.
Acceptance is the dance partner of change.

Ok. Sleepy. More to follow.

Somethings I learned..

• Taking a weekend off of eating out and drinking alcohol should be a more regular practice.
• Kitcheree when traveling is wonderful.
• Yin yoga and meditation are my new morning friends.
• Ayurvedic practices feel really good to my whole being. More than counting calories or competing with my man friend for healthfulness.
• I want to eat more naturally. Whole grains and veggies. Less processed.
• I want to use dairy and fat as more of a treat and less of a main course.
• I want to remember that treats are yummy when enjoyed periodically. When they become a regular practice they aren’t so much treats anymore.
• I really enjoyed having Holly & my friends support on the cleanse. I don’t have to be miserable to take better care of myself. She gave us the right amount of flexibility and I feel like she showed me how to listen to my body better when trying to cleanse.  In the past I was too strict and hard on myself.

You know it’s time for something when…

You are sad that you aren’t at work to enjoy tamale day. Really?
A day off of drinking is only having 1-3 drinks.
Eating 5 meals out in a weekend is normal.
You feel like you don’t have food at home if you don’t have rosemary triscuits and cheese in the house.
You wear your “fat” clothes. You know you’ve got ‘em.
You notice other peoples weight or shape and compare yourself to them. Normally, I think I’m just a different kind of awesome.
You accidentally eat a whole bag/box of something without noticing.
You can’t sleep.
You keep getting sick.
You get all bijigity over something or someone unnecessarily.
You aren’t as smiley lately.

Tomorrow is the last day of my cleanse. The retreat aspects of my journey is over. It was great. I am sleepy.

Tonight I have reached the end of the 2nd day of my Yin Yoga & Ayurveda Cleanse Retreat. I have bee meditating, eating beans, rice, and veggies, practicing yin yoga, and taking some digestive herbs and herbal teas. The retreat has met for a few hours each day, and then we’re on our own. Today’s class was great. We had a meditative hike which led us into the lush green hills of Arroyo Grande with an amazing view of the surrounding mountains and ocean. During the silence in nature I felt very peaceful, much more than I have in a while. I felt such gratitude for everything around me. I felt awe for mother nature and the shade of green she has painted the typically brownish mountains of the central coast. The sun was shining, the wind was brisk, it felt good to be alive. Yin yoga felt amazing per usual. I feel like I should meditate and practice yin every morning, even if just for 20 minutes. 10 minutes. It feels like it has such a positive impact on me, my mind and my body. I feel at peace. I want to be nicer to myself and those around me. I realize that it isn’t such a big deal. I want to have fun, but not so much I make myself sick. Not that I want to give up my lover vinyasa, I think I would like to split my time more between the two practices.

We had a cooking demonstration and enjoyed lunch as a group. I really like my version of kitcheree better, I think I don’t like one or two of the spices she uses, but I’ve taken to adding enough veggies to it so it tastes better to me. This cleanse has been better than any of the juice cleanses I have tried in the past. For me, staying nourished is a must. I still have moments of feeling a little angry or hungry, but never so much that I feel overwhelmed by it.

Tonight I went to a St. Patrick’s Day party with my friends. It’s an annual event, and it’s usually very fun and decadent I really enjoyed it again this year as always and it was not as hard as I thought it would be to stick to my cleanse. I had a single bite of corned beef, a single sip of beer, and sipped my water all night long. If you haven’t already guessed, I’m not a strict kind of yogi, and those bites were just enough flavor for me to say “Mmmm, I’ll enjoy you later.” My friend Matt played some awesome tunes and I got up and danced the night away. I was reminded how much of my behavior is just pure habit, ok, sometimes it’s stress related too. But tonight my friends, I just let go of “the cleanse mind” and had a grand ole time. If I can have a blast while cleansing, I should be able to enjoy all life has to offer, in some way, right? And let me tell, you, it really wasn’t that hard. I just had to sit through some quiet moments, some tiny moments of hunger or sleepiness that eventually the song was right, and it was time to let a little roxtar out to play. Sometimes a little patience and uncomfort is ok. Tonight I didn’t worry about what I was or wasn’t doing that others were or weren’t doing, and just smiled and enjoyed the present moment.

It’s always so amazing to me how quickly the body goes into “cleanse mode.” By mid-afternoon yesterday I was hungry and felt a little weak. That’s only two freaking cleansing meals. I’m also impressed by how much of eating is done for mental reasons and not physical, and how obvious it is when you do something like a cleanse. It’s not like I’m starving, I’ve got a healthy layer of fat on my body and I’m eating pretty good food, spiced rice and beans and vegetables yet my head goes into grumpiness pretty quickly. Last night we had a yin yoga class which really hit home and brought peace to my mind. In a way, cleansing is like meditation for the body. It gives you an opportunity to turn off the distractions and just breathe. I came home and took our requisite bath and found myself a little tired and out of it, yet not overwhelmingly so. I cleaned my kitchen and did a few more house things before retiring for the night. During past cleanses I’ve needed to pass out at 8pm and get 12 hours of sleep so I am enjoying the more natural body rhythm that this cleanse seems to encourage. Off to our 3rd session where we will learn how to make ghee, kitcheree, go on a meditative hike, and more yin yoga. Then, I have a party with friends where I will need to be nice to myself and take it easy. This will be the challenge, yet, I think to myself, there are always more good times to be had, missing one or a few isn’t going to kill me or make life unenjoyable or make my friends disown me.

It is that time of year again. Spring-time. It’s time for renewal. Spring cleaning. Blooming. I’m enjoying these longer days with the sun shining hot and the wind blowing cold. I’m participating in an Ayurveda Cleanse Retreat this weekend. Last night was the first class and we were given an intro to the retreat and instructions for the weekend. I had to giggle, I occasionally sign up for workshops and trainings that are a little more dedicated and serious than I perceive they will be. “Spring Cleanse and Yin Yoga, oh that sounds nice and relaxing.” Then I inevitably get a little wake-up call. “You will be eating kitchadi and taking shots of warm ghee for 4 days.” My first yoga teacher training was similar. I thought “I’m not sure if I want to be a teacher, but a yoga vacation sure sounds nice.” Then Baron proceeded to kick my ass and wring me out for 8 days. He said, “This is not a yoga vacation. This is a bootcamp.” Oops.

Anywho, I’m excited about this workshop even if I wasn’t sure what I was getting into. Isn’t it funny how we sometimes have to kid ourselves in that way? How we skirt over the details and total truth of a situation and wonder how we got there. Something about me wanted to sign up for this workshop, my first teacher training, and I’m sure many other challenging or different-than-expected situations I end up in. I always end up without regrets too. I suppose the jump-in attitude is a positive thing, most of the time.

My intention is to enjoy a little more nourishing time for myself this weekend. I’m looking forward to meditation and yin yoga rather than the active life I normally live. It will be interesting to explore how much of my eating is mental rather than physical. I’m also looking forward to learning more about Ayurveda, the 5000 year old ancient Indian nutritional system that is the sister practice to yoga. The cleanse focuses on eating kitchadi, which is basically lentils and rice with spices. It is considered a very nourishing, healing and cleansing meal. Holly, one of our retreat leaders, outlined four eating plans for us to choose from, eating kitchadi only for all meals, or adding in some variations with vegetables, whole grains, and protien if you feel you need it. Our largest meal of the day should be lunch.

The schedule looks like this:

Thursday, March 11 – 7 – 8:30 p.m. Introduction and cleanse review; pick up kitchadi
Friday, March 12 – 6:30- 8:30 p.m. Yin yoga, Ayurvedic workshop
Saturday, March 13 – 9 – 1 p.m. Walking meditation, Yin yoga, Ayurvedic cooking demo & lunch
Sunday, March 14 – 2 – 4:30 p.m. Yin Yoga, Ayurvedic workshop

Change is in the air. I hope you are finding a way to enjoy a little renewal as I am this season. Maybe cleaning your body, your home, your relationships, or just enjoy a little rest if your body is asking for it. It’s time to lighten up, enjoy the longer days, and start to shake off the winter blahs.

Later, I would like to update on a few projects I’ve mentioned on this blog that I haven’t discussed in a while including the splits challenge from last year and my weight loss challenge I started this year.

Spring is nature’s way of saying, “Let’s party!” ~Robin Williams