I have the cutest little daughter in the world named Kennedy.  Even though she’s only five years old, it’s quite possible that she’s said more words in her short life than I’ve said in my 30 or so years of human existence.  Her mouth spits out sentences from the second she wakes up (way too early…) to the split second before her eyes shut and her brain turns off for the night. It’s a fairly constant and rapid barrage. I bring this up only because Kennedy also likes to join me for yoga on occasion, which always turns into a major jabberfest about how flexible she is some directions, how she can’t find her yoga for kid’s book , how she thinks President Obama talks too much, how she wishes we still had a swimming pool because it’s so hot outside, how she can’t do push ups, how she learned how to sing “Party in the U.S.A.” from her friend at preschool, how the government isn’t doing enough to stop the oil spill, etc., etc., etc…. This morning after I finished running (she sprinted along for the last 1/2 mile), Kennedy and I walked out to the dock behind the house and she joined me for part of my yoga routine.  Of course we chatted up a storm, and I think my favorite comment of the day from her was when we were both doing down dog and she told me how crazy it is that SHE invented downward facing dog .  I could only laugh and agree with her. Oddly enough, today was also the first day that she started mimicking the ujjayi breath sound her daddy makes.  As I helped her get the right stance for Warrior I pose, I had to do a double-take when she began breathing in a slow, noisy, rhythmic pattern.  I’m not gonna lie though, the ujjayi breathing only lasted a few seconds before Kennedy started into the stream of consciousness conversation I’m very familiar with.  We had fun and it was a great way to start the day. It also didn’t hurt to wake up to a very kind and generous blog review of Daily Cup of Yoga on The Magazine of Yoga website , which I happily recently discovered.  Many thanks Susan for the kind words and encouragement! Filed under: yoga , yoga challenge

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Yoga Challenge Day 7 ~ The Chatter Box

I can’t wait to post a picture of the beautiful and serene little spot I currently get to call my yoga “studio.” You’ll know what I mean when I post the photo tomorrow. I haven’t taken the picture yet, so hopefully tomorrow morning is as lovely as this morning when I get around to snapping the picture. My current “studio” is a 10 x 10 foot dock sitting out on the sound that my wife’s aunt lives on. It’s awesome! This morning couldn’t have been more ideal for a little bit of outdoor yoga. Taking my practice outside is one of those things I like to do when I want that extra boost of guerilla yoga inspiration. Luckily my practice helped set the tone for a day that took a few twists and unexpected turns (like my rental car breaking down on the way home from work…when I really had somewhere I needed to be). Everything turned out just fine and I mostly laughed my way through the afternoon. Definitely trying to relax more and laugh often. Realizing that life is too short to freak out over silly things (like getting to the carnival this afternoon and discovering that my son somehow ended up there without any shoes whatsoever. We laughed, and we survived. Looking forward to a more substantial time commitment to yoga challenge over the holiday weekend. Namaste! Filed under: yoga , yoga challenge

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Yoga Challenge Day 6 ~ Inspiration

I get home from work after nine o’clock at night for the second night in a row and start to wonder if this roll out the mat challenge is such a good idea right now. Of course I still need to eat dinner and then get back to work, so I feel pretty validated in my skepticism. Who has time for this kind of thing? Certainly not me. The laziness kicks in. I eat dinner slowly, distracted by work. I put the challenge out of my mind. I work. I finally decide that’s enough work for one day. Not like the whole world’s going to fall apart if I mess around on the Internet for awhile. I dink around on my blog. Read a few blogs. My wife goes to bed. This would be the perfect time to throw out my mat, but it’s almost as if I purposefully avoid what I know is good for me. Commitment. So overrated. Midnight rolls around and I’m still sitting at the kitchen table poking at my laptop. Better get to bed if I’m going to get up for an early morning run in the rain. My back hits the mattress. Eyes closed, I think about the cardboard boat race scheduled for tomorrow night. Anything but the challenge. The challenge. The challenge. The challenge. All of a sudden it’s all I can think about. Screw it. Wait, I take that back. Suddenly I remember that the only thing I challenged myself to do is unfold my yoga blanket every day. Too easy. I fall out of bed and fumble around in a dark guest room until I find my yoga towel. As much as I just want to be “lazy” and stay in bed, I feel equally, if not more, compelled to not miss a day of the challenge all of a sudden. And then of course, next thing I know I’m stretching around on the floor in a dark room, and the breath deepens and I discover again the magic of keeping one simple commitment. Filed under: yoga , yoga challenge

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Yoga Challenge Day 5 ~ Obstacles

Filament arms arch upward fingers interlace of course I’m stretching of course it’s early morning summer here upon us arriving curved upward haze behind a building announces the day coming. of course I haven’t got my mind yet haven’t quite found where it’s hiding. this is supposed to be a day, a beautiful life, a wild and precious life, a centered, kept, contained moment held. I’m floating elsewhere away for now, back in five minutes that little hand-drawn sign swinging from a string pastel and ink, dream-like messaging inescapable if not caught and held, perhaps gone to the wind’s carefree moving mind-path: the breeze. surely a life is not a day, a day is not a moment of course it can all boil down to just the one split second, one big break, one forgetting, slip, breath, one long fall toward failure. Enter the room. Set down your old mat, bones, songs, fidgets, fears, expectations, set your old life down and unravel your very life-threads, your five minute signs, strings, etched maps for knowing where you are. Unroll your mind you can’t even find and be somewhere: only here is where you are a corpse, body breathing in place a two-minute savasana floating filament thoughts out the twisting of an untied cord, rivets disentangling, notion-rope come undone working loose our own bodies, lives, days, pulling out the stitches so that we are in fact of course nowhere at all. [ Author:  Belovely, the Bikram-loving yogini shares more of her original poetry on her fabulous blog, Alive in the Fire. ] Filed under: art , guest post , yoga

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Filament: A yoga poem from a new friend

It’s day four of my roll out the mat challenge, and the magic of throwing out my yoga blanket still keeps working. Yes, it is working, in spite of the insanely busy days wrapping up things at work before the big move to Japan in less than two weeks. This may be the weirdest yoga challenge I’ve attempted so far due to the fact that I really have no routine or plan for my practice other than to just make sure I keep my commitment to unroll/throw out my mat every single day. I suppose I’m not so much looking for an intense workout or episode of breakthrough enlightenment, but desiring more just to get back in the regular habit of stepping on the mat on a consistent basis. Like I mentioned the other day, this is all about overcoming that natural laziness that compels us to avoid truly experiencing life. Laziness wants us to stick with the status quo of shutting off our brains (going on autopilot essentially) and becoming a thoughtless drone that lives only for the next episode of reality tv. Living through someone else is hardly living at all, yet that’s exactly what many of us do. Perhaps people who try yoga end up loving it because it provides those few minutes of the day to experience more than just vicarious living. Thanks to all those offering words of encouragement! Good luck to those who are also challenging themselves to break the chains of laziness and do something different this month. Namaste! Filed under: yoga

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Yoga Challenge (Days 3 & 4): Gettin’ the Job Done

Today ended up being one of those challenging days where I normally would have never unrolled my mat. Busy from start to finish. However, when 10:30 rolled around tonight and I finally slowed down from the business of the day, I reminded myself to turn off my electronic gadgets and lay out my yoga blanket. Of course the mere act of laying out the blanket resulted in 30 minutes of mind calming restorative yoga poses. Luckily, right now I don’t feel like my yoga practice has to be a workout all the time since I get lots of fitness benefits from consistent running. Sometimes it just feels really nice to move and breathe slowly through a few simple poses. I also discovered that there should be plenty of yoga class options on Okinawa. I spent a slow part of my afternoon combing through the YogaFit website since that’s where a number of teachers I’ve found received training.  YogaFit seems to have the corner on fitness center yoga teacher training.  I haven’t really looked at a lot of other teacher training programs, but I guess I felt mildly shocked at how much it costs to receive a 200 hour RYT (Registered Yoga Teacher) certification. Filed under: yoga , yoga challenge

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Roll out the mat 30 day challenge – day 2

About this same time last year I was living in a Middle Eastern country when I decided to start up a 30 day yoga challenge . It worked really well and I think I did yoga basically every single day for nearly three months. There must be something about this time of year because I just officially made today day 1 of a new 30 day “roll out the mat” yoga challenge. So I won’t exactly be rolling out the yoga mat every day over the next couple of weeks since I shipped all mine to Japan. However, I did pack my Manduka eQua yoga towel, which worked great for throwing out on the carpet tonight for an hour of slow yoga, hip openers mainly. Once I got a little sweat on my hands and feet the towel worked great. I have a lot more unknowns in my schedule this year so this new venture may quickly find itself at the mercy of external demands and timelines, but for now I’m completely committed to the challenge of unfolding my yoga towel everyday, which most certainly will guarantee steady, consistent practice. I’m definitely in a transition period right now, but I figure this may be a time when I need a physical yoga practice the most. I’m also thinking about attempting some sort of fasting or cleanse diet. Yoga blogger/teacher, Kyle Miller, recently wrote about the benefits of a juice cleanse and I think it sounds like a great challenge. Anyhow, hopefully I’ll also have time to update the blog on how things progress. I’m at a beautiful location right now with an amazing view. If a private dock on the sound doesn’t inspire me to roll out my mat and practice then I must not have a heartbeat. Have great week!! Namaste, Brian Filed under: yoga

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Roll out the mat 30 day challenge – day 1

About this same time last year I was living in a Middle Eastern country when I decided to start up a 30 day yoga challenge. It worked really well and I think I did yoga basically every single day for nearly three months. There must be something about this time of year because I just officially made today day 1 of a new 30 day “roll out the mat” yoga challenge.

So I won’t exactly be rolling out the yoga mat every day over the next couple of weeks since I shipped all mine to Japan. However, I did pack my Manduka eQua yoga towel, which worked great for throwing out on the carpet tonight for an hour of slow yoga, hip openers mainly. Once I got a little sweat on my hands and feet the towel worked great.

I have a lot more unknowns in my schedule this year so this new venture may quickly find itself at the mercy of external demands and timelines, but for now I’m completely committed to the challenge of unfolding my yoga towel everyday, which most certainly will guarantee steady, consistent practice. I’m definitely in a transition period right now, but I figure this may be a time when I need a physical yoga practice the most.

I’m also thinking about attempting some sort of fasting or cleanse diet. Yoga blogger/teacher, Kyle Miller, recently wrote about the benefits of a juice cleanse and I think it sounds like a great challenge.

Anyhow, hopefully I’ll also have time to update the blog on how things progress. I’m at a beautiful location right now with an amazing view. If a private dock on the sound doesn’t inspire me to roll out my mat and practice then I must not have a heartbeat.

Have great week!!

Namaste,
Brian