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Detox/retox February!

25 Feb

I’ve been detoxing for the last two weeks.  It was actually really manageable (read: I wasn’t hungry and didn’t feel deprived or even a little bit sad).  I did however spend an inordinate time in the kitchen cooking and washing dishes, feeling like a much less sexy version of Nigella.  I’d suggest the broccoli soup, lentil and sweet potato stew, broccoli and chickpea salad, oat and banana pancakes, and insist upon the blueberry and mint smoothie and mango and tahini smoothie.  Delight.

My chocolate and caffeine cravings didn’t really abate though and I do find a very early morning practice a thing of wonder when I’ve got a shot of espresso in me.  Hello focus.  Hello energy.  Hello prana.  So, you could say that I’m re-toxing (and this guy is in my kitchen’s future).

2013 has so far been a whirlwind – new job, new adventures, a feeling of things falling into place (and a whole new life in a matter of days!) – and my ever present anxiety kept at arm’s length, despite some considerable change and stress.  My ball juggling skills are at an all time high (and my to do lists at an all time extreme length), but my goals to keep some perspective and not think too far into the future seem to be mostly intact.

Deep breathing.

Blueberry/avo/mint smoothie

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Summer loving

7 Jan

There’s very little that beats a proper beach holiday, especially one spent with your family on the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast.  My childhood was spent in Natal – the Drakensberg, Ballito, Southbroom – and there’s something about those long, steamily lethargic days, palm trees, breezy sugar cane, occasional shoes and a wide assortment of creepy-crawlies that makes for a true mind/body break.

After the yoga/sea swimming/pool swimming/book reading/afternoon napping routine I established, I feel like I might have a handle on 2013.  The overarching theme of my 2012 was ‘anxiety’, deeply coloured chartreuse.

2013 will be light, easy and the colour of drizzly Zinkwazi sunsets – stimulating, diverse work, health, love, a lot of humour and perspective, continuing bravery, some exotic travel, and steady, seamless flow. I’m ready.

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Don’t let the door hit you on the way out

5 Dec

2012.  Not my favourite year.  Not many people’s favourite year.  Roll on 2013.

I enjoyed 2011.  It was tumultuous, but I felt like I came into my own, discovered myself again, got a little braver and faced up to some loss.

2012 was a slog.  I feel like I had to face ALL of my stuff, ALL of the time, backed up by a voracious pace of months speeding by, deadlines to meet, events to attend, hearts to mend and self analysis to see to.

In terms of the ‘wasn’t all bad’, I did finally stand up from backbends and drop back by myself (buoyed up by some heady love hormones which kicked the Jaws theme tune I’d been hearing for months in the teeth), buy a Gregor Jenkin table (which makes my eyes glad), see Scandinavia, practice with David Swenson and Laruga Glaser, and have many moments of happiness with my many dazzling, funny and wonderful friends, including getting lost at OppiKoppi for 7 hours and sleeping in a drunk stranger’s tent (which was a frozen, dusty hell at the time, but hilarious in hindsight).

I also then had to face some startling disappointments, deal with some overwhelming anxiety and contemplate depression (and my various feelings about being “depressed”) for the first time in many years. Some boredom-induced creative block, and some information overload and what must be over-stimulation ADHD, left me high and dry and unable to write, with just a deep down rage on the simmer.

I’ve also become extremely time sensitive with age – when I was in my 20′s months would pass with me feeling love sick and heartbroken.  Now I feel like there is no time to waste being sad … that doesn’t mean though that I’m not sad – I’m just more aware of time passing, days disappearing, with me feeling bereft in the ‘prime of my life’.  Added to this I’ve also become more aware of my body changing as I head into my 30′s, triggering more feelings of clocks ticking time away.  Tick tock.

In closing I’m hoping the Mayans were right.  Bring on a consciousness shift.

 

It’s been a while

10 Oct

So here’s what’s been happening, yoga-wise.

  • Intermediate series has it’s moments of magic.  I’ve split my practice and am now going into intermediate after parsvottonasana, which was an adjustment – I felt very attached to the full standing sequence and even more attached to the full primary sequence.  The thing is though, that by the time I got to pincha mayurasana in intermediate, I was properly exhausted.  Splitting my practice has been an adjustment, with a certain amount of ego dampening (“But am I working hard enough?!’) and letting go, but I get it now.
  • Intermediate series makes me nauseous and anxious and a little dizzy.  Grabbing my heels in kapotasana (without assistance, or flaring out one elbow in order to make the mad, fumbling grab) remains an exercise in patience … and a lot of talking down from a very scared place.
  • Olivier had me walking up walls with my feet and building strength in both pincha and handstands (I still have visions of my shoulders turning into those of a rugby player’s).  Truth be told, my shirts are tighter over my back and biceps.  It’s all a bit disconcerting really … although it’s bound to happen, right?  Anyway, I had a moment in pincha the other day, a moment when I felt that sweet spot and did not touch the wall behind me.  Not once!  Some days are like that the very first time … others require a little more (a lot more) practise.
  • I’m still struggling with laghu vajrasana … I’m either hovering my head above the floor and managing to come back up, or stuck to the mat with no hope of ever returning to an upright position. Bah.

I’m reminded sometimes (when I’m panicked or wholly distracted during my practice) when I first started primary series – when there was no space in my head for anything other than “breathe!” or “just one more chaturanga, you can do it!”.  Now it’s much easier physically to get through a practice, and much, much harder mentally to keep my chattering mind in check.

Our bodies are constantly changing, minute by minute, cell by cell.  I guess it’s this change, the impermanence, of our bodies, and the world, that is both comforting (I’ll get my legs comfortably behind my head one day), and at the same time terribly frightening.

I think I’ll just leave it as a yoga check-in for today.  The rest of my life is suffused in anxiety, fuelled I think by the run up to my 31st birthday – balancing on my forearms seems the easiest part of my day :)

Managing the crazy

10 Aug

Most days when my alarm shakes me from sleep at 5.30am, and later when I’m breathing through my panic in kapotasana, fighting with my hips in dvi pada sirsasana and wondering if I’ll ever be strong enough in pincha mayurasana, I question why I practice ashtanga.  It’s gruelling.  It’s taxing.  It’s 90 minutes or more, 6 days a week.

And then I have weeks like the last few and I realise that without yoga I’d be a public (and personal) liability.  On good days I dance with anxiety; on bad days I’m a straight-up bitch, unfocused, compulsive and preoccupied, nail-biting, temper-flaring and 3am ceiling-staring.  And although it’s fighting a big fight at the moment, ashtanga helps me moderate life’s vagaries, hurts, mediocrities and disappointments.

It’s the discipline that keeps me sane.   It’s the moments of magic that keep me coming back.

 

 

Ashtanga bootcamp

19 Jul

I’m aware of the oxymoron.

But still.  The month of July sees my once-weekly ashtanga students challenged to a month of a dedicated (6 days a week, less moon days) ashtanga practice.  And because they are competitive, achiever types, a ‘bootcamp’ challenge seemed like the right thing to do to get the end result of a committed self-practice … Machiavellian yoga?

Okay, and it’s a little about me too.  It’s winter: cold and dark.  I needed some motivation to get up in the morning.  And a daily adjustment in supta vajrasana.  

They’re half way.  And it’s amazing to watch as the layers begin to peel back … falling down the ashtanga rabbit hole :)

xx

Home

19 Jun

One of the reasons I work is to travel.  And I’m going to have to keep reminding myself of this as I reintegrate back into the working world after almost three weeks out of SA. Bah!

Anyway.  I really, really loved Copenhagen and Stockholm.  I was as busy as a bee the whole time (with the result that I feel like I need a lazy island holiday real soon); but it was an amazing few weeks spent yoga’ing, learning, biking, laughing, talking, walking, shopping, spending, eating, drinking, staring, loving Joe and the Juice, munching pastries, thinking and generally feeling terribly lucky.

Far north

5 Jun

I landed and hit the ground running (cycling). Copenhagen is as lovely as I had imagined, even if I feel as though I have yet to get grounded!

I had a weekend of workshops with David Swenson and today was the second day of a seven day teacher training.  I’m feeling a little broken from 12 hours of mainly asana on Saturday and Sunday, and I think I may collapse on Sunday.

Here though is what I’ve learnt so far:

  • Biking is nerve-wracking in a city where everyone has been riding bikes since they were kids. Riding around on the ‘wrong’ side of the road has probably been one of the more challenging adjustments of the last few days
  • Kiin Kiin offers some of the very best food I have ever eaten.  In fact I may never be able to eat any other Thai food again
  • David Swenson is everything I’d hoped for
  • The Danes have awesome dogs.  Really well behaved and cute looking dogs emerge every day from apartments to go for restrained, docile walks
  • There is too much lovely stuff to buy in this town
  • South Africans are extremely sedentary (even the ones that practice 90 mins of ashtanga six days a week).  I feel a little like I am doing Copenhagen bootcamp – cycling, stair climbing, yoga and some walking.  Six pack yet?  Pass me a pastry
  • Copenhagen is really beautiful with its long hours of sunlight, water everywhere and copper-domed roofs.  And the people are nice to look at too

 

Copenhagen

30 May

It’s D-Day!  Finally! 

Tonight I fly off to Copenhagen to see some of my very favourite people and to do a 9 day workshop and teacher training with David Swenson.

I of course also have a shopping list as long as my arm … and my arms are strangely long:

Stay tuned for updates (although probably fairly infrequent) from Scandinavia.

xx

Me/myself/I present

17 Apr

I rewarded myself for standing up from backbends with this Gregor Jenkin table:

I only have four chairs at the moment, but I quite fancy these from Weylandts for both ends:

Or something like these lovelies:

Source: maruni.com via Jenny on Pinterest

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