August

Fine-Tuning

July got away from me and August is flying by as though it barely can stop to take a breath.

That said, my summer has been fairly low key; I've only been holding Saturday morning classes at 11 a.m., which leaves me some spare time for kids' activities (swimming, VBS, etc), selling our house and renos on the farm. 

It has given my husband, Dennis, and I some time to fine-tune some of our yoga poses as well:

Dennis did some chaturanga dandasana with my yoga balance boards a few nights ago (And I sat back and enjoyed filming 😍) We had to do some work to get his elbows in line (stacking shoulders, elbows, wrists to create minimal impact on the joints); years of high impact on them from MMA has left them unable to straighten completely but his alignment here in the following video looks pretty great and his balance is obviously very good since he’s using my boards to do it on. 

He’s using his core and keeping his shoulder blades from winging out and keeping those elbows tucked into his sides for a well aligned chaturanga. He’s also using pilates breath to maximize his lung capacity and endurance. 

This is no easy task, especially on the boards, but you can try it with knees down on your mat! Pro tip: add a strap at shoulder width around your forearms for support.

here is a link to the video on Instagram ChaturangaDandasana

Writing & Rewriting My Story

I've been focusing on my personal writing projects; hopefully you see a book by me again soon in the near future. It's been developing slowly as inspiration hits me and I'm fairly content with how it's been coming to me so far.

Recently, I started to doubt the path I am on and pulled some cards (I use them for meditation purposes) for myself from my small tarot deck (meanings are below.) Upon meditating on them, I began to understand where I am heading with my writing. It is a healing process; I'm telling my story, letting it go and rewriting it.

past (telling my story)

present (letting my story go)

future (rewriting my story)

Looking Forward

For the time being, I am going to continue Saturday classes at 11 a.m. I have had an issue with my email lists. Hopefully some of the people on my BoT Yoga list have still been reading my blog even without my monthly reminders and even though my email has taken the summer off.

In class, we have been focusing on strengthening on the yoga balance boards and on practicing the pause. We  notice the transition between breaths in our meditation and then, in life, practice that same transition or pause before reacting. It gives us the chance to become mindful about how we react to the people and situations we're faced with every day.

With that, I leave you with one final thought:

It is not necessary to react to everything you notice. 

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