yoga

:)

/ happy, life, pictures, yoga

Hi.

OK WOW, how has it been almost a week since I last posted? That’s crazy. Time is going so fast. Before long, AIDAN WILL BE HERE FOR THE SUMMER!

His dad said he is bringing him either May 31 or June 1. AWESOME. I told Chris I’d teach him some yoga while he’s here. That should be interesting.

I did teach a full yoga class to my friend Jen over the weekend. She said she LOVED it. 😀 She said for me to never drop my “Ronni-isms.” I guess that means my authentic voice is shining through, just like Tasha Danner (former Mouseketeer and now yoga instructor/physical therapist) advised. 🙂

Lilacs

Did I tell you that every time I walk past a lilac bush I stop and take a huge whiff? Because I do. Lilacs smell so good. The petals are starting to fall off the bushes now. That makes me a bit sad. Once they’re gone, I’ll have to wait another year to smell them again.

Still, life is amazing and full and beautiful. Sunday, I got to hear Maya Tiwari speak. She is a World Peace Leader and spiritual teacher, and often speaks about Ahimsa, which is living without violence. Talk about a beautiful, radiant person. She was engaging, funny, and warm. I feel very blessed that I got the chance to meet her and hear her speak (and also hug her)!

Oak Street Beach

For SOME reason, I thought it’d be a good idea to do yoga on the beach. In Chicago. In May. It sounds great on paper. But when the temperature was probably about 45F, well, not so nice. I got through a few minutes of the practice before jumping up to help with adjustments and such. It was so cold, you guys. But it was free, put on by the Michigan Ave lululemon athletica, and there was free food there, too. Speaking of lululemon, looks like I might be at one of the locations on May 20 helping out at a free community yoga class. I will confirm location and details soon.

LOADS of people in my classes swear by lululemon. I don’t have any of their things–that place is too expensive for me. Even their sale stuff costs a lot! Most of my yoga clothing was purchased either on sale or at stores like TJ Maxx. However, I am in need of new yoga pants (all those pairs I got from Aeropostale years ago are getting too big for me!), and I really like the cropped leggings Green Apple makes. I found a pair at TJ Maxx a couple months ago and I LOVE them. So guess who needs to hit TJ Maxx and hope for another lucky break!

Yoga’s been great lately. I am definitely stronger and my endurance is better. Imagine how excited I was yesterday when I FLOATED UP INTO A HEADSTAND. OK, it was against the wall, but still. You guys. I’ve been building up my strength so I could do a headstand for more than two years, and against the wall is no small potatoes. One of these days, I’ll be doing it in the middle of the floor. WHAT!

Next time, I’ll make sure to get a photo captured so you can see. 🙂

This teacher training journey has been AMAZING so far. I can’t even describe it. I’m meeting amazing people, doing amazing things, learning so much. I have no idea what I’m doing or where I’m going, so I’m just going with the flow and watching as things fall into place. What an incredible ride!

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Teach

/ pictures, reflection, ronni, yoga, yoga teacher training

Lilacs

As I move along in my training, I’ve started giving thought to the kind of yoga teacher I want to be. For a while, I’d thought I wanted to teach children, but no. Then I thought about teaching hatha–for I enjoy hatha yoga the most. I’ve also thought about restorative yoga. See, I’m not an athletic person. I don’t like aerobics, unless it’s low impact. I like cardio, but I do not like running, jumping, that sort of thing. So what business would I have teaching it?

I like hatha yoga because it allows one to really get into the pose. You hold the poses longer than you would in vinyasa (which is more of a flow) or ashtanga (which is pretty aggressive), but you’re still working. BELIEVE ME, you are still working. I like that deep work in a pose, especially the heart openers or the hip openers or the forward folds. Like, when you’re right at your edge, and you think you can’t take it anymore, then something releases, and you relax into the pose. Love that.

I want to be the kind of teacher who helps her students *get that*. Who inspires them. I want students who love and respect me, and who generally enjoy coming to my class. But right now, I’m having a hard time taking myself seriously as a teacher, probably because I’m still SUCH a student. And it’s true–one is always a student of yoga–but I’m REALLY a student! One day I was practice teaching, and it just felt so weird to tell people to do things and watch them actually DO IT. I’m sure that’s something I’ll get over… but it’s still a bit odd.

I can’t ignore the fact that instead of singing in the shower, most of the time I’m making up yoga practices, or practicing my cueing. Is that weird? Sometimes I can’t sleep because I’m trying to put together the perfect practice in my mind. Yeah, it’s definitely weird.

Every week in teacher training, we practice teach, either with a partner or a small group. I’m learning that I am SILLY. I’m going to be one of those teachers, like Moksha’s Rich Logan, who’ll have the entire class cracking up while trying to hold a pose. And honestly? I would LOVE that. Yoga doesn’t have to be all serious and frowny face all the time. I love when I can laugh during a pose. A lot of people do. His class was packed today!

I know I have time to worry about it, and I have time to find my voice. First, I need to get the cueing down and keep learning as much as I can. Then everything else will fall into place, just as this entire journey keeps falling into place. I can’t believe how amazing it’s been.

linking up here:

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Cray Cray

/ life, pictures, yoga, yoga teacher training

A Stuffed Beast????? WANT!

You guys, I’ve been so busy. Somehow, I still found time to play FarmVille though…BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THAT.

Ahem.

Seriously, when I filled out my planner, I swear it didn’t LOOK like *that* much was going on. But I guess looks are deceiving. Because now it looks a LOT more full. Maybe I had a veiling mechanism in place to keep me from freaking out.

What do you think?

Wrapping Up A Busy Week

All I know is that the life planner is a life saver. Seriously. I don’t know how I lived without it. And I swear, no one is paying me to say these things. It really is that awesome.

Monday, Adam and I ran errands. We went out to the mall to get more glassware (I’d developed an aversion to our plastic cups because they tasted like dishwasher soap–ew) and a few necessities. We also hit Stanley’s to get fruit and other yummy goodness. Tuesday was a whole day of yoga teacher training, where we worked on Balancing Poses pt. 2. We also worked on some advanced poses. YES LORD, they were advanced! Poses like Utthita Hasta Padangustasana (Extended Hand to Big Toe) and Natarajasana (Lord of the Dance). (The main reason I constantly use the Sanskrit names for the poses is that I have to know them! I’m considering making or purchasing flash cards, seriously.) Anyway, Natarajasana just about did me in! Even though I was against the wall, it was still REALLY HARD. Whew.

Wednesday was yoga, practice teaching, and a lecture. Oh, and I got my first apprenticeship sorted. I’m going to be apprenticing with Amber Cook. I am SO excited, you guys. Amber is amazing. She’s beautiful (inside and out), strong, smart, and one hell of a teacher. I’m going to learn so much from her! My apprenticeship starts in June. 🙂

Thursday was more yoga, meeting with a friend, and hitting the library. Friday, I stayed the heck home and caught up on some homework (assignment is due this upcoming Monday) and talked to my mommy. YAY. Imagine my surprise when I called her and Aidan answered the phone! Aidan’s dad surprised her by bringing Aidan to see her for the weekend, which I know made her month.

Life is wonderful, you guys. Pleasantly busy and full of good stuff. I’m crazy about my yoga teacher training classmates. I look forward to seeing them when I go to class and when I’m hanging around Moksha. I’ve been running into yoga friends I haven’t seen in months or years lately and it’s been so cool seeing their faces. Seriously, the community at Moksha is amazing, and I am so blessed to be a part of it. Weather is still stinking cold, but it’s supposed to warm up next week. I doubt it’ll actually stay warm, but one or two days is better than none, and definitely better than this 30s-50s crap we’ve been having lately.

Saturday (today), I have homework, homework, homework. The sutras questions are kicking my bootie. They’re so hard! But the Anatomy Coloring Book is fun. 🙂 Then I have the Urban Priestess Workshop with Ashley Turner which I hear is going to be um, AMAZING. And then Sunday will be super busy again. Master Teacher Roundtable (I’ve never been to one of these, so I’m interested in what it’s going to be like. I have to attend a bunch for my certification.), lectures, yoga class. Moksha River West is indeed my second home. And then the madness starts all over next week! But I’m not complaining. No way. 🙂 This life is a blessing.

But now I’m going to go and read. I’m jumping between three books now: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, There is no Dog, and Akata Witch. Plus my text books for training. Multitasking much?

Oh, and that first picture? Yeah. There is a stuffed Beast now. It EXISTS, you guys. IT IS A THING. It must be mine. But maybe once it stops being $29.50. If it doesn’t sell out before I can scratch up the cash for such a frivolous purchase. He’s so cuttteeee. I wannnnttt itttt!

OK then. Bye for now!

11 Comments

Random McRandomness

/ cats, dork, life, pictures, shopping, weekend, yoga

Lilacs
there are lilacs!!!!

I had a good weekend. I spent Friday relaxing and reading. It looks so pretty outside, but it’s still so cold. I don’t know about you, but 50F in January feels a lot warmer than 50F in April, and the temps have barely been making it out of the 50s these days. I know this is typical here, and I know I whine about this every year, but the fact is that I am so ready for it to be warm that it’s not even funny. Oh well. At any rate, I didn’t go anywhere Friday because I just wanted to stay inside where it was warm and dry and full of cuddly cats.

It’s not fair that it looks like this outside:

Around The Neighborhood

…but feels like this:

Wicker Park

(At least the lilacs are out, right? They smell so good, you guys! I love lilacs!)

Anyway.

Speaking of cats. Helena is back to peeing in bad places again.

It had been years since she’s done that (although I’m just suspecting that maybe she’s been doing it all along and I’ve been mistakenly blaming Crookshanks, who is more apt to poop in a naughty place rather than pee, but he has a history of that as well), but it started again when I bought a bath mat for the tub. You see, our tub has gotten slippery over the years and I didn’t like feeling like I was going to slip when I went for a shower. So I got a bath mat from TJ Maxx which was probably my first mistake because it had a nasty skunky rubbery scent to it. But it was comfy and kept me from slipping! Then, Helena started peeing on it. We got rid of the mat and she just kept peeing in the tub. Now, as far as a cat peeing somewhere naughty, the tub isn’t the worst place, right? I even joked that it was time to start toilet training her. She had the room right, you know?

But then it got worse. Adam got a new couch, identical to the one we had before. (Don’t ask what happened to the other one. It’s a long sordid story best left in the past.) Not the most comfortable couch ever, but it does the job. Except I started noticing a pee smell from the slipcover. Adam would wash it, and then it would appear again, this time in a different spot. We removed the slipcover, and Adam put a table cloth over the couch. The table cloth looks and feels like fabric, but it does not absorb liquid. If a cat pees on it, the pee gets on his/her foot, thus theoretically discouraging further elimination on the couch. HAH. HA HA HA HA!! See, I wasn’t completely convinced it wasn’t Crookshanks because as I said, he has a pretty checkered history, that one. THEN Adam actually CAUGHT Helena in the act.

Seriously? Seriously? WTF Helena. She’d been so good all these years! (Or maybe not, now that I think of it.) We have THREE litter boxes for those brats. I’m tired of cleaning up after cats who can’t/won’t eliminate in the proper places. Hmph. Maybe I’ll just start peeing anywhere *I* feel like it. How would you like that, huh?

Cats are the gifts that keep on giving. IN THE ANNOYANCE DEPARTMENT. Why does this happen whenever I practice yoga at home??

Every Damn Time!
every damn time!

Hmph. Well I’ll just keep lowering from chatarunga (which is hard enough as it is!) on to him every day and see if that changes his tune.

They’re lucky they’re cute and cuddly and so darn loveable.

Yesterday, I went to bookstore because although I have a couple of eBook copies of The Secret Garden, I really wanted a hard copy. I found a paperback that wasn’t too expensive, and a copy of the Bhagavad Gita that was also very nicely priced. 🙂 Yesterday evening, I watched Juno and Mean Girls, played some games, and read The Secret Garden–the hard copy. I PARTY HARD, Y’ALL.

So, randomly. I LOVE getting packages. And sometimes that means I go shopping online just so I can have packages arrive for me. Today, I finally used some of the $35 I had in Amazon credits to get a copy of The Secret Garden/A Little Princess DVD combo pack, a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s baby mild soap, and the black and white Skull Shores Frankie Stein Monster High doll. So excited! I used to collect all the Monster High dolls, but now it’s just out of control. There are too many. I decided to focus only on Frankie Stein because she’s just awesome.

Frankie Stein
This pic is outdated. I’ve gotten at least one new one since.
I wish I was more creative with posing them. Some people are great at it.

Once I get this particular doll, my collection will be complete, at least until they come out with a new Frankie Stein. Then my sights will be set on the Katniss Barbie. WHO IS AWESOME.

Today I read and read and read. Then I headed out for a hatha yoga class. The class was fantastic, even though we had to do that blasted utthita parsvakonasana which I hate! (There are some poses which make me all verklempt when I have to do them, this is one of them. I should make a post about that someday.) Anyway, I was rewarded with a lot of wonderful forward folds and deep twists, and you guys know how I feel about forward folds, right? The teacher would say something like: “When you’re ready, come out of the pose” and I’d be thinking “But I’m not ready to come out of this fold!” But I’d come out because well, I didn’t want to be stuck behind everyone else in the class, right?

So, Sunday is winding down and another week begins. Here’s what’s on my plate:

· yoga classes
· yoga teacher training
· yoga teacher training lecture
· yoga teaching practice
· library
· urban priestess workshop
· master teacher roundtable
· reading
· homework
· farmville (shut up, it’s fun and relaxing)
· life

What about you?

4 Comments

Stay With The Feelings

/ pictures, reflection, ronni, yoga

**If you’re visiting from the Ultimate Blog Party, see my introductory post here!**

Streams...

Earlier this evening, I stumbled across something that irritated me in a big way. Without going into detail, I can tell you that I was wishing, even while I was experiencing the emotions and venting to a few people, that it didn’t affect me like it did. And I kept going for that and going for that, trying to flush the feelings out.

You see, I don’t like to stay with certain feelings. Feelings like depression? I can get with. I’m comfortable there. But anger? Nope! I’m not comfortable with anger and I always feel guilty when I experience it. Anger is violent and out of anger arises the desire to harm. Harming isn’t necessarily physical. It can be in mind and speech and well, and let me tell you, it definitely was there in my mind and speech. I didn’t like it so I worked to get rid of it. But then I realized that I needed to experience the anger before I could let it go.

I dug through some of my notes from teacher training (because this was echoing in me, like deja vu) and sure enough, one of the Sutras is Ahimsa: Non-Violence. I am trying to practice non-violence in my life. The way I acted, although I didn’t go out and beat the crap out of someone, was violent regardless. I gave into the anger and let it drive me to say and think harmful things. And those thoughts echoed in me, making me feel uncomfortable and icky. And yet, I know that if I’d have tried to tamp it down, it would have popped up another way, another day.

So where do I find that balance?

I have to practice compassion and love for myself. I can’t do anything about the thing that annoyed me this evening. The situation is out of my control and frankly, not worth my time. But I can learn from the way I reacted to it, and also NOT punish myself for reacting as I did. But going forward, I know better. I need to learn how to experience emotions like anger without letting them drive me to act in ways that are hurtful. It’s not the emotions themselves that are bad. But giving in to the desire to hurt as much as I feel that I’ve been hurt? Nothing good ever comes from that.

‘Til next time.

8 Comments