New Years Day

Yes indeed. There will be a practice tomorrow 11:30-1:15. It will feel like just a blink in time compared to 3 hours. I am feeling much better today. I had a great massage and entrainment and am feeling like a practice tomorrow is just the perfect thing.

Hope to see you there.

Holiday Yoga Spree: Day 3

Well. I am pooped. To say the least. And last night was a night of no sleep at the Newlin house. Oh well. We did however, have a great practice this morning. The heat was raging as it has been all week, and for once I think that we all thought that it was a bit much. How about that for a difference?

It was just 4 of us today. Lydia joined Ann, Kristina, and myself. Both Anne and Kristina have been there each day and it has been very cool to watch the journey that both have made through the experience. Ann keeps having breakthrough after breakthrough. And Kristina, who is 5 months pregnant by the way (is this a pre-natal event or what? Today the preggos were 50% of the crowd...), and she is just making some serious gains in her upper back awareness and openness. Very fun to see.

We, of course had to conclude our time together with yet another picnic provided exclusively by Ann this time. What a treat and very yummy! It makes a real difference to get done with a 3 hour practice and not wait and hour to eat. I am really into immediate gratification as you may know. So, at any rate, the picnic is awesome and if the holiday spree becomes a tradition, that will hopefully continue as well.

There is some talk about having a practice on new years day. Most likely a little under 2 hours, and late morning? I'm not sure so please weigh in here if you are interested. Otherwise, I will not being see you until a week from Monday, the 12th I think. I will be posting the schedule in the column to the right in 2 week chunks so that I can see how I am feeling and not plan too far ahead. It should not vary much from Mondays at 6pm, Wednesdays 9am, Thursday practice at 9am, and Sunday practice at 9am as well.

OK, sorry about the strictly logistical post. I am wiped out and am at a pretty low level of functionality. Thanks everyone for the last few days. It was a blast. Thanks a lot to my family, Chris and Maple for supporting the event.
Love.love.love.

Here are a few photos and the sequence.

AMV
AMS
Uttanasana
Handstand
Pinca Mayurasana
Vrksasana
Uttanasana
Standing Marichyasana
Crescent
Padangustasana
Pada Hastasana
Anjaneyasana
Trikonasana 2x
Parsvakonasana 2x
Vira 1
Vira 2
Ardha Chandrasana
Ardha Chandra Chapasana
Parsvottanasana 2x
Prasarita Padottanasana
Vasistasana
Vasistasana with leg in tree
Utthita Hasta Padangustasana prep
Vasistasana prep
Utthita Hasta Padangustasana
Vasistasana- full pose
Supta virasana
Eka pada supta virasana
Gomukasana arms 2x
Pinca backbend prep
Anjaneyasana with quad stretch 3x
Setubandha
Eka pada setubandha
Urdhva Dhanurasana 5x
Down Dog
Uttanasana
Baddha Konasana
Parsva Uppavista Konasana
Bharadvajasana 2x
Pascimottanasana 2x
Savasana

Holiday Yoga Spree: Day 2

Wow. I am one tired pregnant yogi. I think this will be the last time that anything remotely like this happens for quite some time. Sadness, I know. But I can barely scrap my pregnant self up off the floor for long enough to post this. Tomorrow is our last day, and normally that would be a very climactic event, but I am not so sure... I am however, sure that the Holiday Yoga Spree is an awesome thing and something that should really turn into a Viroqua tradition. 9 hours of Yoga in 3 days is such a great opportunity to go deeper and gain new insight and to just polish yourself until you shine in the company of fellow practitioners.

We did deep hip openers (even though we did them yesterday to...) with some really great forays into lotus land. It was fun and my hips were definitely way open at the end. I think that others had a good time as well. We missed Kae and Hallie today but were joined by the illustrious Paula Grenier, who I have not seen really in too long and who I love seeing.

One thing that is really so great is the post spree picnic which I have to say, Anne really rose to the occasion of today! Kathy and Anne did not know about the Sunday plan so they brought picnic yums today and even thought I had to leave pretty quickly for pre-natal appointment the call of Anne's lil' carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting was a little too loud for me to resist, a number of times....

I am having a blast hearing people's resolution poses and really celebrating that with them. I mean really, I love this! And to see how in general, people are so much closer to them than they think.

Tomorrow, standing poses and backbends. Maybe a really long Savasana. Really long. Also, I will bring the camera again tomorrow. Today the camera was with Chris and Maple ice skating!

Anyhow, here is the sequence from today. Enjoy!


AMV
AMS
Uttanasana
Standing Marichyasana
Standing Baby Cradle
Crescent Pose
Garudasana
Padangustasana
Pada Hastasana

Straight leg lunge (R,L) to uttanasana
Bent Leg lunges with leg to floor to AMS
Uttanasana
Parsvakonasana
Bent leg lunge, twisted
AMS
Pigeon prep
AMS
Pigeon prep (sternum over foot) to AMS
Gomukasana (wide feet)
Gomukasana (classic pose)
Janu Sirsasana 2x
Ardha matsyendrasana
Parsva uppavista konasana
Baddha Konasana
Supta padangustasana 2, prep
Supta padangustasana 2
Baby cradle
Reclined baby cradle
Triang mukaikapada pascimottanasana
Parsva sukhasana
Agnistambasana 2x
Bharadvajasana 2 2x
Padmasana (with strap if necessary- and over onto belly)
No hands lotus
FAB- lotus
Sirsasana with padmasana
Sarvangasana
Eka pada sarvangasana
Padmasana in sarvangasana
Setubandha with block
Supta baddha konasana
Savasana

Most of this is from a sequence for the fabulous Christina Sell. Also we threw in some hanuman work somewhere in there for Kathy. All for one!

Holiday Yoga Spree: Day 1

We had an intimate little turn out for our first day. Impressive none the less given last nights crazy ice storm. Kathy O'Rourke, Anne O'Connor, Kae, Kristina, Hallie and myself. The heat was raging the entire time which was helpful. I think that we have really hit the nail on the head in terms of when the furnace is going or not. 9am to noon, good time for heat. So we had a backbend emphasis and took our time with a number of poses which I thought was great. ( When I mentioned that tomorrow we will be working on hips, someone asked if we hadn't been doing hips today, and I thought that was really interesting because I have such a skewed perspective right now. It is hard to tell what is pregnancy induced and what is just what I am enjoying in practice. And one thing that I am definitely enjoying right now is to open the hips a lot for backbends.) I also usually way over plan for any allotted practice time and often wind up feeling rushed and like it would have been nice to take a little bit more time with certain poses. Last night as I was putting the seqeunce together I was astonished to find that I had about 15 less poses that I normally would plan on for a 3 hour practice. And yet, it really was the right ammount. We were able to take our time and check out certain poses for a longer time and I still felt like I had a great practice. Who knows. I am indeed a crazy pregnant lady some things are hard to tell.

I asked folks to think about any poses that they are looking toward doing for the new year. Project poses so to speak. Mine, which are all post baby, naturally, are any of the leg behind the head postures and also I would very much like to be working on Viparitta Chakrasana by the end of the year. I had spent about 4 months working on that pose before conception so it would be nice to pick up on that again sometime in the next year. (And please do not worry folks, I am actually pretty conservative even if it may at times not seem so. I never go into pain or even into "off" sensation. Never. In fact, I have mapped out a game plan for the rest of my pregnancy that is actually a bit more conservative than I am actually feeling. It involves about 3 weeks of very mellow restoratives at the end....) So, please do share your resolution poses with me and I will be glad to help support the endeavor. For the studio, I really want to work on lotus- we already have a great start= so that we can begin to work on pose variations in lotus. What fun!

So here is the sequence from tofay and also a few pics of people's eprk work. Enjoy!

AMV

AMS

Uttanasana

Trikonasana 2x

Parsvakonasana 2x

Parsvottanasana

Vira 1

Ardha Chandarasana, Vira 3, Vrksasana

Prasaritta Padottanasana

Prasaritta to Sirsasana 2

Pigeon prep

Pigeon with back leg in ardha bhekasana

Hanumanasana 2-3x

Dolphin

Sirsasana

Handstand

Pinca Mayurasana

Pigeon prep

Dhanurasana

Parsva Dhanurasana

Ustrasana 3x

Setubandha

Eka Pada Setubandha

Chatush Pandasana

Urdhva Dhanurasana 3-4x

Eprk prep

Eprk 1 w/ partners

Uttansana

Parsva uttanasana

AMS

AMV

Janu sirsasana

Baddha Konasana

Bharadvajasana 3x

Wide pascimottanasana 2x

Savasana

Merry Christmas

I just finished a fantastic mug of cocoa and am now enjoying post snow play, pre dinner relaxation.  We all had a great day and it was very sweet to spend the day in the fullness of Maple's wonder.  This was the first year where Santa really played a role for her and was a real idea and it was both very confusing (mostly for me) and also very sweet.  I have never really felt very connected to Santa in my adult life and was very conflicted about what role I wanted him to play with my kiddies.  And now, I still don't know, but I have decided in the non-knowing to just surrender.  I don't know what to do.  So Santa comes in the night and fills stockings.

Practice yesterday morning was fantastic for me and I was happy that people had expressed enough interest in coming that I worked it into our schedule.  In fact, it was such a good practice for me that I really did not even mind that the majority of the people who said they were going to be there were not.  With all of the snow, and all of the last minute elf work to be done, it is pretty understandable.  

 But I had an awesome practice and I was psyched.  I did a sequence that Christina gave me a long time ago that I have to change a bit for the big pregnant belly, but it still just feels so good to me.  Close to the end you do Bharadvajasana 2 3x and it is just so deep for me.  It is by far my favorite pose this pregnancy.  It is a crazy delight!   I was trying to think if there was a pose that I really loved when I was pregnant with Maple, and I really did a more limited amount of postures, but I think that it must have been Sarvangasana.  Which is so interesting to me because as I do a much wider array of postures than I did then, I never practice shoulder stand as it really does not feel good to me at all.  That and I am already so much bigger than I was at this point with Maple that moving in and out of Shoulderstand is pretty uncomfortable.

It is all pretty interesting to me.   Anyhow, it looks like the holiday yoga spree is going to be fun.  It would be a great idea for people to try to get to the studio about 10 minutes early so that we can begin on time.  I think that on Sunday it is safe to plan on working toward backbends.  So come prepared.  Bring water.  And on Sunday we are going to have a little post practice studio picnic, so please bring something to pass.

Lots of love.  Merry Christmas!

The adventures of Yoga and Parenting....

For those who may read this blog who could care less about the whole "mom" thing, just do not even read this morning. It is too predictable and sad.

Everyone else, misery loves company, and even mama's who practice yoga have a very tough time being good mama's.

I was so jazzed up after last nights class. We worked toward eka pada raja kapotasana 1 and everyone, everyone, went deeper than ever before! It was awesome and full of seasonal cheer. 3 folks were on their new mats and wow! are they ever huge. It was a total blast for me and I think that others had fun too. In fact I had so much fun that we are going to doa group practice tomorrow morning (christmas eve) from 8-10am. Yippie!

So I got home around 8, Maple was asleep and Chris was ready to hang. So we watched a movie until around 11:30 and i made a lot of headway on a gift that I am knitting (which I have since realized that I need to take all of the way back to where I started last night..... Knitters, I know, this is utterly tragic!) We went to bed after a brief wake up from Maple at around midnight and then slept wonderfully until around 2 am at which time Maple woke up. Woke Up! And we have more or less pleaded, begged, scolded, and been awake since then. Maybe a brief and fitfull snooze between 5 and 7am. Wow!

So needless to say, I feel completely hungover this morning and rest does not look like it will play a big part of this elf's day. And I have to go back about 30 rows. hmmhhh. the only potential good thing that has come out of this is that Chris has now experienced what a "typical" Wednesday night is like and is now on board with me and my drastic measure campaign. That and I really need to put a call in to Dr. B and see if there is a remedy that will help her. And try eurythmy again.

Anyhow. More snow is in the forecast. Practice tomorrow at 8am. It will be the perfect elfin delight.

Pray for an easy naptime....

freezing.....

Only 3 of us made it out to practice this morning. But seeing as it was well below zero this morning, no one can really be blamed. I was going to take a picture of the studio from outside and try to capture how cold it is, but I was way too scared to take my mittens off.

Several people called this morning to see if the heat was going to be on in the Landmark Center, which is kind of funny to think that the furnace would not be running when it is this cold outside. But, the furnace has broken before, so who really knows. Anyhow, the heat was running the entire time that we were there and that was good. So much draft comes off the windows that the heat really does need to run all of the time. Interestingly enough, it looks like the Grace Church did not meet today, bu the sidewalk was shoveled.....

We did a nice deep hip opening sequence, much like what we did on Wednesday. Only because we had so much more time we were able to work some hip opening upside down and then end with a few backbends. It had a whole Solstice theme to it: turn deeply inside (hip-openers) but also remember the light and its return (backbends). Lydia was on her new mat and that was fun to see. It is huge! I think that everyone has theirs now so it will be fun to see them in the studio.

I came home after picking up a few essentials at the co-op and then (for those of you that know about the current parenting challenges happening at the Newlin household) was able to put Maple down for a nap with relatively little thrashing. And she slept for over 2 hours! And of course now she is an absolutely well rested delight! She is organizing some mousey bike races right now....

Chris said to me this morning before I left (and after he lovingly got out the snow blower in the frigid cold and cleared off the driveway and then fed the goats and chickens) that on days when I go in to practice that my whole demeaner and attitude are completely different. I believe the quote is: "you are just a better person. We need to find a way for you to practice everyday." Ha! Wouldn't that be nice? This is not exactly new information for Chris. The first 2 1/2 years that we were together I generally practiced 6 days a week and we both understood how important that was for my psychological wellbeing. Over time, you can forget I guess. I haven't though. I could do a much better job finding windows of time for sitting at home, but since I have been pregnant, sleep in those moments seems much more appealing. Hmmhhhh. At any rate, it is lovely to get feedback that lets you know that the practice is really working.

I think that tomorrow night we will be doing some backbends. Working toward eprk 1. It is a drop in and I hope to see folks there. Maybe it will be a little warmer out? Oh yes, and after the practice next Sunday- the 1st of 3 yoga spree days- I think that we will have a little post-practice picnic.

Loads of Love. Happy Solstice.

Updates and small rants

Happily, I have added a schedule column to the blog. Easy to update and change, which is perfect for the holidays and also the post-holiday, pre-baby time. I have what is happening through new years (with one possible exception- I may add a practice time next Friday).

Everything is by drop in now as the session has ended and the week for make-up classes has come to a close. Class packages and passes are non- refundable and non-transferable. I think that looking back at the policies on the web site may help clarify any confusion here. Passes purchased last Spring or Summer are really not valid anymore.

The Sunday Practice is on for tomorrow, and that is a suggested donation of $10, but really anything is much appreciated. I am not sure what we will do tomorrow. I am kind of in a hip opening groove, but we will have to see. Any number of things could happen between now and then.

One of my pet peeves, as many of you know, is when someone who has never been to class tells me how hard my classes are or that they have heard that I teach "Hard core"yoga. This has been spurred on a bit by the upcoming holiday yoga spree, which to me is driven by a desire for healthy community connection and fun. The whole thing is very interesting to me. If you were to travel around and check out some of the Anusara studios around the country, I think that the majority of folks would come back under the impression that I am on par with how the method is being taught there, or maybe even that I am holding back a little. The truth is that I really believe in progress, it is how I have both been trained to practice and trained to teach. To me, if you are not seeing improvement and growth in the context of your practice, on the mat or off, than some change or modification in the approach needs to be considered. Christina, who after all is one of my very first yoga teachers, said it perfectly yesterday on her blog. And for the off chance that you do not compulsively check her blog, like myself, maybe this will be all of the prompt that you need to get into the habit.

"....asked about how one goes about introducing harder poses into ongoing public classes. I said that what I do is to get an idea of where I wanted to take the group over the course of six months. Then I tell my students my vision. Then I proceed, over the course of the six months to teach all the building blocks and tools to get there. (i.e.- I drag them along with me toward said vision!) Now the great thing about this approach is that people really improve a lot. The challenging thing about it as a teacher is, because people are improving so rapidly, people who skip out for two to six months come back to the same class and realize their level 1 class, somewhere a long the way, became a level 2 class while they were not there.


At some point in the last ten+ years, I made my peace with this phenomena and I decided to stop apologizing that, in terms of asana and yogic practice, I am into progress. I am into facilitating change as a teacher. I am, in no way, interested in learning and teaching creative ways to stay the same. There are a lot of teachers who do not see asana practice in this way. They are not into challenge. They are not into asking a lot of their students. I have had numerous discussion with teachers all over the country from different methods and they have their reasons for teaching how they do. All that is fine also. But me, I want to look at group of students and see that over the course of their studentship with me, there are measurable results happening on the mat.

And this has nothing to do with pushing, a lack of contentment or anything like that. I am not confused about attainment and its limitations and the temporal nature of such things. Not at all. But I love our method because when you practice it, you align with something whose very nature is expanding. You align with Grace and there is no way to stand still when you align with its currents. It is just not the way that it works. Move yourself in accordance to the principles over a long period and they change you."

So, does that sound "hard core" to you? Let me know. To me that just sounds like the beautiful nature of life applied to how we learn and practice and endeavor in yoga. Thank goodness that when people who have not been to class in a long time come and can see such an amazing difference in the folks who come every week! To those who make it every week, it really is incredible. Remind your self of where you have come from, even where you were 6 or 3 months ago. It is getting better all of the time.

Anusara Syllabus Poster

Tanutara: Making of the Anusara Syllabus Poster from Ross Evans on Vimeo.

Sunday Practice

We are on for a practice tomorrow morning.  9- 11:30ish.  Thereabouts.  

I am in Milwaukee with Maple getting ready to go see the Nutcracker with Gramma and Aunt Whitty.  Pretty exciting.  I am fighting off another infection.  What a season.  I seem to have about 7-10 healthy days between illnesses.  This seems to be sinus again.  Thank goodness for the neti pot!

I have been super busy all week getting a flyer together for the Holiday Yoga Spree and working through some transitions with Maple.  The adventure continues...

Hope to see folks tomorrow.  I will be sure to give a meater update sometime tomorrow afternoon.

no heat

Well we had a lovely practice despite the fact that the heat did not go on until after 11. hmmmhhhh.. Just when I think that I have it figured out. It is pretty hard to get it going when it is only 60 degrees. And I have the advantage of an internal heater. We all put layers on to do shoulderstand. Questionable. However, during shoulderstand, and some fun variations that we worked on including dropping over into setubandha, the heat kicked on and we started to warm up enough to do some really nice backbends. 31 poses in all, with quite a few repeats. It felt great and inversions felt better to me than they have in many months.

After savasana, the ladies brough in some yummy food and we had a little post practice birthday picnic. Nothing better really. Good company, good yoga, and good food. It is really a recipe for success.

Maple, Chris and I picked up our tree this afternoon out at Snowy Ridge and we are making pizza and getting ready to decorate. All in all a great day. later tonight if all goes well, Chris and I may reformat the blog so that the schedule will always be updated as the next few months are going to be dynamic to say the least.

Lots of love and good cheer. Have a cuppa cocoa.

Weeeeee

9 am practice! manana! weeee! Yippee! See you there!
Quite a few people have asked if we are going to do the requisite amount of salutations. We are not. I am not sure yet, but I am thinking 31 poses with many repeats. I am looking forward to it. It has been a week away from my mat so I am really looking forward to this starting a different tendency for next week. That and I hope to actually secure some child care for next week so that I can make it into the studio.

So the snow is flying in Viroqua which is so beautiful, and among many other things it means some potentially cold times in the studio. Alas. This is a reality that every winter drives me crazy and I always hope that this will be the final year. The really great news however, is that the Grace Church meets upstairs on Sunday mornings and the heat is raging for the Sunday AM practice. Hallelujah! Sundays are going to be on the schedule for the forseeable future (except for right after the new year when I will be in Florida. Yes, I know, poor me). They may most likely be the first thing to return after the arrival of babe. OK, lots of love.

Thursday Practice Time

Hello there!

We will practice at 9:15 as opposed to 9 tomorrow morning. The practice will still last 2 hours, so if you are coming plan accordingly. Of course, it is technically open practice so you can come and go whenever and do your own thing. But if you are planning on following a led practice, I will go for the full 2 hours. I am thinking the standing pose sequence and then some hanumanasana work. Sounds fun, yes? Maybe throw in some inversions.

I am also going to get the winter schedule up on the blog over the weekend. Thanks for your patience. Also, flyers for around town (or your own hands) are in the works.

OK. News brief over. I hope to have something more interesting to share soon.

For those of you wondering, I am still undecided on the dog....