My Growing Comfort in Today's Yoga World


There are two big breakthroughs I have to report today.  The first having to do with working on the poses and the second revolving around my growing comfort being a yoga model.
My happiness today at being able to accomplish so much of the listed postures is fed by my anticipation of not being able to do them at all. I haven't done Scorpion since before many of my colleagues in this challenge were born and frankly I was not sure I could do it again.  Much less all these variations, most of which I had never seen nor tried.  But each day I have been practicing and as they say, "all is coming".  I am amazed at how much better I can do things today, and joyful that I feel so much more competent, than just 5 days ago.  You might not be able to see it but my face is a lot further from the floor today than it had been previously.  I'm getting more height because I am way more balanced and don't fear pressing up as much.  Plus I am finding that now that I have found equilibrium I am not muscling into the pose as much and it is way easier to do.  Wow.  Too bad you can't see my big smile in the picture.

The second piece is highly personal and I feel a little queasy sharing about it here.  I am trying to keep things real and this is up for me though, so here goes.  I am embarrassed by the bulge in my thermal underwear.  I almost reshot the shot.  Almost.  I have seen all manner of flesh out here both male and female, and all kinds of bulges and outlines and even full nudity before it got kicked off,  all from people with far more followers than me.  And I have rarely shown more than one perfect stranger at a time this much of what I've got  and never hundreds of people all at once.  This is why I like the old recommendation to wear loose comfortable clothing and I always  have done so in yoga class.  We yogis all used to dress in ways that were not revealing, but as yoga got more popular that changed.  I am sure I am still going to teach and take classes in clothes that don't reveal my junk.  Out here I will park my modesty in the interest of working at that edge and hoping to reach people who grew up in the yoga butt yoga world.  Hey, I have gotten used to doing scorpion and lot's of subtle and interesting variations in just a few days.  Hopefully, I can get used to this new level of public exposure in time as well.

I'd love to hear from you.  Please connect with me on the  Facebook Page and Instagram feed to get more Yoga wisdom, science, style, and fun everyday! And make sure to Subscribe to Everyday Yoga for more great posts like this one delivered to your inbox!
   

Stiff Scorpion


Pincha Scorpion.

My Scorpion doesn't have a lot of bend to it. Much of my former flexibility has returned during this three month period when I have been doing a challenge every three weeks or so. The one area that has resisted completely is my back bends.

Part of it is that I have never had great flexibility in that direction, part is that I haven't worked on my back bends much lately and part is that I now have 4 herniated discs in my back that I'm not sure are ready for deep work. Still, I am on a path of discovery, so I will weave the old cobra, locust bow sequence and fish, bridge, wheel back into my morning yoga and see what I learn. Wish me luck.

Peace Out Brothers and Sisters,

Ray

This post is part of a series. To learn more about the #FallIntoPincha Instagram challenge, see the first post here: Instagram Yoga Challenge Fall Into Pincha

I'd love to hear from you.  Please connect with me on the  Facebook Page and Instagram feed to get more Yoga wisdom, science, style, and fun everyday! And make sure to Subscribe to Everyday Yoga for more great posts like this one delivered to your inbox!
   

Pincha Hollowback


Here is my Pincha Hollowback .

My 90 year old mom is facing surgery for a bad valve in her heart, so my sister and I are doing our best to understand the medical part so we know the right questions to ask, so Mom can make an informed decision. She is not real patient with this sort of research but still plenty sharp enough to understand the options once we sort through the medical jargon, so I had to write a summary of what I had found. Plus I am working on a book called the Path of the Yoga Studio Owner that compiles the wisdom of 19 successful women (all of whom are my customers) in the hope that their experiences can inform others who are thinking about starting their own studio(s) or already have one but need some fresh ideas to keep it moving forward. It is a fun project and it is nearly ready but each time I work on it, it grows. Originally slated to be small at around 10 pages, it is now 40 pages and will be more when complete.

I am looking at this picture in disbelief that it is me doing a pretty fair Hollowback Pincha. Back when the physical postures were a large part of my practice, I could never really do this one, so I expected now some 20 years later I would not get near it. Evidently the series of poses before this were the perfect warm up because my head never floated so far forward on this variation before.

Thanks to our gracious hosts for laying it out so well.

Peace Out Brothers and Sisters,

Ray

This post is part of a series.
 To learn more about the #FallIntoPincha Instagram challenge, see the first post here: Instagram Yoga Challenge Fall Into Pincha

I'd love to hear from you.  Please connect with me on the  Facebook Page and Instagram feed to get more Yoga wisdom, science, style, and fun everyday! And make sure to Subscribe to Everyday Yoga for more great posts like this one delivered to your inbox!
   

Pinch Pike (not!)



There are a lot of reasons I love this photograph, but one of them is not that I could accomplish the pose.  I was astonished to see that this was a tough one for our beautiful hosts as well, so at least I was in good company.

I don't understand how it can be so easy to do a pike in headstand and just moving the head a few inches into the air makes it so hard.  But there it is.  Plus after many days of new poses and rushing to do them my back was complaining a bit this AM and I have learned the hard way not to challenge it when it is griping, so I stuck with a plain old vanilla pike.

I really love the light in this room though and I luckily noticed the slant of brightness and shadow against the wall which I was able to try to mimic with the angle of my back.  I like the way it frames and supports picture giving the whole thing a sort of organic "meant to be" feel.

I am also loving seeing the curve of my butt and hint of muscle tone now that I have stopped wearing my boxers under the thermal underwear.  I guess my next step would be to get some tights so I don't have all that bunched up part on my lower legs, but that will be for a future challenge.

Finally, I really appreciate the support I have been getting from this little cybercommunity around my embrace of this process of Insta image creation.  The feedback makes it all worthwhile.

Peace Out Brothers and Sisters,

Ray

This post is part of a series. To learn more about the #FallIntoPincha Instagram challenge, see the first post here: Instagram Yoga Challenge Fall Into Pincha

I'd love to hear from you.  Please connect with me on the  Facebook Page and Instagram feed to get more Yoga wisdom, science, style, and fun everyday! And make sure to Subscribe to Everyday Yoga for more great posts like this one delivered to your inbox!
   

My Growing Comfort in Today's Yoga World





There are two big breakthroughs I have to report today.  The first having to do with working on the poses and the second revolving around my growing comfort being a yoga model.

Each challenge I have done so far has been challenging but this one most of all.  My happiness today at being able to accomplish so much of the listed postures is fed by my anticipation of not being able to do them at all.  At the beginning I seriously feared that I could not do anything like the requested poses, with or without Paul the wall.  I haven't done Scorpion since before many of my colleagues in this challenge were born and frankly I was not sure I could do it again.  Much less all these variations, most of which I had never seen nor tried.  But each day I have been practicing and as they say, "all is coming".  I am amazed at how much better I can do things today, and joyful that I feel so much more competent, than just 5 days ago.  You might not be able to see it but my face is a lot further from the floor today than it had been previously.  I'm getting more height because I am way more balanced and don't fear pressing up as much.  Plus I am finding that now that I have found equilibrium I am not muscling into the pose as much and it is way easier to do.  Wow.  Too bad you can't see my big smile in the picture.

The second piece is highly personal and I feel a little queasy sharing about it here.  I am trying to keep things real and this is up for me though, so here goes.  I am embarrassed by the bulge in my thermal underwear.  I almost reshot the shot.  Almost.  I have seen all manner of flesh out here both male and female, and all kinds of bulges and outlines and even full nudity before it got kicked off,  all from people with far more followers than me.  And I have rarely shown more than one perfect stranger at a time this much of what I've got  and never hundreds of people all at once.  This is why I like the old recommendation to wear loose comfortable clothing and I always  have done so in yoga class.  We yogis all used to dress in ways that were not revealing, but as yoga got more popular that changed.  I am sure I am still going to teach and take classes in clothes that don't reveal my junk.  Out here I will park my modesty in the interest of working at that edge and hoping to reach people who grew up in the yoga butt yoga world.  Hey, I have gotten used to doing scorpion and lot's of subtle and interesting variations in just a few days.  Hopefully, I can get used to this new level of public exposure in time as well.

This post is part of a series. To learn more about the #FallIntoPincha Instagram challenge, see the first post here: Instagram Yoga Challenge Fall Into Pincha

I'd love to hear from you.  Please connect with me on the  Facebook Page and Instagram feed to get more Yoga wisdom, science, style, and fun everyday! And make sure to Subscribe to Everyday Yoga for more great posts like this one delivered to your inbox!