Yoga Bucket List for Summer

The Spoiled Yogi wrote a wonderful post recently about a bucket list for summer, inviting readers to come up with lists of their own. Though I am generally not a "bucket list" kind of girl, I liked the idea of having a few summer oriented goals. Probably has a lot to do with the fact that living in Canada now, summer has taken on a sacred sort of earnest frenzy for me.

So, the list:

1. Practice outdoors.
2. Strike a scenic yoga tourist pose at every stop along our holiday route.
3. Master an arm balance (I haven't decided which one yet.)
4. Juice more.
5. Learn to really use my camera.
6. Spend less time at the computer.
7. Camp more.
8. Hike regularly.
9. Engage in some serious stuff purging in my home.
10. Bake more.

How about you?

Over and Over: My Reincarnate Self

During the Friday opening of our yoga training weekends, Cat always asks us if anything is new.

The reason for this is twofold. First to discover who might not be physically up to the long daily practices. This last weekend our longest practice on the Sunday ran a bit past 3 hours and the shortest on Saturday was just two.

The second reason is to discover if anything is new in other areas of our lives as yoga is about the spirit and mind as well as the body.

I’d been in a small amount of agony all week. My back muscles were in a literal twist due to smoke intermittmently choking the air in our hamlet. An atv had set off a forest fire about 30 minutes north of us and the wind carried the char as far as the city to our southwest. Bad asthma days have the potential to bind me physically as well as clog my airways.

I kept that to myself though. I was determined to practice. I have practiced every day now for a bit over a month. Even on my worst days last week, I crawled onto my mat and did something.

As Cat surveyed the room, yoga face greeted her but no one volunteered until Rie spoke up.

Rie is different, as my daughter would say. I find her a bit tiring. She talks almost non-stop when not engaged in the actual asana practice and she is someone who has done that, been there and likes to share.

Yoga Face

I hadn’t thought about it before last weekend, but running undoes my yoga.

We were standing about after a practice teaching lab with Kat, the instructor, and discussing the various fitness routines – in addition to yoga – that we had and someone asked her what she did.

“Um, I do yoga,” she said, in a tone and with an expression that implied that the question itself hardly needed to be asked*.