Monday, July 22, 2013

A Day in the Life

Instead of just jumping right into the faire and festivities of today, I am going to take you through a day in my life (well, Sundays...let it be known that this is not a typical day by any means):

6am- I couldn't go to sleep last night, but I woke up this morning, wide awake and energized, an hour before my alarm.  My prediction is that I was so excited for the Renaissance Faire (aka RF for ease in typing) I just could not sleep anymore.  I am definitely a little kid at heart when it comes to vacationing or making fun plans.

7am- I had a banana before going to teach yoga at the Schaumburg Xsport.  This class is so fun.  I usually have 8-10 people in class, but for some reason there were only 3 that showed up!  It was great though because I really got to talk on a more personal level with my students and put more effort into each of their practices to help them grow stronger and more confident.  I was so excited that I threw in 3 new postures!  But the great thing was that they loved it!  I was worried at first that I was getting too far ahead of myself and my students might not be ready, but as any teacher knows, your students only go as far as you take them and they often surprise you with what they can do.  It was so much fun watching them explore the postures and make them their own.

9:30am- the 1 hour class began and was finished before I knew it.  I wrapped it up with my students and went out to the car to head up to Bristol WI. (With 2 more bananas and an apple down the hatch).

11:00- we made it to the RF! As we waited for the rest of our group, Andrew, P, and I watched the fire whip show! This guy was pretty cool. He used many different types of whips to show off his skills by slicing a can, popping a balloon between a guy's legs, and lighting the whips on fire while performing!

Noon- when K and C got there, we all got a bite to eat.  We mainly snacked throughout the afternoon, so I'll just list out what Andrew and I shared: mushrooms, grilled pineapple, he had Spanish fries, and I had a pickle.  I didn't have any of the fries, but Andrew loved them and I thought the rest of the food was good as well.

After seeing some acrobats, a juggler, and lots of fun and interesting "garb", we all left the RF by 5pm.  No sooner did we get in the car and head to my grandpa's house, it started to pour rain!  We got lucky.

5:30pm- Dinner and dessert for my cousin's birthday!  Since there was no food we really wanted to eat (all beef...), we settled with PBJ and canned veggies.  Trust me friends, this was the best we could do without leaving the house and spending more money, so it's not bad, it could have been much much worse.  But wait till you hear about dessert...my uncle bought the traditional strawberry-banana filled white cake with whipped cream frosting and my mom made peanut butter banana cupcakes.  Let me tell you, they were vegan and so delicious!!  They definitely satisfied my peanut butter craving.  Wait...why did I have a PB craving after having a PBJ sandwich?  Because I love PB!

7pm- Sadly, we had to eat and run, but after all we had an hour drive and early to rise in the morning.

After getting home and changing out of RF garb, we relaxed and read before going to sleep.  All in all, I could not have planned a better day (or weekend).  It was so refreshing and relaxing to get out of routine and live by the hour for once.

Thank you for taking the time to follow me and my adventures with this blog.  My next post will be about yoga classes and a retreat coming up soon!  Be sure to comment below :)

Luana ola!







Thursday, July 18, 2013

Enjoying a Yoga Practice

Hello my lovely readers!  It's so nice of you to drop by this humble blog as much as you do, and I am so grateful for you.

Before we jump right in to the enjoyment part of a yoga practice (wait...that is the whole practice!!), I want to quickly break down the two words of "yoga" and "practice" in my own way.

Yoga:  "to yoke"  It is the uniting of the body and mind.  How beautiful does that sound?  In my opinion the vision of union is amazing and so gorgeous, no matter what type.  Yoga is a process.  By this I mean that you will probably not feel this great union of body and mind during your first yoga class.  It takes years of dedication and practice to really feel a difference, but then again, unless you reflect on your life you may not notice the sensation (but your friends and family might...)!  If you have never practiced yoga before, or have tried it once, I encourage you to give it a shot.  You may find that one teacher does not connect with you and that's ok, try another.  You may also feel that one practice is too slow, fast, hard, easy, or any other adjective you can come up with to describe this one practice.  But, remember that.  Remember that it is one practice, not your entire yoga life.  Try and try again until you find your groove in yoga.  For some that may be finding good yoga DVDs at the local library to practice at home, other's it's a gym, maybe becoming a teacher...who knows.  There are so many beautiful aspects to yoga and it is up to you to find which suits you the best.

Practice:  In my own opinion, a practice is something we do as often as we can and improve on it each time we do it.  To put it more simply...doing.  You can't practice anything by ignoring that part of your life.  Do professional athletes practice?  Do professional business people pracice?  Do people of all sorts practice something every day?  The answer to all of those questions is an astounding YES.  In order to succeed/get better at/excel in any part of life you must practice.  After establishing the type of yoga you like or a teacher you like, stick with it.  There are no boundaries in a yoga practice.  No matter how may times you practice downward dog or even savasana, you learn and get better.  A funny saying is "practice makes perfect".  Well, although there is no "perfect" in yoga, there are plenty of goals and aspirations you can look forward to exploring.

I know, I told you it would be quick, but this topic is very near and dear to me and I tend to ramble a bit when I talk/write about topics I love.  So on to the enjoyment part!

Anything that you put your heart and soul into, you can not help but feel joy about that thing.  If yoga is not for you, that is perfectly ok.  No one will judge you.  But, for those of you who do enjoy yoga or are willing to give it a try, let me tell you this...there is nothing more joyful than finding a piece of yourself that you may have lost in a posture, or breaking through and doing a posture for the first time.  It is so thrilling!  With regular practice, you might find that you feel lost when you skip yoga for a day.  It becomes like a drug, a healthy drug of course!  You might start finding yourself standing in tree pose while your brush your teeth, or going in to down dog randomly throughout the day...not that I do any of these things...ok I do both of them and many more "crazy" things relating to yoga.  Ooh, like Ujjayi breathing when I start to get stressed!

Anyways, the ultimate goal of this post is to bring the joy of yoga to your attention.  It can bring so much happiness into your life.  I hope you give it a try.

As always, I would love to hear what you think/your opinions on all of these posts.  I am doing this for you so we can live more healthy and happy lives together.  I would love to answer any questions you might have.

Luana ola!