lifestyle improvements.

1. be conscious of my sugar consumption.

2. no dairy!!! (except for indian food which can be consumed on friday nights or nights before moon days only!)

3. less time on facebook/computer, more time reading

4. positive outlook on everything! (positivity= manifesting my deepest desires!)

5. will attempt to roll in garbha pindasana, even if it feels like my arms are being strangled or is scary to attempt!

6. being honest with myself, so i can be honest towards other. this is major!

7. take photoshop course so that i can eventually assist photographers in the area!!

happy new year! have a safe end of your 2008... and positive beginning to your 2009!

this is what i do on my spare time... sometimes...

i drew these asanas.. 

these asanas are the sequence we're learning how to teach...

not a great photo...

drew it a while ago...

fun times...

private lesson.

this is a photo of my friend rolling up his mat after our private lesson. it was extremely awesome to have the opportunity to teach my friend "g." he doesn't practice yoga regularly so we modified the sequence a little, shortened the breath count, cut out some sun salutations... i think we did really well in the modifications. i even brought my bamboo block and strap!! i'm such a prepared little yogi!! :)  i think that this was probably the best learning experience i've had teaching so far. i've been practicing with my teacher training friends but we all know the sequence pretty well and do asana often and teaching them is sometimes unchallenging. by unchallenging, i mean that we all know how to get into warrior 1, so if for example i messed up my description of getting into warrior 1, my yoga peeps would still do it correctly... a bunch of us decided we would practice exactly what was being taught to us so we (the teachers in training) could see what we needed to work on in terms of describing asanas... but that really only goes so far... anyway, i'm excited to do this more. i think i turned over a new leaf! thanks g!

days off= yoga x yoga x yoga. yoga tripled??

mysore in the morning at y2. (fell on my head in bhujapidasana!!!) coffee with adam!!! cleaned y2. sushi lunch box. wandered around rittenhouse. bought a cool jacket at lululemon on sale. dhyana yoga at 12, taught by jordana. taken with sara!!  hummus for lunch with sara.

home. hang out. talk to james. go to james. teach james yoga.

yoga all day long!! funnnnnn. it was the most fun day off ever!

as i sit here and eat my one alloted candy cane of the season...

my mimi's menorah. a view from above.
beautiful frontal view.
asher's menorah.. a gift from my father last year.

our final night of chanukah. they are burning out as i speak.

life at 25.

i often find myself talking to my boyfriend about our future. we talk about plans. what we want in life. what we think we'll do with our life. how to make our lives better.

i normally get frustrated during these talks because he seems to be on a path. he knows what he wants to do and how to do it. he has a career in mind and he knows he will be successful. i'm extremely happy for him. 

i, on the other hand, do not know what i want to do. does any 25 year old know what they want to do for real?? i mean, i have friends who are 25 and are married and they are lawyers, business ladies, working men and women. i'm a nanny. a noble job of sorts. it's hard work, good money... but not something i want to do for forever. i want to figure out what i want to do with my life, but i honestly have no aspirations to be a woman who wears a suit. or someone who works their life away. i want to be able to still focus on my life. my yoga practice. my dog. my family. etc. 

i want to find something that is exciting. challenging. inspirational. something that helps people. i'm at a loss.

i really just don't know what i can do. i want to go back to school to get a master's, but for what? an undergrad in art.... oiy! i have lots to think about... maybe i should start up my photography again... hmmmm.

back to black... or soy lattes rule my world.

i've made a decision on dairy.

that decision is to cut it out of my life for good. 

i've been on and off with it for a long time and this time it's out the door!

no more cow dairy, goat dairy.. no more dairy. (i'm not even going to eat dairy with lactose pills!)

i've realized dairy has been messing up my digestive tract more than i care to share with anyone. 

it's been affecting my life very negatively. so goodbye dairy, hello ricemilk/soymilk/coconut yogurt!!

i drank black coffee today from la colombe. it reminded me of when i used to drink black coffee in college because i wasn't sure how else to drink it... for example, i didn't know how much sugar/dairy to put into it... so i just drank it black.

i'm going back to the basics. back to black!!!!

notes on an in home practice

today was my first "mysore" practice at home. i've been telling myself that i would start to practice at home on the days that the shala is closed or the days i don't go, but so far, no go. i was going to practice yesterday but i ate too much junk and felt crappy... so today i practiced.

first things first, i had to negotiate with my boyfriend in order to get him to hang out in our bedroom while i practiced in the living room. he didn't want to go... so we essentially had to make a deal. the deal was that i would get 40 minutes to practice alone while he hung out in the bedroom, and my end of the deal was that i had to watch the x-files movie with him tonight. (i've been dreading having to see this with him). i said i wanted more time to practice so he gave me 5 more minutes if i paid the 1 dollar redbox rental fee. i can't believe i just made a deal with the devil in order to practice yoga.

anyway, he went to the bedroom and set his alarm. took the dog. a book. a laptop. he was talking to himself about how cold he was and that made me laugh during my first few sun salutations. he put on regina spektor which was distracting to me, but i worked on my breath and that helped me a lot. it didn't distract me that my apartment was in total disarray. i thought it would, but it didn't. i enjoyed practicing at home.

one thing i couldn't get off my mind was, "i know it's been almost 45 minutes. he's coming out soon. i don't want him to see me in a compromising position.. finish up!"

i stopped at kurmasana today. that's around the time he came out. i couldn't get past my ego on this one. i can't do supta k. alone. and i can't roll around in garbha p. alone. and i didn't want to look like fool. so i went straight to closing..

closing: i rushed through it. i was distracted majorly. a few key things during closing, a butt slap, my tits looked nice and whatever else he was doing just made me want to get through the closing and off the mat. i love the closing sequence so this was sad.

looks like i'll be practicing in the mornings from here on out when i'm at home.. pictures of my space below.. 

45 minutes to freedom.

manifesting.

positive thinking is the way to go. although sometimes it's easy to thinking negatively. 

i've been manifesting so many things in my life through the power of positive thought.

it's kind of awesome. kind of freaky. definitely cool. 

also... been learning to trust myself and my instinct. 

i find that to be exhilarating. to allow yourself to make a decision and for that decision to be the correct decision for your path. 

i'm tired. this is vague. but kind of what's on my mind currently. more later.

in philly, it's who you know..

i had a stomach virus last week. it was crippling. i didn't practice, i didn't eat. i just curled up and slept and dreamed of yoga... 

after a week of no mysore, i went back to y2 and had an enlightening experience. i told myself, "take it easy... it's okay if you only practice the sun salutations, standing and closing." so that's what i did for my first day back on the mat. 

every movement i made, i was very aware of. i knew what my hands where doing while in updog, i knew what my feet were doing in the warriors, i felt very connected to my body and the way i was moving. it was very thrilling. i also am learning how to really listen to myself and i'm glad that i didn't push myself into doing the primary series after being sick for almost a week.

the second day back was definitely good. i did my "full" practice and rushed off to work...

i took friday off. saturday i practiced with my good friend sara at dhyana yoga. we took justicia's class. i love justicia! ahh. so fun. 

today was sunday mysore at y2. it's normally packed but today there were fewer. it was icy out and it's the beginning of the holiday week so i think a lot of people are already out of town. 

i had a fun practice today. my teacher stood with me while i did headstand. i've been very reluctant to practice a full headstand. i've really been wanting to work on getting up with straight legs. so today i went up and i got to do a headstand away from the wall. fun fun fun.

also, during my backbends, i was told that i'll take the next pose (garbha pindasana) after supta kurmasana... so that's cool. moving on.

adam, a shala buddy, gave me a ride home. we got chanukkah coffee which was fun. we talked about some cool things, and something that is resonating with me is "in philly, it's who you know.." i feel like i'm making some really incredible connections here in philly. the people i'm surrounding myself with are very important and i'm learning sooo much.

adam, thanks for the coffee and ride and conversation. it was very much appreciated!

HAPPY CHANUKKAH!!!!!

hello adam!

tonight was eric powell's 2nd ramaswami vinyasa class at yoga squared. ezgi and i went to his class for the first time tonight. the whole class was prep work for arm balances, which we didn't do and i'm glad we didn't do... oiy. needless to say, this class was hard!!! i'm already feeling sore. next week something new... i like that. you never know what's in store. the studio was jam packed with a bunch of faces i've never seen before and a few familiar mysore folks. i'm starting to really feel like i'm part of this ashtanga community in philly. i love it. i feel like i have this family that really knows what you're going through. these past two days i got to hang out with baby julian after/before practicing. he's adorable, very mild-tempered. he makes me want a child. but not for a while of course! 

i'm tired. off to bed. hopefully i'll make it to mysore tomorrow, if i'm not tooooooo sore. :)

guriji says take rest.

it takes effort to get on the mat.

i could barely practice the standing series today. 

that's all i did. that was my practice today.

i took a 15 "savasana."

guriji says take rest, i take rest.

what a week...