Daily Yoga FTW!

I made a promise to myself at the end of 2011 that I'd make sure I didn't let my yoga practice get pushed aside by life.  I vowed to practice yoga for at least 20 min per day, and I even set up a special space just for yoga in my basement!

I wasn't as good as I would have liked in the last couple of months of 2011, but I'm not going to beat myself up about it.  I was just getting my life back in order after the kitty debacle and the holidays were upon me.  But those are just excuses, of course.  I've accepted that I could have done better in November and December and prepared to really kick ass and stay on track beginning in January 2012.

I'm proud to report that I've done at least 20 min of yoga every day since the first of the year! You can see by the screenshot below that in the first 11 days of January I practiced yoga for 470 minutes!  If you average it out, it's closer to 45 min per day, but who's counting!  :)

Calendar Tracker Lite iPhone App

I downloaded this handy (free) iPhone application called Calendar Tracker Lite and it's worked perfectly.  Since I'm only tracking my yoga practice I only need one calendar.  However, if you need to track more than one thing and need more calendars you can buy the full version for $0.99.  I simply told it how many minutes of yoga I wanted to shoot for per week and it will show me how I'm progressing toward that goal.  You can track time, money, distance, etc.  It's quite handy!  And It will show you your history so I can see my entries with a note indicating where I practiced (home, gym, etc).  It's been great!

I have to say, setting up my yoga space in my basement and really sticking to my goal of practicing daily has made a huge difference!  It's dark, cozy, quiet...perfect!  I tried to capture a picture for you but it turned out kind of grainy.  I wanted to show how cozy it can be, but I failed. :) I just turn off the lights, use that colorful lamp on the table and light a candle and I'm set!  I have a little JBL iPhone speaker dock to listen to music or play podcasts without blasting them through my iPhone speakers.  I also have a space heater down there in case it happens to get chilly or I want to do a little hot yoga.  I absolutely love it!  I guess it's not totally perfect.  The carpet is thick and I'm using my old thick Jade Fusion mat, so balance can be a challenge if I'm overtired or just off my game.  But I figure it'll only improve my already pretty awesome balance over time, so I deal with it.

Mentally, doing yoga every day has been fabulous.  No matter how tired I am or how late I get home I always take time to at least get on the mat every day.  It's a nice way to wind down before bed or kick off my day.  Also, I feel less guilty when I'm not able to make it to my classes.  I know that I can always take some time at home to do yoga even if I miss that class at the gym.  Stress and guilt be gone!. :)   Daily yoga for the win (FTW)!

My basement yoga space.  Sorry it's grainy, I was trying to capture the dim lighting!

So, like I said, I've done yoga every day for 11 days.  When I started this I was sad that my yoga muscle tone had diminished during my brief fall off the wagon.  I'm happy to say that it's coming back quickly!  I can definitely see that my arms and legs are more toned and if you catch me at the right angle I have abs!  I just need to shed some of the extra padding around the muscles and I'll be good to go. :) I'm not terribly overweight, but I do have some to lose.  Thankfully I'm back to my yoga and my Thyroid meds seem to be making a difference as well.  Hopefully it's only a matter of time before I'm mentally and physically where I want to be.

If you're looking to form a yoga habit, I recommend getting in on Yoga Journal's 21 Day Yoga Challenge.  It started on January 9th, but you can join up whenever!  The point isn't to see how much you can do, but to form a habit of doing yoga every day.  It's great and has classes and meditations for every level.  Enjoy!

Hooray for yoga!

Time to Re-Energize My Yoga Practice

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a huge yoga fan.  Unfortunately, I let life derail my practice sometimes.  I've been doing yoga for almost ten years but I've had more than one multi-month gap in my practice and that definitely does not help me continue my growth as a yoga practitioner.  The last few years I've been solidly on track going to at least three classes a week and during the summer five to six classes a week.  Then, I recently had a furbaby emergency that ended up taking my attention off of myself for about two months.  Instead of four classes a week I made it to four classes in two months! I was miserable mentally and physically and my stress level was through the roof.

Now, I'm back to a normal routine and am able to make it to all of my classes and my mental state has greatly improved.  Yoga is my stress management miracle.  I do a pretty good job of managing it even without making it to yoga, but my practice keeps me centered and puts everything into perspective in a way that nothing else I've tried can.  So, now that I'm back to my classes I'm in much better spirits.  It doesn't hurt that my kitty situation has greatly improved, too. As far as my physical abilities, luckily I have been doing yoga long enough that I have muscle memory that keeps me from losing too much ground when I miss classes.

Yes, I realize I can do yoga at home.  I've never been a fan of home practice.  I always have a lot to do when I'm home and once that's done I take advantage of some downtime with a book or a DVR'd TV show.  A bigger reason I don't do yoga at home is my two kitties.  It's not fun doing downward facing dog with a kitty tail in your face.  Those have always been my excuses.  Stuff to do and cats in the way.  It's all nonsense.  I realized that today.  I've been making excuses that are just stupid.  Certainly I can find some time in my evening schedule or before work to do a little yoga and I have a basement with a door so I could do yoga down there.

So why after nearly 8 years in this house have I just now realized that my basement would be a good place for yoga?  I dunno.  I think it's because my friend changed her Facebook profile photo to a picture of her doing Tittibhasana or Firefly Pose and I got extremely jealous.  I'll link to the Yoga Journal photo of this pose rather than showing you her picture for privacy's sake. :)

Tittbhasana - photo from Yoga Journal

I don't have the core or arm strength to do this.  Not even close.  My friend recently started taking yoga teacher certification classes and other advanced classes to enhance her practice and it's worked miracles.  But she says the biggest difference has been adding a self practice.  So, it got me thinking.  What if I did more than my mixed level classes at the gym and the occasional studio class?  What if I really pushed myself to my edge.  The classes at the gym are mixed level, so we don't really go into many of the intensive advanced poses and we don't do many inversions.  I've been to a few workshops and yoga festivals and I never feel limited to the point where I can't keep up, but if ever inversions come up I shy away.  I need to fix this.  This brings me to my new yoga goal.

Today, I promise myself that I will practice for at least 20 minutes per day, but preferably an hour per day.  If I don't have a class, I'll do it at home.  


I want to push myself to the edges of my ability and comfort zone so that I can get into poses that currently seem impossible.  Notice I didn't say that I'm going to start taking yoga teacher training classes.  I'm too selfish for that.  My favorite instructor and friend has told me how becoming a teacher has limited her personal practice and I'm too selfish to let that happen.  Maybe someday when I've reached some personal yoga goals I'll have an awakening of my selfless side and I'll do the training.  But for now, yoga is the one thing that's all mine.  I often put everyone else ahead of myself and let my needs fall to the back.  With yoga, I'm able to tune out the rest of the world and just focus on myself.  I'm not ready to let others in right now.  Maybe someday!

Anyway, thanks for letting me ramble on about this.  I figured if I didn't put it in writing I wouldn't stick to it.  So there it is.  Yoga every day.  I have some followup goals to this one, but I'll get into this routine for a few months first before I start adding on.  I'm hoping I start seeing some great growth in my practice as a result of dedicating extra time and trying poses I don't get to do in class.  At the very least I'll have at least 20 minutes per day where I can tune out the world and any stress in my life and just breathe.  In fact, just taking that time to breathe and let it all go is reason enough to get on the mat every day.