Namaste Knit

Yoga Slackers Tour (Ice cream shop)

Yoga Slackers Tour

Grounded

I really really needed some time to myself tonight to feel grounded. Between a long walk and climbing, I feel so much better tonight than I have for quite a while. It was a fantastically lovely day.

Grounded

Interesting for me to note how grounded I feel lately when I'm way up in the air. I actually think I feel more grounded there than on the ground.

Climb every mountain

I did my first solo evening climbing. I went the Sunday before last with one of my friends. I founddurung that trip that it was all to east to try and muscle my way up the wall. This pretty much meant that I fatigued fast and didn't go much of anywhere fast (plus I could hardly close by fingers). Some of the advice given to me last Sunday (thanks H) was that I was disconnected from my yoga while on the wall...think of using my leg muscles to move me rather than muscling it up the wall.

So, tonight I spent time boulder (climbing side to side at about a shoulder height) and went all the way to the top of 2 walls. I went slowly and consciously focused on each step and each handhold. It was indeed very yoga-ish and definately a blast.

Bakasana Obsession

This is a pose that I've been focused on lately plus some of the variations coming into the pose. I really enjoy this sample of it.

Fast forward

I felt a wee bit like I was watching a 6 hour class in less than 10 minutes. I'm much more used to the slower pace of hatha yoga though versus ashtanga. Very interesting video.

Friday joy

After work today, I went to the Lucy activewear store here in Minneapolis. It's the first time I had gone there and I was in a mission to find something fun for my photoshoot in December. I realized the other day that it had been at least 3 years since I'd gotten myself much for new yoga wear. That just seemed sad somehow... I had a fantastic time at Lucy's though and found exactly what I wanted plus some (you'll have to wait for pics to see the details).

I also spent some time tonight looking at my knitting queue. I had been working on my mohair scruffle but I am not only finding it uninspiring but I'm also disliking the way it is color pooling. I have a list if 6 wintery items that I would like to make. I'm really not up to complicated lace right now interestingly. I think I would be completely happy with just a simple plain stitch (garter). I think I'll go over to one or two local yarn stores tomorrow for an insirstion session.

I just need to figure out a good way to organize my circular needles now.

I have my cape on

It's been quite a long time since I've had a consistent home yoga practice. When I left off last, my teacher had been encouraging me to push my poses more. I think that I'd gotten into the mind set that "this was my pose. Right foot in this well worn scuffed spot and left foot in this one" and I couldn't see pushing past that point.

Skip ahead to the present... I have a new mat and a foggy memory (this can be good). In my warrior II, I looked down and realized that I was truly using all of my mat. I exclaimed "COW!" (we don't say "holy" in our group - sorry inside musélon joke) and managed not to fall flat on the ground (let's just say it was controlled wobbling for a bit).

Anyway, the point is to not get so comfortable in your poses that you aren't willing to experiment a little. Trying coming into the pose in a different way than you are used to approaching it.

Failure is not an option

I think that when I’ve royally screwed up something, I start feeling tired and want to go hide under the covers in my bed. The tired part could be from the initial beating myself up for not doing something perfect or not pleasing someone that I dearly care about. My expectations of myself seem to be that I should be able to do everything…perfectly…without missing a beat – no exceptions. Yeah, I know, very realistic expectations. I would never expect that of anyone else or even have a tiny urge to flog them if what they did wasn’t perfect, but there you have it.

So, I’ve been working on changing this little (ok, maybe gi-normous is more apt) cycle.
1.    Admit that I’ve screwed up…no judgment, no flogging, no berating
2.    Decide if it is a correctable mistake or just one that should be learned from – again, …no judgment, no flogging, no berating
3.    Move on! This is a very very important one so I’ll repeat it.
4.    Move on!

Note: None of the above steps should involve a cat-o-nine-tails. Avoid all temptations leading to this course of action.

As a side note, a goal for this week is to “speak my truth and censor later”, although I will attempt decent grammar during the process (don’t expect perfect grammar). You can see details in the Monday Morning Musings . I’ve posted a comment pertaining to my “make today unforgettable” this week.

How to relay this to knitting? Some knitters deliberately create a mistake in their work to show that it was done by human hands. I’m actually ok with allowing a mistake into my knitting rather than ripping back 10 rows just to correct an error only I'll probably see anyway.

(Savasana pose picture)