Yoga - girly pastime or extreme sport?

My gorgeous svelte neighbour got me into Yoga earlier this year and I thought I would go along to relax and chill-out. You know get in touch with my inner self and all that palava, I mean I was kinda desperate being a corporate tragic with two boys under five. Half way through I was dripping with sweat trying to get my arms behind my ears with my arse in the air. It was FULL on. 

Downward facing dog - more like downward facing agony with breathing added in so you don't die. I was shocked! 

And at times when doing planks and upward dogs, downward dogs at speed I took the option of collapsing on my face to recover, the instructor said it was ok and that I was in child pose (she was being nice!)

Although you wouldn't know it to look at me now I was once a rower, I even did surfboats for a season, so I have subjected myself to all sorts torture many times over (6km erg tests are the worst). And unlike the one person in the world that stopped rowing in a race, that happened to happen in the Olympics, I'm like the other 99.99999% of them and never have. So being done in by Yoga, was a little bit of a surprise, albeit (eventually) a pleasant one. 

There is a reason, I discovered, why there are Yoga studios popping up on every single street corner, it is a weird juxtaposition of spirituality and physical exertion that makes it so amazing. What other sport do you feel like your inner being is being worked on while your hamstrings scream in agony. It is completely illogical and completely effective. 

The eagle pose - note the sweat people - hardcore.... 

I was lucky enough to be at a resort for two weeks that had Yoga most mornings so I went along and found that my downward facing dog started to get less agonising even within an hour and a half. I also noticed my shoulders that normally are attached to my ears dropped a little more after each class. My 'question mark' body normally curved around a device was straightening out and turning the other way (?) and it seemed that maybe some more blood was getting to my brain. 

Look my point is quite simply if you are a hardcore cardio tragic and you think Yoga would be too light for your amazing VO2 then think again, it will be right up your alley and it might calm you down at the same time as working the crap out of your bunched up muscles.

Do it peeps - it so rocks, even for rowers, runners, spin-junkies and any other psychotic sport-types. Namaste!

Update: Discovered hot yogi that can only be described as a walking muscle at my local - even happier now!

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Poetry rocks! no seriously...

I didn't know spoken word poetry would make me happy, in the same way interpretive dance or performance art normally doesn't, unless you count sniggering at someone else's unfortunate career choice as happiness. I didn't know this despite Poetry and I having quite a history - in all those black hard cover journals in the attic there are so many poems, some quite bad and others woeful (when I am doing my month on misery, Maysery, I will share some of them...my pleasure), but I wrote a lot of poetry as only a super-drama queen can. 

I remember receiving an unpublished book of poems from an aspiring poet(snigger) and he misguidedly wanted my feedback. Even back then, (my late 20s aka the decade of mega-delusion), I knew what made a bunch of words on a page, magical and it is the simplest and the hardest thing in the world: BEING REAL. Who you are, how you feel, what you think has to scream from the page loudly and genuinely to make words sing. Otherwise it is an essay, it has been said before, heard before and sounds awfully like someone trying to be someone they're not... and that gets boring real fast (I oughtta know). Of course earnestly believing in "being real" I didn't hold back and let him know in no uncertain terms how lacking his cryptic words without heart were. 

The truth is it is REALLY hard to be REAL, poor guy. It is scary! I am constantly thinking, "what if so and so reads this or that, they will think I am mental!", then I remember that if they know me they already think that so the game is sort of up already.  

Seriously though, it does take courage to be real in writing and about ten times that to be real to someone's face. And that is why I love this particular spoken word poet - Sarah Kay. In her Ted talk she says that "the number 1 rule of being cool today is to appear unphased" and she quite rightly goes on to imply that sort of fakeness ends up cutting you off from life, and more importantly doesn't allow you to connect with people. Connecting with people is in our DNA, it is what we truly crave and what makes us very happy. She would rather be truly engaged with the world, the good and the bad....even if that means being "uncool" (does that mean being daggy is at last cool? - did I just write that - oops). 

Here is the last poem from her Ted talk (full version here), that shows that there is one thing she does know about life and that it is worth trying at, it is worth being a little phased, life is like that, so just be, but be IN it. 

I also found this one after watching  the one above and it is gorgeous in it's truth and whimsy. I hope Sarah Kay makes you happy too. 

P.S. Thanks to Mike for suggesting I watch this - you were right she rocks!

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