AWOL

Hello friends

Sorry for the quiet spell, I had writer's block, a week's holiday and work has been busy. All the usual excuses!! I hope you're all well and have been having many many adventures while I've been gone.

Vicky came to visit this weekend just past and believe it or not, I managed to cook some really good food (recipes to follow) and we visited the Yoga Show at Kensington Olympia on Saturday. It was a great day, much less overwhelming than last year and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We managed to squeeze in a Kundalini class which left us exhausted as it did last year! We did a Kundalini session at the 2010 Yoga Show and spent about 3 hours wandering round in a complete and utter daze of exhaustion afterwards. This year, the main posture was to sit cross legged and creating an "o" shape with your mouth, inhale while lifting your arms from your sides up above your head with your fingers - not palms - overlapping and then exhale while bringing them back down again. It went on for around 10 minutes - after the halfway point, my arms were burning but I persevered and managed the full 10 minutes. Taking classes like that make you realise that you can do ANYTHING you put your mind to with some determination and positive thinking. I know if I'd tried that 2 or 3 years ago, I would have given up but I have to admit, I felt good for completing the practice.


Later we found the teacher, Sivaroshan, at the Kundalini stand and had a brief chat with him about the class and yoga as a whole. We commented on how tired we were to which he said that our heart chakras were being cleared and opened, something I quite relate to but I had a discussion with Vicky about chakras later. Vicky loves yoga but she is rather non-spiritual and I would say more scientific. She said she really wants to listen and be interested in those sorts of discussions but being more cynical, she doesn't really believe in chakras and finds her eyes glazing over (which I think she hides well!!) Personally, my belief is that you need to find what really speaks to your heart and makes you happy. If chakras aren't your thing, that's fine, find something that you do believe in and follow it. 


Sivaroshan (who incidentally is really rather pleasing on the eye) teaches at the Alchemy Centre in Camden on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays so for anyone who would like to try a new class with a great teacher, I recommend heading down there. 


I'll post the recipes in another errr...post.


Night all!


xxx

Holiday Yoga

Sorry

Hello everyone

I'm currently in the midst of a bout of writer's block - hope to be back in action soon.

Much love.

xxx

Neti Cleansing Day 4...

I *may* have overslept this morning by 2 hours so I *may* have nothing to report on today's cleansing...

Sorry everyone! Won't happen again o_O

xx

Neti Cleansing Day 3

Good evening

How do? Have you had a good day at work? Let me get you a cup of tea and you can tell me all about it.

My day? Oh, it was good thank you. I taught yoga at lunchtime, it was great, I'm growing in confidence and the class seem to enjoy themselves. I've learnt a few things about myself and about teaching too. What things? Oh, just that it doesn't matter if people dislike my teaching style or whether they react when I ask questions in class, that's just the way life goes. All in all I've had a good day. Oh! And I just did my third day of neti cleansing. You want to hear all about it? Oh ok, well... Here goes!

Today, I felt pain. Ouch is a word I would use to describe it. Just pure, plain ouch!! I just went into the bathroom with kit in hand - when I say kit I mean my neti pot and a box of tissues. Filled the pot with luke warm water, tilted my head over the bath and started pouring and I was really unpleasantly surprised at how much my eyes watered and the feeling it created in the back of my throat. I can't even remember the exact pain, just that it hurt!! However, I persevered as one must and cleared the right nostril before openly blowing my nose in the bath again and doing the same on the other side. It didn't hurt as much on the left I am pleased to report. However, despite the pain, my nostrils feel clear, though I keep having to clear my throat. I must have some latent mucus sitting there that doesn't want to leave. I have to admit, I feel as though I have a love/hate relationship with this practice. It's good for me and afterwards I feel much clearer but at the time, I hate the pain. I'm not sure I should be feeling pain! Perhaps I'm doing it wrong...

I have just learnt through the magic of the internet that I'm doing it at the wrong time of day. Nasal irrigation is related to maintaining the kapha dosha, which is an energy pattern and according to Ayurvedic medicine, the body moves through a series of dosha changes throughout the day. The kapha (earth/water) dosha is dominant in the morning therefore practicing neti cleansing in the morning relieves some of the kapha excess. Tomorrow morning it is!!

Ok, I have to go now because I'm having a slight coughing fit which makes it difficult to type.

As my Nan would say, God Bless and as I would say, Namaste.

xxx

Neti Cleansing Day 2

Hello one and all

Hope you're all well. Today I feel like utter rubbish!! I felt rather pleased with myself last night after practising the neti cleansing seeing as my nasal passages felt clear and clean and I could breathe like a champion!! I practised again this morning in the shower and came out feeling a bit smug actually, I felt that in two very short neti cleanses, I had rid myself of my cold.

Then I got on the bus. And there began the coughing and the running nose and the utter rubbish feeling. There's something about sitting on a packed bus with a tissue stuck up your nose that just makes you feel self conscious. I didn't really sit with a tissue up my nose... Not much. I've spent most of the day blowing my nose and coughing so I'm shortly going to do the neti cleansing again for another clear out. This is like the nasal equivalent of clearing out the garage. Except instead of old bicycles, you find old mucus.


I think the rubbish feeling is down to the neti cleansing clearing and purifying, and you know what "they" say; it has to get worse before it gets better. I shall update ye either later or tomorrow. Tomorrow probably. I have to plan tomorrow's lunchtime yoga class after this.


I have another recommendation for you: Buddha in Suburbia available on BBC iPlayer. Am I allowed to recommend programmes and websites like this? Hope so. 


Anywhoosle! Cheerio old chaps, see you tomorrow for Neti Cleansing Day 3. Hopefully with less snot.


Bye :) xxx

Admissions... and Neti Cleansing

Hi

I have something to tell you... It's no big thing, but something I need to tell you all the same. I'm a fraud! I've been thinking a lot lately about what direction I want my blog to take, having so far written a few posts about a few things, some that have hopefully made you laugh but some that have just been there to fill internet space. I've come to the conclusion (with Charlie's help) that I want this blog to be a yoga blog about my yoga journey, that I hope you will want to follow. 

At the moment, I have a stinking post-Bestival cold (of which I must write about next! The festival, not the cold...) so I decided what better place to start than Yoga for Colds! I researched and I found a lot of yogic advice and so I started writing a post about how yoga can help reduce the severity of a cold and how it can reduce recovery time. I had a few paragraphs going, with a couple of headings, in bold! But something about it didn't feel very honest. I wasn't writing from my fairly minimal experience, I was writing what I was being being told, and something about that made me stop, delete and start again. 

It's much better to write about your own experiences, it gives a more heartfelt and honest view of what you're going through. So before writing this post, I went into my bedroom, picked up my neti pot and went and cleansed my nasal passages like they have never been cleansed before!! So this, my dear friends, is how I think I'm going to blog about yoga. I'm going to practice a yogic... err, practice, for a week at a time and I'm then going to tell you all about it in all it's gory detail!

So here is what happened with my neti cleansing...

Me, my little neti pot and a box of Kleenex went into my small bathroom to begin (and end) this practice. Usually the recommendation is for you to use non-iodized salt, of which I have none at the moment, so I opted for plain, warm water. I filled the pot then leaned (leaned or leant?) over the bath, placed the spout in my right nostril, tilted my head to the left and poured. Out of my left nostril came a small stream of now warm and slightly snotty water. Remember, I have a cold at the moment. 

I haven't practiced neti cleansing for quite a while so I had forgotten what it feels like to do it. Feeling the water at the back of your throat is quite bizarre! I wanted to cough it out but the idea is to keep your chops closed while pouring the water through your nostrils so that it doesn't come out of your mouth. Now, rightly or wrongly, and I hope this doesn't gross you out too much, but I usually take the spout out of my nostril and then openly blow out of my nose into the bath to expel any mucus that may have built up in there, which will now be released by the water. Then I gently blew my nose a few times and then refilled the pot and repeated the same thing but on the other side, so that is in my left nostril. This one seemed to be a bit stuffier than the right nostril but the cleansing definitely cleared the airways and made a marked improvement for me. I repeated the open nose blowing into the bath and then used the Kleenex again for any that was still in my nose.

I have to say I have already felt an improvement, I don't feel as stuffy or 'yucky' as I did before.

I'm going to continue this for the next week and will hopefully remember to blog the outcome... I'm not going to post a photo of my nasal mucus, I just mean I'm going to write down the practice, any differences I see, and many other things that I can't think of right now.

I hope you're enjoying my blog peoples, if there's anything you want me to write about or research and blog then just put it in the comments. Yoga related obviously!! Unless you want me to research cake, I can totally do that :)

In other news not at ALL related to yoga, I think you should immediately go out and buy Yes Man by Danny Wallace. And read it too. One of the funniest books I have possibly read in my entire life. Filled with laugh out loud moments and a lot of wisdom.

Ok, that's all for now, hope you've had a great weekend and I'll blog you tomorrow :)

Namaste xxx