Eat Dance Live

How many times have I gone on and on about my on-and-off again relationship with yoga? From an ode to discovering the beauty of a Yin  practice, to endless praises for the benefits of a daily 20 minute yoga practice , to my 3 month love affair with Bikram , I always wanted to commit... and finally, I've made the leap! I can now say that yoga and I have been in a steady relationship for about two and a half months. I don't know what came over me when we got back from our trip to France in mid-June, but I got home and knew it was time to nurture that relationship again. As usual, the first month or so was super emotionally taxing, releasing (or starting to release) all sorts of bizarre hang ups. Now, as much as yoga is always  about clearing the mind, I know it's become more about the physical practice as well, learning to push and test my limits just that much more, and grow physically as well as mentally. So far, I've been doing a minimum of two and a half hours...

Today I wanted to talk about those things in life that we know we should  do but for some reason never actually end up following through with. Whether we use the "I'll start tomorrow" excuse or something similar, we always come up with all sorts of justifications as to why we shouldn't start now (none of them ever that valid). For example, how many times have I said that I should get back into yoga? Probably more than I've actually started up the practice again. Still, it's on been on my mind a lot lately. The yoga world has become such a huge thing these days (both for better and worse I'd say), but still there is such an appeal. For starters, when we think yoga, we always get inundated with these kinds of images:      Well, you often get these pictures too, but you get my point:    Pictures like those first ones show that there's suppose to be a magic to yoga, a je ne said quoi  about it that will do everything from make you a better pe...

In our fast-paced society, we're always on the go whether physically or emotionally. It doesn't help when you are the kind of person that always needs to be active and doing (and when you have the kind of mind that is always thinking and analyzing and bouncing up and down). When you hear that your friend is opening up a yin yoga practice, that sounds great but the style itself is not necessarily something that you deem to "for you." That's exactly why I decided to go cheer on the awesome Devin Johnstone on tonight by attending his opening session. Yin yoga is named as such because it follows the Taoist concept of yin. If you had to compare it to another yoga style, it's of a similar (but slower) pace than hatha yoga. It often holds poses for five minutes or longer. It is a perfect complement to more yang style activities (like ashtanga or power yoga, or like the cardio sessions I usually do). It targets connective tissue, ligaments, and wants you to just be....

In the spirit of my most recent physical/emotional/spiritual journey, I've decided to incorporate a weekly Chakra Juice Feast into my weekly rituals. The reasons behind this are as superficial as giving me fun motivation to have one day of juicing every week, and as complex as making sure my energy system is all properly aligned! To do this, I'll be juicing foods that are best suited to each chakra. Today, I'm starting with the base of it all, the Root Chakra or Muladhara in Sanskrit. Located at the base of the spine, the Root Chakra serves as the solid foundation of our whole energy system. It links us to the physical world, it keeps us grounded. When it is balanced, it allows us to bring solidarity and support to those around us. It allows us to feel grounded, secure, empowered, centered, and have high self-esteem. In doing so, it gives us physical energy, controls our fears, and maintains our overall health. This chakra stores all our learned or inherited beliefs, ou...

... and by "me", I mean little "me" or "i", my ego, my pain body, rather than who I actually am: "Me", the big "I", or my higher consciousness (check out Eckhart Tolle 's works to give you incredible insight into that kind of vocabulary). Today's Bikram class was yet another experience in my personal path to Enlightenment... I get surprised every time it happens, even though it's happened every time I go. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around how much this is doing for me. Today was an experience in letting go, letting go of a portion of my pain body that I still struggle with today: self-image. I woke up this morning feeling wonderful; physically, emotionally, I was just as happy as could be. Within 20 minutes of my Bikram practice, having taken in the heat, starting to release my usual toxins, I began to slip. I was getting progressively more upset, my thoughts were clouded, my attention unfocused, my position...

First off, Happy New Year again to everyone! We've spent another wonderful day in Salem, strolling the streets, visiting little shops some more, walking to Pickering Wharf, checking out the House of Seven Gables, and visiting America's oldest commercial candy shop, 'Ye Olde Pepper Companie'. Apparently, the first candy ever commercially sold in the States in 1806 were called Gibralters (because they were rock hard like the rocks in the straight of Gibraltar??) Made of Molasses and flavored either with lemon or peppermint oil, they were a hard candy that never went bad and had a dinner mint-like texture. Though we won't be eating them, we bought some as souvenirs for the people in our lives who still eat candy :) All the other old-style candies they sold there were also pretty much variations on the Gibralter, aka. sugar, molasses, starch, cream of tartar... I guess they didn't have much to work with in the New World. Nowadays, the candy shop makes all sorts of t...