There are now 10 people signed up to do the Yoga Challenge on their own, at home. I am absolutely thrilled about this.
This is the reason I wanted to offer the Challenge in the first place: to get people into the habit of doing yoga every day so that they would get hooked on feeling amazing, and then want to incorporate a little yoga practice into their lives everyday, at home, outside of the studio.
As much as it might be bad for my business to say so, a yoga class isn’t really the place for a primary yoga practice: class is where you go to learn a practice, then boost and inspire that practice.
The main practice is by done alone, by yourself, on your mat. Maybe sometimes with a video or an audio guide, but always with the option to stop, go slower or faster, or explore more deeply or longer when you need to.
So now I am starting to hear in from the virtual yogarians and it sounds like amazing things are happening in “the field.”
2 sample excerpts:
“twenty minutes! downdog, plank, side planks,thread the needle, sun salutations.” –Cindi Luminella
“Fri. April 2nd: 40 minutes, 1:45-2:25 pm, back porch, facing East. Sunny, but I was in the shade; there was quite a bit of breeze here at Windy Ridge & it knocked my Tree over a couple times (or was that my poor balance as of late? can I blame it on the breeze?); I did all the stuff I did yesterday but added Bridge (cuz I forgot yesterday) & some seated twists that I don’t know their names. More deep breathing than yesterday. Feels great to be FOCUSED.”
–Cindy Meixel
I bow down to you Virtual Yogarians, Here’s how you’ll continue to check in. Just come here to this blog and comment on the latest entry you find. You don’t have to keep going back to that initial one.
Now a recap of Day 2 at the studio:
19 people for morning yoga. I am still blown away that this is my largest class of the day. I looked out the window around 7 and there wasn’t a parking space left on Main Street. (Fun!)
Total class attendance for the day: 28. 19 at 6, and 9 at 5:30. It’s Easter weekend, so I don’t expect big classes in the next 2 days, but we shall see.
Good night, sweet dreams, see you at 6 AM!
Inspiration Location 
Only fifteen minutes today… boat, happy baby, wheel, and some standing poses.
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Everything counts!
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April 3rd, Day 3, 60 min., 11:07-12:07 (yeah, really – on the dot!), facing North …
* remembered my yoga “strap” (actually a long, strong scarf) today & that was grand for leg stretches!
* thought I’d need to take-it-easy as I’m feeling a little achey due to over-enthusiastic-yogaing the past 2 days, however once I actually got-into-it, I was fine and, actually, my body felt better as I stretched longer, deeper. I also felt stronger and more flexible already! Wow!
* added a couple extra poses (gazing through some yoga books & mags for inspiration … also, remembering some poses now that I’m more in-the-flow consistently).
* find that I need to set the alarm on my cell phone (and not set it too nearby) so I can take-my-mind-off-of-time and know that I need to just-keep-going ’til I hear the alarm (helps me with my discipline & also helps me to know that I won’t go completely la-la and forget to stop). Today, I set my alarm for 11:37 so I would have a half-hour work-out; however, after a bit, I was thinking, “gee, this half-hour seems long!” When I picked the cell phone up, I saw that it was 12:07!! (I had set the alarm for 11:37 p.m. and not a.m.! Duh! Oh well, the yoga snuck-in a half-hour extra!)
* 2 mindful joys related to my feet: I loved seeing my red-painted toe-nails up in the air above me in the yoga strap/scarf – they looked so happy! and, in child’s pose, I could gaze back through my legs and see the sun shining on the bottom of my feet & feels its warmth – that felt really good! I like focusing on little joys like these as I go along …
* oh, and the joy of my 3rd sticker! Today, Aria awarded me a cat sticker … a cat with a rrreeallly llllong tail … reminded me of gracefully sssstretching out!
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whoops, in all of my rambling (don’t worry, once I get back to work on Tuesday, my posts will surely be shorter! ha!) I meant to add that I was yogaing on my back porch facing the mountain range where a natural gas drilling rig is … I try to not be annoyed at this odd, glaring man-made item midst all the natural beauty of the mountain & I can’t help but hope the gas dudes don’t have a long-range telescope … also, we lease our land to a farmer & he was doing some spring planting wwwway down in the field so I don’t think he could see me either … I like yogaing outside, but some times I wonder “what others might see/think” … and I know that is a stupid thought, so I just dismissed it all from my brain & I yoga-ed on, joyfully, without hesitation …
* at the end of my work-out, as I rejoiced there in Savasana, I could hear my daughter & mother playing piano inside the house … they were playing “Blackbird” … and I was hearing the lovely words in my mind: “take these broken wings and learn to fly, all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise, you were only waiting for this moment to arise …” … INDEED!
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Ahhh… Love it!
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easter sunday 30 minutes in the grass in blissful savasana! today 30 minutes suns,planks,warriors, knee downs, childs pose.
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