I'd love to tell you how often I've been told I'm too fat. The number has a Wilde impossibility to it, so much so that you will know it is true.
When I weighed 100 lbs more, it was less shocking than it is now. And yet: less surprising. Maybe it's age.
I get a thrill of subversive go-fuck-yourself now. I see it more starkly, as I get my intellect-genetic-earth based rhythms.
Madonna, Lady Gaga and Britney Spears stay with me in my heart because of the lashes and the backlashes they create through the medium of Pop. Especially Madonna. Gaga's conversationally specific now, though.
I just want it to stop, and know it won't. We have to find our own rhythms, our own balances. That's each and everyone of our own work... But in the interim:
Im gonna hope that you wear colors if you like them and short-shorts if you want them. And, maybe suggest you get rollerskates, too. But that last one is just me.

Easy come, easy go.
Surf & Sand? In my Heart & Hand.
Don't leave until you've left.

Easy come, easy go. Surf & Sand? In my Heart & Hand. Don't leave until you've left.

My heart could burst -- a surprise from my soul sister -- you can't make old friends.

My scooter has a girlfriend.

I've been a member of this gym for almost 15 years.
Discovering my love of fitness and sport helped empower me in my youth, and keeps me strong in ways far beyond muscle mass as an adult.
Strong people are more useful; and being smart and pretty has no bearing on ones capacity for physicality. Basically, you can be smart, pretty, and strong -- so why not?
Perhaps that message is taboo....?

My heart broke into far too many pieces to count. My apathy swelled. My sorrow stole my voice. And, still, I prayed.
These past five years I've prayed for bravery.
The practice of Ashtanga Yoga healed the dark part at the back of my heart. It purified my voice. And, it brought the richness of courage to my doorstep, asking only that I keep praying, until bravery became it's own resignation: no other choice to make, because there is more work to be done, and I want to do is work more.

SAMASTHITHI

There are so many ways to observe samasthithi. Today, I took yoga straps and strapped them to a tree. Keeping the back flat and the stomach engaged, I worked my pulling muscles with out losing the feeling of a constellated center line. @davidgarriguesyoga would like those terms, i think. They sound like him.
My coach would call these rows. I might call it samasthithi research. Regardless, these moments of turning inward and reflecting soberly on the here and now are valuable. It is certainly not the method... but it also very much is.

KAPOTASANA
What's really interesting here is finding places of weakness, tightness, or asymmetry, and targeting it directly. If something's out of whack, we gotta build both the length and the strength to put it back. So first things first, we we have to FEEEEL the asymmetry, but then we begin to introduce actions that encourage symmetry. When I practice I don't always know how to do that! Regularly at the gym, I play around with strength building concepts and overlay them onto poses. You've seen a bunch of them so far in this feed, right? #
So much of the practice of yoga is *strength building*-- the front body needs to both *lengthen* and work. Same with the front of the legs, the back of the thorax, back of the legs, pretty much everything.
This will keep your thighs forward enough that the spine can mobilize in all of its different places (not just the low back) and you can research the posture further, for longer.
Pretty great post deadlifts and cleans 🙂 Grab a pvc pipe!

HIPS: there is a real effort keep the navel over the hips and the hips over the knees for as long as possible so as to give the spine a chance to lengthen and circularize. You're not trying to rest on the ball so much as gesture forward from it.
SPINE: the key is finding an anchored and stretching front body -- floating ribs in, coccyx down, lower spine extended, upper spine extended, back muscles engaged.
The spine goes up up up.
SHOULDERS: To move from an extended shoulder joint to a flexed shoulder joint, you just take your arms from down to up... except for our purposes, it requires scapular protraction (wide) , upward rotation (bottom of the blade in to the rib) , and some elevation (just enough to stretch!) ... WTF: first part getting easy? In the second part, I'm using a resistance band to move from a flexed elbow to an extended elbow in a manner that strengthens the tricep. A stable shoulder girdle is essential for longevity in this posture (and practice)!

@davidgarriguesyoga is doing a Led 1/2 Primary and talk on Thanksgiving at @ashtanganation -- 8am. Wanna take a yogi field trip? I excited-- this is his first time teaching in Northern Virginia in quite some time. Come raise money to fight childhood obesity (a cause near to my heart!).