found here

(Found here)

I want...

"I want this one moment. It’s - it’s what I want in a relationship… which might explain why I am single now. Ha, ha. It’s, uh - It’s kind of hard to - it’s that thing when you’re with someone… and you love them and they know it… and they love you and you know it… but it’s a party… and you’re both talking to other people… and you’re laughing and shining… and you look across the room… and catch each other’s eyes… but - but not because you’re possessive… or it’s precisely sexual… but because… that is your person in this life. And it’s funny and sad, but only because this life will end, and it’s this secret world… that exists right there… in public, unnoticed, that no one else knows about. It’s sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us, but we don’t have the ability to perceive them. That’s - That’s what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I guess. Love. — I sound stoned. I’m not stoned. — Thanks for dinner. Bye.”

Frances Ha (2012)
dir: Noah Baumbach

(Source: yeahmoviesandsongs via thatkindofwoman)

Found at goldlionaz

Something real.

This yoga stuff is just the best gift i’ve ever given myself.  Something sustainable and real and very, very deep.

(photo of me in the park)

I love dirty feet. A sign that you are using them as nature intended!

Do things barefoot as often as you can, the benefits are many!

(Headstand image of me, Foot image found here )

Yoga to go: The keys to a rewarding home practice

Newsflash!!!
WORKSHOP ALERT

Where? Triyoga Chelsea 
When? 31/01/2014
Time? 19:30 - 21:30
Price? £25

So if you are interested in nurturing or developing a home practice or if you find your self at a loose end, or not knowing where to take a new pet, human or otherwise I really must recommend you come along and say hi and get your stretch on...click HERE for tickets.

And here is the blah blah...

Do you love your yoga practice at the studio but your home practice never quite meets your expectation?

Our bodies represent the life we have lived thus far; a map of our personal history. The physical aspects of Yoga provide a useful tool to view the way we move. For this practice to be of use, it makes sense to tailor it to your life and body. That’s where rolling out the mat at home comes in.

Going to class is brilliant, of course, but translating that to a home practice can be tricky.  In this workshop you are invited to make clear choices about which feelings in your body you pay attention to - building your self-knowledge, intuition and self-trust that, if used intelligently, will help you direct a practice that fits within the boundaries of where you are, what you're feeling, and what you're needing.

Join Rachel in starting and/or nurturing your home practice, to get the most out of your body in the safest possible way. Prepare to:

     

·         Focus the mind for the moment-to-moment noticing and decision-making that takes place during asana practice

·         Create templates for your own safe sequencing

·         Get rid of the myths and inspire yourself to help make things a little easier when removing the obstacles to practising at home

teacher bio:

Rachel’s teaching springs from the very precise Iyengar system, but is also greatly influenced by the study of functional movement, the work of Vanda Scaravelli and her current teacher Anna Ashby.  Classes combine an appreciation for alignment with a real love of movement, while including more restorative practices where appropriate.  Rachel’s training includes the Karuna Yoga Teacher Training Diploma (RYS 500 hours, 2007-  09) and the Restorative Yoga (36 hours, 2011) taught by Anna Ashby and Chris Swain.

www.rachel-and-yoga.com


(image found at goldlionaz)

When well grounded we may be still but the slightest impulse can initiate movement and breathing can adjust appropriately. Any unhelpful tension will stiffen us, fix the breath and take away the potential for free movement away.

Work on finding that connection with the parts of you that meet the ground. Keep yourself in motion, keep working—this practice won’t give up anything easily, but it will reward your work and your curiosity and your commitment.

(gif found here)

"I want this one moment. It’s - it’s what I want in a relationship… which might explain why I am single now. Ha, ha. It’s, uh - It’s kind of hard to - it’s that thing when you’re with someone… and you love them and they know it… and they love you and you know it… but it’s a party… and you’re both talking to other people… and you’re laughing and shining… and you look across the room… and catch each other’s eyes… but - but not because you’re possessive… or it’s precisely sexual… but because… that is your person in this life. And it’s funny and sad, but only because this life will end, and it’s this secret world… that exists right there… in public, unnoticed, that no one else knows about. It’s sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us, but we don’t have the ability to perceive them. That’s - That’s what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I guess. Love. — I sound stoned. I’m not stoned. — Thanks for dinner. Bye.”

Frances Ha (2012)
dir: Noah Baumbach

(Source: yeahmoviesandsongs via thatkindofwoman)

Marilyn upside down

Miss Monroe really understood the beauty of being upside down...
(Source: retronaut)

Always nice to have a helping hand... Joseph Janney Steinmetz - Acrobats rehearsing at the Ringling Circus, 1940’s.
Found via Gold Lion Healing Arts

“We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.”

 -W.B. Yeats

Image found here

by Eva Besnyö
Little girl standing on her head, 1940

Pose of the week

Pincha Mayurasana (Forearm Balance)

To add to my previous 'pose of the week' series (see the Pincha Mayurasana and Salamba Sirasana pose) i recently came across this article in Yoga Journal and it's a good answer so a commonly asked question so i thought i would share!

Q: I have been doing yoga for four years and still can't do an elbow balance. I collapse by going forward until my head hits the wall. I don't feel it is lack of strength as I can do Headstand and Handstand.

—Shirley Mahoney

Lisa Walford's reply:

In Adho Mukha Vrksasana (Handstand), you have a longer fulcrum from the hand to the shoulder, so you can depend on momentum to kick up. In Sirsasana (Headstand) you have a broader base with the forearms and the crown of the head on the floor, so the shoulder muscles get additional support from the upper back muscles, which makes it easier to get up. But keep in mind that even if you can get up in Headstand, the integrity of alignment in the neck can be severely compromised if there is inadequate lift in the armpit and instability in the shoulder girdle. How you get up is as important as being there! 

In Pincha Mayurasana (Forearm Stand or Elbow Balance), the actions required of the shoulder are confined to a smaller area, which challenges the flexibility and stability of the shoulder girdle directly. When viewed from the side, the optimal placement should be an even column from the base of the pose through the upper arm, armpit, shoulder, torso, pelvis, and legs. That is, the pose should not collapse in the armpits and then compensate by bending in the low back. Sound familiar--the banana shape? 

From your hands and knees, face a wall and place your forearms on the floor. Place a belt or strap just above your elbows so that your forearms remain parallel to each other and shoulder-width apart. Set a block between your hands. These props will help you keep the chest open when you kick up. They'll also help you to get the stability you need from the serratus anterior, a key muscle that attaches the shoulder blades to the back ribs and from which you can properly distribute weight through the shoulder girdle into the back. 

Keep your shoulders in a vertical line directly above the elbows, draw the shoulder blades onto your back, and straighten your legs. You will be in a shortened Downward-Facing Dog with your forearms on the ground. While pressing down into the elbows and the forearms, draw your upper back (the thoracic spine) in toward the chest and slowly walk your feet toward your hands until you get a vertical lift from the elbows all the way up through the shoulders, ribs and waist. Stay in this preliminary stage for several breaths to reinforce the stability and length in the shoulders and armpits. If you have the flexibility in the upper back and the armpits can yawn and open, then bring one leg slightly in front of the other and kick up. 

While kicking up, maintain the 90-degree angle between the forearm and the upper arm by pressing the center of the forearm into the floor and lifting the upper arm off the forearm. This will help keep you from collapsing toward the wall. 

By setting up properly and carefully studying how you go into a pose, you will better identify what needs strength or stability and where you need to elongate and open. Like pruning a garden and watching it flourish, practice with vigilance and you will find that your yoga will become more refined. 

Lisa Walford is a senior intermediate Iyengar Yoga instructor and has been teaching for more than twenty years. She is one of the directors of the Teacher Training Program at Yoga Works, in Los Angeles. She has served on the faculty of the 1990 and 1993 National Iyengar Yoga Conventions and studies regularly with the Iyengars.

On a far more serious note, and for inspiration,  have a look at Mikhail Baryshnikov's sublime serratus anterior....cor(e)!

image source: top image of B.K.S Iyengar from here and Mikhail Baryshnikov from Rebecca Ketchum)

Via Lewandowsky - Hansi Goes Down (2009)

Headstands, No Hands.

Linda Brownlee's photographs of 18 year old twins Jay and Perry Howell have me mesmerised.
GRACE.

Found via Nowness.com

Pose of the week

Salamba Sirsasana (Supported Headstand)

To loose the unnecessary tension in the body (especially the shoulders!) needed to do this pose you have to find adequate support from your bones. The grounding is important. A well grounded body can become still, like the way a bowl of water becomes still if undisturbed - unlike being still like a brickwall - the bowl of water always has the potential for free movement. 
Also, always keep in mind that it is the quality of the pose that is more important then the length of time you hold the pose. 

Practice

The biggest challenge coming in is maintaining the moment by moment attention needed to preform the pose. It is only when you are able to proceed with complete attention on what you are doing and feeling, rather then what you are anticipating, that this pose becomes truly safe. 

Based on the variation in the second image,  learning how to take weight into the elbows, forearms and the crown of the head is an essential first step. You need to strike a balance between pushing the base of the pose into the floor to help maintain a lift in the shoulder girdle and (as much as possible) thinking about your weight being transmitted through the bones of the upper arms into the elbows and through the spine into the crown of the head.  There should be no compression in the neck.

Note, the abdominal muscles are not what haul you up and keep you in the pose. Although you need good core strength, the belly actually remains fairly soft and the abdominal muscles really only act to help you balance the weight of the pelvis over the head.

It is worth experimenting with the different variations to find the right one for your body. If your upper arms are fairly short and your neck long then you might be better of trying the tri-pod (1st and 2nd picture) or taking a lift under forearms, like a folded blanket. If your upper arms are comparatively long then you might want to try placing the elbows further away from the head or taking the folded blanked underneath the crown of the head. Play! There is a variation for everyone, you just have to find it.

Sequencing
Salamba Sirsasana requires stability at the base, long, strong shoulder muscles that also know how to release, the muscles of the neck and spine need to be strengthened and you need a length in the hamstrings and shoulder flexors before attempting to lift the legs. Great preparation poses include;

• Adho Mukha Svanasana
• Salamba Sarvangasana
• Uttanasana
• Virasana
•  Dolphin pose 
• Plank (including side plank and forearm plank)

Follow up with Adho Mukha Svanasana and Balasana.

Benefits

There are numerous benefits to the body when you turn yourself upside down; you are reversing the effects of gravity for starters, allowing all the oxygen rich blood that pools in the legs and feet throughout the day to flow down towards your vital organs and brain (which makes you feel like you've had a double espresso!), it can certainly help strengthen the arms, shoulders, legs, and spine and i've read claims that it can stimulate the pituitary and pineal glands and improve digestion. But, for me, one of the biggest benefits is the challenge to the nervous system. You need to beable to manage the fear, anticipation and desire that arises from attempting this pose to beable to make it safe. A big challenge!

Contraindications and Cautions

• Back injury
• Headache
• Heart condition
• High blood pressure
• Menstruation
• Neck injury
• Low blood pressure: Don't start practice with this pose
• Pregnancy: If you are experienced with this pose, you can continue to practice it late into pregnancy. However, don't take up the practice of Sirsasana after you become pregnant.
• Sirsasana is considered to be an intermediate to advanced pose. Do not perform this pose without sufficient prior experience or unless you have the supervision of an experienced teacher. Some schools of yoga recommend doing Sirsasana before Sarvangasana, others vice versa.

Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Hepburn for LIFE magazine, 1968.

“Huh,” Hepburn snorted when asked to sit still for LIFE’s photographer and the picture on the cover of the issue. “I haven’t done that sort of thing since 1944. Me posing like a starlet? You must be really desperate. That’s funny. That’s very funny.” Grudgingly, she assented and arrived at the studio at the appointed time with her fold-up minibike, some sand-colored gabardine suits, a faded olive fatigue jacket her brother wore to World War II, black turtleneck sweater and a couple of perky, peaked caps. “I hate the yellow background,” she grumped. Click, click, click. She struck another stance and turned on a smile, or what she calls “my girl Scout look,” Click, click, click. Then, whipping off her jacket, she demanded: “Look, tell your editors I never do anything standard, and this is all the old bag would do.” Whereupon, Miss Katharine Hepburn, without so much as wrinkling her ladylike self and pinking only slightly, turned herself base over apex for fully two minutes, without wavering a fraction, stood on her head.

Found here

Found here

Gloria Swanson well dressed for Sirsasana.