Monday 23 May 2016

Practice, practice, practice



Due to my (over-)sharing of yoga poses on Instagram and Facebook, I'm becoming known as the yoga girl in my little world. It's a title I'm proud of. While I  haven't yet achieved the zen-like state of mind I'm waiting for, I do feel happier and more at peace since I started my practice last year, 450 days ago. If I estimate an average of half an hour of yoga/day, it's been over 200 hours of yoga. Kinda crazy!

People are telling me now how flexible I am. To that I have to say, bullshit! I was never a very flexible person. When I was 24 I did a fitness assessment at a gym (during the only time I ever joined a gym, which lasted for six months), and the main area I needed to work on was my flexibility. Or lack thereof. I remember I had to sit down, legs stretched out in front of me, and try to touch my toes (classic seated forward bend). I couldn't. My legs seemed endlessly long, the toes far off in the distance. I was convinced I would never be able to reach them. 

Well, invest 200 hours in anything, and you will get better at it! Tenacity is the key. Not giving up. Falling and getting back up again. All that jazz that we tell our kids, and that we give high school graduates on the way to conquer the world, applies to us as well. 
I'm planning on investing many more 200 hours into the practice and into myself, and surprise myself by what this body of mine is capable of.  

It's been a while since I last did a progress report. I tried to find pictures from the first three months of my practice, and compare them to fairly recent ones. There are at least six months between all these poses, proving my favourite hashtag right: #practiceanditwillcome!  

If you click on the links below the pictures, they will direct you to step-by-step directions of how to get into the poses. 

Eight-Angle pose or Astavakrasana


Dancer pose or Natarajasana



Pose Dedicated to the Sage Koundinya I (Eka Pada Koundinyasana I)

Extended Hand-To-Big-Toe pose (Utthita Hasta Padangustasana)

Standing Forward Fold (Uttanasana)

Seated Forward Bend (Paschimottanasana)

Wheel pose (Urdhva Dhanurasana)

My new favourite video. I couldn't have planned this, they just all happened to pass through in that moment. Yoga on the farm - priceless!

What are you into that you practice regularly? Knitting, running, cooking, writing? 
Whatever it is, remember: We all start at the bottom. The more time and patience you give it, the better you will get!






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