Clothes shopping 10/16/04

I am starting to feel the pressure of the busy fall. Although I am home this weekend and the next, I have four presentations to do before Thanksgiving week and I haven't finished any of the preparation. All four are different. I know it isn't the top priority, but I started to look around for clothes for those presentations. Most of the clothes started to feel baggy, so I decided to hunt for new clothes. I repeat. My weight hasn't changed for close to a year now. My fat content is not better. However something must be going down and now I am wearing, generally, smaller sizes. I don't believe when somebody brag about how many dress sizes went down 100%. Unless you are looking at the same clothes, same design from same company, those "sizes" can vary immensely. So I am not going to say which size I am at, but I spent enough time in fashion a store today. I guess I enjoyed it.

Keep it going 10/15/04

I looked at the workout log today and found out that today is the second day of the week I did my weight training. That is rather unsatisfactory. I went to Eric's yoga class twice, did Suzanne's DVD twice, walked the dog twice. I managed to do cardio everyday. This is less than how much exercise I want to be doing, but oh, well, it is rough teaching 12 hours, running a business and traveling on the weekend. I told myself that the most important thing is to keep going. Today I was approached by a fellow gym member and she had good things to say to me. She said she had been a member for over 20 years and she had been watching me for the last couple of month. She said I had been doing well and consistent. When I check in every time I go to the gym, it tells you how often you have come within the last 30 days. With this traveling schedule, I have been maintaining about 24 these days. I know I want to be doing 30, but hey, the point is to keep going, right?

Back bending and wheel 10/14/04

I did a presentation in Eric's yoga class. I think I scored A (yeah), so I am going to repeat it here. People usually associate flexibility with forward bending. In fact, pre and post test of Debbie's Flexibility Training class was to measure distance of seated forward bending. We do a lot of forward bending in daily routines. Reading, writing, typing on computer, driving and picking things up and so forth. What I value from yoga is the opposite from that: back bending. Stretching muscles in opposite way with counter pose is a necessary part of designing yoga practice, so you have to do extra back bending consciously.

In Eric's class, we do a lot of back bending. Sphinx, Cobra, Upward Facing dog series, half crescent in sun salutation, fish, reverse table, reverse plank. We also did camel, upward facing bow and shoulder bridge. Wheel is the next step from shoulder bridge. (And I demonstrate my incomplete wheel here.) I like Eric's modification about supporting the hips by using hands to lift more. I can only go so far and my head still doesn't leave the floor. But eventually the head is off the floor and you should be able to extend the arms completely. Then your feet and arms come closer.

As I said about counter pose, after strong pose like this, you have to make sure to get some forward bending to balance. Double knee to chest, dead bug, downward facing dog are possible consecutive poses. Benefits of Wheel pose is that it strengthens arms, legs and opens up chest and you have to be careful if you have high or low blood pressure, wrist problems, headache.

(Now wasn't that an "A" presentation?)

Practicing yoga at home 10/13/04

Teaching four days a week and spending the weekend in conference is rather a challenge this semester. Every time I go out of town, my exercise routine shrinks more or less. This week I have been trying my best to keep my schedule as I have intended at the beginning of the semester. The weather has gotten very wet and cold and coming home straight after Monday and Wednesday class instead of going to yoga class became a priority. Instead, I am using Suzanne's DVD and practiced at home. It is not as good as Will's class, but it is good thinking maybe Jones sensei is doing the same routines in Ohio. I even get wash done while I am home. It is not ideal, but the main point is that I keep exercising...

Crow (Kakasana) 10/12/04

Because Eric's yoga class is an academic course, we are being asked to do a presentation. Today first three classmates finished theirs. One male student demonstrated Crow (Kakasana). I have seen this in Power Yoga for Every Body and some publications, mostly power yoga line. I have never imagined trying, but because he demonstrated it, Eric decided to make it part of today's class. Eric said you can lift one foot at a time as a modification. The student said you could place a pillow in front of you if you are afraid of falling. I couldn't even hold lifting one foot. All I could do was to lean forward. URGH. OK, remember, I am not light! I am planning to demonstrated wheel and talk about back bending on Thursday. This presentation thing is kind of fun to get to know some new poses and why people get into yoga.

StretchWare for OSX 10/11/04

I received the StretchWare CD with the office stretch book a while ago, but actually didn't touch it until yesterday. When I popped the CD in, it wanted Classic environment to start! In case you don't know, I am a black-and-white person and ever since I installed OSX, basically I don't use Classic anymore. So I got pretty upset because this could have been a total waste of $30! I left a couple of phone messages and sent an email as well. Maybe I saw the demo download link when they first released the beta version for OSX. The developed wrote me back to say that he is working on the final touch of the OSX version. He will send me a link to download and will also burn a CD for me! I have to double check the exact date, but my 30 day with the demo is going to expire any day now. (Now what should I do with the CD I have?)

High altitude Indian dance 10/10/04

New Mexico is a special place with lots of identities, but Arizona is one place that I have hard time thinking of good おみやげ to take to. For the same reason, I thought, evening entertainment of Indian Dance in Flagstaff was not very special, rather もったいない, well, initially. However this time, not only I got to see my favorite hoop dance, but the dancers invited audience to join at the end. Eventually, almost all of us joined and danced. Basically what we did was lining up hand in hand and walked around the room. After going around the cafeteria/commons area for maybe twice, we were enchanted and were really glad that we (kind of) danced. The surprise came then. Flagstaff is on 7000 feet and that is when the simple walk around the room became a serious workout. Everybody noticed that the heart rate doesn't drop. I live on 5000 ft, but I sure noticed the difference. I should be doing more cardio in Flagstaff...