From the category archives:

yoga class

Driving with the Brakes On

June 12, 2008

I had a Very Bad Moment walking Jake home from school yesterday.
We were strolling down a moderately trafficked street — the kind of residential road motorists use inappropriately as a through-way, inducing the residents to have cement traffic calmers installed which end up acting only as a challenge to the faster drivers but at least [...]

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Is There Such a Thing as a Graceful End to Vacation?

June 9, 2008

I can’t say I remember ever having had a graceful end to any vacation in my life.
I tend to be the type who gets stuck somewhere between the utter relaxation that is, to me, the whole point of a vacation (soldier on, you exploring, traveling, learn-something-on-vacation types, but do it without me) and the pressing [...]

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My Child Broke My Japa Mala

May 19, 2008

What does it mean when your child breaks your japa mala?
A japa mala is a set of prayer beads some people use when chanting to Hindu or Buddhist deities. I got mine during my month of is-this-me?, Indian-print-skirt-wearing, chanting-at-five-in-the-morning, living-on-an-ashram yoga teacher training. I can’t say I’ve used it a whole lot since [...]

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How I’m Learning to Take More Naps

April 28, 2008

I took a nap with Jake yesterday.
It was an overcast day, and a cool breeze with the smell of rain puffed through the open window. Jake and I were wrapped up together in my duvet. I’d had a lovely, strong home yoga practice that morning while Jake had pedaled about the park with [...]

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How Losing a Little Bit of What’s Central to You Can Be Kind of Centering

April 26, 2008

It hit me somewhere around the time I was half-heartedly kicking my right foot up toward a handstand in the middle of the room. Something had radically changed in my life.
Part of it was that I wasn’t trying very hard. I had resigned myself to never, ever having the courage to attempt a [...]

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Facing Life’s Daily Detours Like Bamboo

April 12, 2008

Yesterday I planned on writing a YogaMamaMe entry even though I really didn’t have time for it.
As a result, I found myself with 10 minutes to go before yoga class began as I threw myself into the car and marveled yet again at how it always seems to be 5 minutes later by the car [...]

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What the Friday Morning Bothered Blues Can Teach You About Time

April 11, 2008

“Is this the kind of day I’m going to have?” I whined as I pinched my fingers in the buckle of Jake’s stroller while rushing to get him to school.
YES! boomed something much bigger than me a few minutes later, when Jake dropped the windshield scraper he so loves to carry to school on my [...]

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Judge the Man in the Red Yoga Shorts only if You Are Ready for Him to Judge You

April 5, 2008

The man in the red yoga shorts was in class again on Thursday. I wasn’t the only one looking.
None of us, I assure you, were staring with pleasure. He was wearing the traditional yoga shorts that no doubt were the inspiration for European bathing trunks, the kind regretfully worn only by old German [...]

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Being Open to Change

April 2, 2008

I was stuck in the back of yoga class again yesterday.
This is not my favorite spot, for no particular reason, other than habit. I like being in the front, in my own world, diving into empty space instead of someone else’s mat. No doubt books (or at least lengthy articles) could be written [...]

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Learning to Trust (Including Yourself)

March 28, 2008

My favorite yoga class begins in 10 minutes, and I will not be there.
I ensured this outcome by eating breakfast a few minutes ago because I knew I could not be trusted to resist throwing on my yoga clothes at the last minute and dashing out the door. [One should not eat ideally 3 [...]

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How Getting Knocked Off My Feet Helped Me to Grow

March 25, 2008

Yesterday I surveyed the field of unexpected obligations suddenly stretching between me and my YogaMamaMe website and declared myself okay. Getting published, I realized, had become too much of a goal, and I should feel deep gratitude to the Universe for throwing a bunch of other things at me as a reminder that I [...]

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Practicing Not Yoga with a Glass of Wine and 2 a.m. TiVo

March 23, 2008

There are days when you don’t have time for a yoga practice but can still practice yoga.
On these days I still eat in a way that nourishes my body (mostly — we went to Trader Joe’s in Charlotte last weekend and walked out with three packages of Droste dark chocolate pastilles that aren’t very good [...]

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Silencing Your Mind When Your Mind Is on Your Child

March 21, 2008

“Keep it short,” my husband Mike told me, not for the first time, last night. It’s been his advice about both of my blogs. “People don’t want to read anything really lengthy.”
Usually, I ignore him. It’s just not in my power to be brief, I shrug to myself. It’s part of [...]

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I’m Finding a Way to Practice in the Time My Life Allows for It

March 20, 2008

Today is Thursday, a yoga day. This means at noon I will dash away from my computer to throw on yoga clothes, sweat through a 12:15 class, and return home to shower some time between 2:00 and 3:30 in the afternoon, an exercise that will never cease to feel, just, wrong. I did [...]

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