Wander the Web 9

This past week I’ve been getting reacquainted with my yoga mat thanks to DoYouYoga.com and the 30 Day Yoga Challenge. The daily sessions are short, 13 - 20 minutes each, but still manage to leave me pleasantly sore and energized. I’m looking forward to the remaining 25 days. 

In the meantime, more link goodness.

I found thisiscolossal.com through @dcorsetto on Twitter. It’s a combination of amazing art from reflective six-legged fox sculptures to a yarn bomb of the Williamsburg Bridge to twirling cake zoetropes. It’s been my eye candy all week. 

Also, @dcorsetto, otherwise known as Danielle Corsetto, writes and illustrates the hilarious and sometimes poignant Girls with Slingshots. I liked it enough to follow it for years before it had an RSS feed. 

Knitted Hammock (with pattern if you want to make your own)

Yarnbombed Squid Tree - Really wish I could see this in person. 

Videos of Marcello Barenghi’s hyper-realistic drawings - Watching him render a fried egg is incredible. 

February is for Yoga: Week 4

With three weeks down and one to go, learning yoga this February has been a success so far. I’m stronger. I’m more flexible. I’m more aware of how I move and how I breathe. When I started the month, I was looking forward to all of those things; however, what I didn’t expect was how much of an influence yoga would have on me. When I step off the mat, I’m not packing up my practice and putting it away for the day. The thought and the focus travel with me. After I climb out of my car, I do a quick check to make sure I’m standing up straight with relaxed shoulders and not hunched over. Hello, Tadasana. Sitting at my desk, I’m constantly relaxing my shoulders since they tend to tense and creep up when I’m knitting or perusing the web. Before yoga, I never really noticed what my shoulders were doing. Just that they were tense and needed some love. I love this newfound awareness and control. 

In this last week of February, I hope to keep this awareness going strong and continue my daily practice with gusto. I’m going to keep learning. I’m going to keep pushing myself. I’m going to keep breathing. Though March is fast approaching and I’ll be picking a new incremental project to focus on, yoga will continue flowing through the background.

Yoga February: Week 3

Every month I’m picking one skill to practice everyday for a month and updating my progress every Monday. I call it Project Incremental. Read up on how it all got started. 

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Two weeks ago, I packed large duffle bag and took to the road for some much needed fun and time in Atlanta. The weather was nice and the traffic light during the two and a half hour drive. Still, I was thrilled to get out and stretch my legs after being in the driver’s seat for so long. Last month, before my daily yoga practice, “stretching my legs” amounted to plopping into a different chair and stretching my arms and legs out as far as possible while looking for a tv remote. The process didn’t really work but at least I wasn’t stuck in a car anymore. Now that I’ve got a few different yoga postures, asana, rattling around in my brain, I put them to use and actually stretched. Child’s Pose, aka Balasana, did wonders for my back and relaxing in Corpse Pose, aka Shavasana, eased away tension. It was nice to feel refreshed after a long drive instead of longing for a nap.

I kept up with my practice while I was in Atlanta. After following along with different flows, I practiced individual postures daily. It’s been great getting to know the specifics and figuring out the proper way to do and which muscles to use for each pose. Every day I’d pick 2 or 3 poses to practice so I could put them to good use later. After watching tutorials on different postures, I can tell you that there is so much more going on than what meets the eye. It’s definitely worth the time to learn the postures outright and you’ll get so much out of your own practice once you do. I’ve learned a lot from YogaWithAdriene and really enjoy her videos. 

I’m back at home this week and yoga practice continues. I’m still focusing on learning the individual postures but I’m also going to try learning the proper sequences of Ashtanga yoga. Maybe this is the week I’ll finally remember how to do a full sun salutation.

Yoga February: Week 2

Every month I’m picking one skill to practice everyday for a month and updating my progress every Monday. I call it Project Incremental. Read up on how it all got started. 

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Really, we’re on week 2.25 of February, instead of Week 2, since this month just had to start on a Friday but lets not get caught up in technicalities. With the exception of this past weekend, which I took off from yoga to give myself a chance to recover, I’ve done yoga everyday this month - 9 days. Doesn’t sound like much much these little steps are combining into larger things.

For me, a daily yoga practice goes something like this:

• Dig through the folder of links to youtube videos of various yoga flows
• Move furniture out of the way so I can see my laptop screen from the floor
• Consider vacuuming...eventually
• Yoga!
• Return furniture to it’s original starting position
• Back to the daily grind

While the routine stays the same, timing varies. Sometimes I’ll start yoga when I wake up and sometimes in the afternoon after I’ve run errands. The actual yoga part of the routine can last 10 minutes or 40 minutes. Depends on my mood and how many other things are on my to-do list. I’ll also randomly add on extra stretching that focuses on my shoulders, arms, and wrists to prevent any knitting or spinning related mishaps.

Even after just 9 days of a daily yoga routine, I can already notice a difference. Yoga isn’t just about stretching or increasing flexibility and mobility though it certainly helps. Practicing yoga trains you to be more aware of your body and the way that you move. For example, I thought I was standing and sitting up straight. In reality, not so much. There were a few days of soreness as my back finally got with the program and stopped slouching.

Now that I’m experiencing yoga’s positive effects, I’m looking to learn more. I don’t want to be blindly dependent on youtube video or podcasts. The two can be great, helpful sources but I want to practice yoga somewhere where I don’t have to move furniture around, in places without wifi, where I don’t have to look up at a screen, or worry about following someone else’s pace. I want to learn the individual poses and the proper form. I want to move through my own flows. I want to be able to do a Sun Salutation all the way through without looking up what comes next. Looks like the rest of the month is going to be fun.

February Is For Yoga

Every month I’m picking one skill to practice everyday for a month and updating my progress every Monday. I call it Project Incremental. Read up on how it all got started. 

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Halfway through January - the month of boring but utterly necessary de-cluttering and cleaning - I started wondering what the goal would be for February.  Cleaning will continue since it creates the ever important mise en place for doing great things; however, cleaning is now a routine and not the focus of the day. I kept trying to think of potential goals, none of which sounded appealing, but it wasn’t until I was finding a spot for my new yoga mat that I decided. Of course, yoga. Why didn’t I think of this sooner? Insert face into palm.

I’m not new to yoga. I’ve done the DVD thing and the Wii Fit thing and even the occasional class but nothing serious in the past year. The urge to learn and practice yoga seriously has been growing in the back of my head for months. The Bearded One only encouraged this thought by getting me a new mat for Christmas.

Part of my preparation for daily yoga has been hitting up the internet for a little research. I had no idea there were so many branches and variants. My previous conceptions of yoga were of something slow, quiet, and meditative. It was really exciting to find examples of strong, vigorous, and active yoga practices. I’m really interested in Ashtanga Yoga but I’m also going to try the other branches to see what works best for me. Regardless of what I choose, if the last few days are any indication, February is going to be a great month for yoga.