Seeking more than building strong, healthy bodies.  Building strong minds, spirits and relationships, including with ourselves, and learning from each other.  We are all teachers.

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Desert Nomad Yoga

A Word About Vinyasa

 

“As with a Chinese finger lock, the more one struggles, the more he becomes entrapped.  Paradoxically, when one accepts himself, he becomes more fluid and begins to change.” Swami Ajaya

As many of you may or may not know, I do a lot of my reading research, whether for work or personal, on an exercise machine at the rec center.  With a toddler, time for reading and exercise are pretty limited so I’ve streamlined the two.  Occasionally, I’ll treat myself to what I call “fluff” reading.  I’ll pull a Self, Cosmopolitan, or, (dare I admit it?) People magazine from the shelf and then look both ways before slyly tucking it under my arm and heading over to an exercise bike or treadmill.  One day last week it was Self.  Hey, judge not, they have some really good articles in there sometimes.  One time there was a phenomenal interview with Hilary Clinton and another a whole list of really tasty and healthy recipes.  Anyway, enough defending myself.  In Last week’s fluff session there was a snippet declaring that women who practiced yoga on a regular basis tended to have much more active and enjoyable sex lives.  So, shall I see you in class this week?  ;)

 

Now that I’ve got your attention, let’s talk a little more about Vinyasa yoga, the form primarily practiced in my classes.  Why Vinyasa?  Because I, doubtlessly like you, have a hard time turning off my brain and the strenuous astanga-esque vinyasa is challenging both physically and mentally, so that I burn off energy and draw my scattery-chattery mind into focus.  I often say in class that it shakes the mind free while warming up the body.  This is usually followed by a flowing stream of asanas that encourage mindfulness and awareness while stretching, strengthening and cleansing our bodies.  It becomes a moving meditation, a form of yoga that particularly appeals to those of us whose minds are continually running in several different directions.  In high school I was one of the millions diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed Ritulin.  If you asked any of my past employers, they’d never believe it.  I do not take Ritulin and haven’t since high school.  I practice yoga and I rock climb (something I find very close to yoga).  Yogic philosophy moved into other areas of my life without me even trying to move it or realizing it could be so moved.  I found myself in fearful, challenging or stressful moments doing what we do when we encounter challenge in yoga class.  From a recent Yoga Journal, “Vinyasa yoga teaches us to cultivate an awareness that links each action to the next—on the mat and in our lives. Applying vinyasa in your yoga practice and daily life has many parallels to sailing a boat. Like sailing, moving through life demands a synchronization with natural forces that requires skill and intuition, the ability to set a course yet change with the wind and currents. If you want to sail, you have to know how to assess the conditions of the weather—blustery, calm, choppy—which constantly fluctuate, as do our physical, emotional, and spiritual states.”

The teachings of yoga include a view called parinamavada, the idea that constant change is an inherent part of life. To proceed skillfully with any action, we must first assess where we are starting from today; we cannot assume we are quite the same person we were yesterday. We are all prone to ignoring the changing conditions of our body-mind; we often distort the reality of who we are based on who we think that we should be or get distracted by who other people think we are. This can show up on the yoga mat in any number of inappropriate choices: engaging in a heating, rigorous practice when we're agitated or fatigued; doing a restorative practice when we're stagnant; going to an advanced yoga class when a beginning class better suits our experience and skills. In order to avoid such unbeneficial actions, we need to start out with an accurate assessment of our current state.  As we do this in yoga, we will slowly begin to do the same thing in other areas of our lives and we will learn how to slowly expand our limitations, learning that they weren’t exactly where we thought they were.  We may find that we are in fact, limitless. 

Sally’s Yogurt, Dill and Salmon

Salmon is one of my favorite things to eat.  Before Darren and I met, I used to have it six days a week, sometimes for lunch and dinner.  I think my animal totem is a grizzly bear.  It’s just a perfect food!  Loaded with so much good stuff and one of the fish with the least amount of mercury contamination.  I recommend doubling the sauce recipe though.  It’s so good you’ll want more.  And looky, looky:  plain yogurt!

Prepare

Marinate salmon with dried dill and lemon juice.  Grill or bake the salmon.

Serve with sauce.  Beautifully simple.

Bennies

 

Salmon is low in calories and saturated fat, yet high in protein, and a unique type of health-promoting fat, the omega-3 essential fatty acids. As their name implies, essential fatty acidsare essential for human health but because they cannot be made by the body, they must be obtained from foods. Fish contain a type of essential fatty acid called the omega-3 fatty acids. Wild-caught cold water fish, like salmon, are higher in omega-3 fatty acids than warm water fish. In fact, the fat composition of salmon has recently been evaluated as superior not only because of its rich omega-3 content, but also because of its great ratio of omega-3s to omega-6s and its health-supportive balance of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats. Each of these features in the fat composition of salmon helps reduce risk of unwanted inflammation and help maintain the integrity of our immune and circulatory systems. In addition to being an excellent source of omega-3s, salmon are an excellent source of selenium, a very good source of protein, niacin and vitamin B12, and a good source of phosphorus, magnesium and vitamin B6.

Ingredients

 

2 Salmon Filets

 

Sauce

 

about 1/2 cup nonfat plain yogurt

about 1/4 cup finely chopped red onion

about 1/4 cup finely chopped cucumber

lots of salt and pepper

dried dill

stir together, let sit at least 20 minutes for flavors to blend.

108 Trivia

The number’s significance is open to interpretation. But 108 has long been considered a sacred number in Hinduism and yoga. Traditionally, malas, or garlands of prayer beads, come as a string of 108 beads (plus one for the “guru bead,” around which the other 108 beads turn like the planets around the sun). A mala is used for counting as you repeat a mantra—much like the Catholic rosary.

Renowned mathematicians of Vedic culture viewed 108 as a number of the wholeness of existence. This number also connects the Sun, Moon, and Earth: The average distance of the Sun and the Moon to Earth is 108 times their respective diameters. Such phenomena have given rise to many examples of ritual significance.

According to yogic tradition, there are 108 pithas, or sacred sites, throughout India. And there are also 108 Upanishads and 108 marma points, or sacred places of the body.