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Archives for 2020

1pose1day1year October-December 2020

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Everything fell apart with my daily sadhana practice due to COVID-19. I continued my practice intermittently, as best as I could, when I began making the earth shaking changes in my life which I described in an update.

I’m moving to Canada! When my house sells I’ll be in stasis at a temporary home in California until I am vaccinated and I tie up a few loose ends. Meanwhile, I’m doing the best I can with a daily bit of physical therapy work. There are a ton of yoga moves in my PT Rx.

My year of doing one pose each day was modestly successful, I’d say, looking back on it. I went for months with near daily attention with it. I don’t consider stopping something when one’s life is in the midst of upheaval to be a bad thing. One does ones best and carries on doing what one can do for today.

I may do another 1pose1day1year for 2022 after I’m more settled into my new home. My current daily focus is doing the physical therapy I need to allow me to return to activities I love. My challenge to myself is to hit 20 minutes of activity every day and to include a lot of recovery work. I’m nearly in my fifth decade and it’s time for me to adapt and accept that my body needs more respect and care as I age.

1pose1day1year September 2020

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This month I tried to deepen my daily yoga practice of doing 1pose1day1year of tadasana. I recorded myself speaking the Iyengar yoga instructions for mountain pose. I’d been saying the words to myself while doing the work but I found myself worrying too much about aggravating my tender spots of chronic injury.

I got the instructions from Yoga: the Iyengar way. Cover of Yoga the Iyengar wayMy recording runs five minutes 26 seconds. That’s a big jump from the one minute I’d been doing since starting this yoga practice nine months (!!) ago. The recording has allowed me to relax into my body and think less while focusing on truly gaining the benefits of precision.

I practice Ashtanga dhristi while I am in tadasana. Dhristi is were one puts soft focus during the pose. Dhristi is the end of one’s nose in mountain pose.Occasionally I’ll also do a full minute of silence in the pose after I do the posture with the recording. It’s a form of meditation.

I will also practice the pranayama for tadasana. To do the Ashtanga breathing, keep the mouth softly closed. Inhale through the nose and down the back of the throat with enough vibration to sound like Darth Vadar. Exhale through the nose.

I recommend Tadasana by Himanshi Parmar if you would like a great set of instructions for mountain pose that you might record for yourself. It’s consistent with the instructions for tadasana in my Iyengar-based book.

I was sore the first days of doing my daily practice with audio instruction. The body gets into bad habits over a lifetime so holding the correct posture works the body in “new” ways. Of course there will be soreness.

I have not been consistent this month, however. I threw my back out mid-month and have been doing my physical therapy exercises in lieu of tadasa as my pain allows. Sometimes you need to go with the flow and honor what your body is telling you.

1pose1day1year July-August 2020

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My 1day1pose1year tadasana practice took a hit this summer. My mountain pose yoga stood still (hah! see what I did there?). My practice has continued randomly during July-August.

I’m keeping at it though. I continue to work on my toes and the soles of my feet.

I had a lengthier practice yesterday. I decided to record myself reading Iyengar-based instructions rather than continue reciting only some of them in my head. I want to be inside my body rather than my head. I want to quit worrying about guiding myself to correct posture due to fear of injury. I can simply relax into the strong balanced stillness. I’m sure I will listen to it so much that I will absorb them and the audio can fade to none.

Meanwhile It’s been a long hot interesting summer. I gave myself a vacation from social media to keep myself more centered in working with my coaching clients and looking positively forward. I continue to manage stress by not having strict posting schedule but posting when I get the urge.

Precision Nutrition free exercise library

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Recently I’ve been singing the praises of the DAREBEE fitness programs. There’s another amazing FREE resource available from Precision Nutrition (full disclosure, my nutrition coach certification is from Precision Nutrition and I am an unabashed fan of the organization*).

Precision Nutrition Certified Coach 1
Precision Nutrition Certified Coach 1

Precision Nutrition has made a free exercise video library available.  The main web page contains links to shared docs on a Google Drive, which you may copy to your own Google Drive (as long as you have a Google account and are signed in).

The general instructions and a basic 14 day workout are in pdf format. The “library” is available in spreadsheet form (Google sheets). It starts with a table of contents and ends with an index (alphabetized list)of all the exercises. In between are tabs with links to tutorial and FAQ videos, modifications and regressions (*the* most important thing, IMHO), and exercises grouped by category for both genders.

Each exercise in the spreadsheet has brief instruction notes and a link to a Vimeo video demo. Their exercises can easily be done at home – many are body weight – with only a little amount of equipment (exercise bands, dumbbells).

I’ve done some of these exercises when I took part in their coaching program as a client. The instructions are easy to follow and the modifications help those of us with chronic injuries.

Unfortunately for me, my chronic injuries require professional attention from licensed physical therapists so I’m not at a point where I can use PN’s library myself. I am confident that I will be able to use it once I have become pain-free by practicing my corrective exercises consistently.

Once I do, you can be sure that I’ll provide a review with my biases stated up front.

 

*There are many reasons that I am such a fan of Precision Nutrition

  • They are purpose driven. Their mission is “to help clients all over the world discover the joys of living a fit, healthy life and help thousands of professionals deliver this purpose to their own clients.” It’s not about making money but helping people (the money, being necessary to make a living and provide jobs).
  • They are bona fide qualified to give instruction and advice on nutrition and exercise and habit change. The founder, John Beradi, PhD has his doctorate in nutritional biochemistry and exercise science. His executive team also have advanced degrees and decades of experience food science, dietetics, molecular biology, physiology, biochemistry, exercise science, health promotion, health & exercise psychology, epidemiology, biostatistics, and communications. In sum – they are experts you can absolutely trust who write clearly and know adult instructional methods and habit change.
  • They base all of their recommendations on SCIENCE. i.e. proven methods to for achieving your goals.
  • They believe in incremental progress. It’s not an all or nothing thing. They take you from the basics and build you up as you gain skill. They’re cognizant that people can be starting from the very beginning.
  • They are not proponents of any diet. Because science. Weight and body composition are very much tied to calories in and calories out. The diet that works is the diet you stick with. Health is predicated on eating all of the food groups but in appropriate portions for your size and gender.
  • They make many many resources available for free.

I made the choice to get my nutrition certification from Precision Nutrition because it was the most science based and comprehensive training program one can get without going back to school to become a registered nutritionist. In addition, it’s not a one and done type of deal. One must get re-certified every two years. It’s critical that coaches constantly continue to educate themselves and stay on top of the latest research.

1pose1day1year June 2020

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mountain sun cloudAnother month of doing my daily tadasana. I haven’t built up beyond doing one minute. Instead, I have been focusing on how the pose feels.

I do a toes to shoulders meditation. Telling myself, “weight evenly distributed on my feet, soft knee, solid knee (lift quad) without hyper-extending, pelvic tilt, full belly breath, expand lungs, shoulders back and relaxed down, head tucked neck neutral.”

I have a lot of problem spots that need a talking to, obviously. Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror to check my form. Sometimes I close my eyes and catch how I sway slightly because my weight doesn’t stay evenly distributed on my feet. I bring myself back to the pose, always back to the pose, back to my breath.

If I’m in the mood I’ll add some tree pose and ankle strengthening exercises. I’m very weak in my ankles after breaking and spraining them multiple times in my life. Balance is critical as one ages to avoid falls and broken bones.

I’d say I’m doing well with the challenge. I need to think about how I’ll focus my yoga practice during July. I think it may be time to go longer or do additional pranayama.