I have been doing daily yoga for 5 weeks straight. Slow steady change continues to happen. I am still down about 6 or 7 pounds. I am noticing muscles all over my body. I went to a more advanced classes this week and I was able to follow along. I wasn’t able to do the entire class but I was able to get a fantastic work-out and I can see why those classes are so popular. The Moksha 60 class is still my very favorite. It is an amazing marker of my progress in the last 35 days. I haven’t ever done anything like this before and it is mind blowing to see what daily practice can achieve–although the word “achieve” isn’t quite right because the practice and showing up daily are my only goals. I really try to listen to my body each class. I still can’t do the postures on my knees: the reclining hero series just doesn’t work for me when I can’t sit on my heels. My knees just don’t bend that much…yet. I am working on them and hope there will be a time I can do them. When I am in child’s pose, I push back on my heels and “work on” sitting back. I am sore almost every day in my muscles. I feel so grateful to be able to exercise at this level. Especially when I think that 2 years ago we were having conversations about getting a wheel chair to use when I needed to walk a long way. I am starting to know many of the teachers and a few other people at the studio, mostly by sight. I say hello to the teachers and I am so impressed by how many remember my name. I have met a few people. It is a pretty quiet place and I don’t feel called to step out of the quiet to talk to people very often. I think about having completed the 30 day...
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I just completed a 30 day challenge at the Moksha Yoga Hamilton studio. I don’t know if I have ever fallen so hard for a brand before. This brand has stolen my heart. It all started when I found myself suddenly at loose ends with my exercise program, as I had stopped one thing and was looking for something else. I decided to sign up for 21 days of yoga at Moksha Yoga for $30. (I think the price may be even better now) I didn’t really plan to join, but it seemed to be a great thing to do and then I would have 21 more days to figure out what I wanted to do next. That was all well and good, but then they gave me a little card with prizes to be won and I figured out that if I attended 21 times in 21 days, my first month was free. Hmmm! That would be awesome! And I like a challenge. Jordan, the woman who led my first class, gave me great information about lying down on the mat when I was too hot. She helped me to feel safe and welcome and like I belonged there. I won’t talk about my yoga journey here. You can read that here if you want to. Right now, I want to talk about my experience with the Moksha Brand. After the first day, I felt like coming back the next day. I also learned that I never wanted to leave hot yoga again without showering first… UGHH! I came back again and again. Each teacher was welcoming, kind, loving, and seemed genuinely excited by my journey. This summer we went to a French Immersion Family Language School in Sancerre, France. While we were there, my family talked about the skill the teachers had of acting genuinely impressed by our French, which drove us forward and helped us try things that felt new or foreign without feeling self-conscious. The teachers at Moksha have this...
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This week I accidentally scheduled a bunch of services for myself all in the same week. I thought I would write about them.
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It had only been 4 years since I last skied, but it seemed like a lifetime ago. I last went skiing with my family in New Mexico in 2009. It was beautiful snow and weather and we had a fun day. Since then I have had so many issues walking that I was sure I would never ski again. I had a couple of bad falls and then I had something happen that made walking difficult. It seems to be a corn allergy that gives me MS like symptoms if I eat it. Last year we started taking our children to Ellicottville, NY to see our friends. Our friends bought a cottage there and their daughter is close to our boys’ age. They all run around the hills in the snow, watch movies, and play hard. They have a great time together. We were there a couple of times last year–the boys and my husband snowboarded and skied two days over the winter. Each time I would stay behind and carry the boots back to the car and wish I could ski, too. I vowed to ski again. I set a goal to ski one time this winter. We made plans for 2 weekends with our friends in 2013. I found a program at Holiday Valley that is an adaptive ski program. It is called the Lounsbury Adaptive Ski Program. A way for people with “challenges” to ski. It is a 2 hour lesson and it includes lift ticket and rentals for $40. A person like me would be paired with an instructor and helped to ski. I contacted them and was so excited that I could book with them. I told them about my challenges with walking and they said, “we have sliders if you need them.” There seemed to be no excuse for me. But I was tired in January and didn’t get the session booked. I felt too busy and tired and decided to wait. I think my trepidation got...
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