yoga

Lazy Local Weekend

I tend to be a planner. I book my weekends up to maximize the time I have free… which sort of takes away from the idea of “free” time, if I think about it.

Just the same, I walked into this weekend with only a tiny bit of plans… and I didn’t even leave the city limits after I got home on Friday. Unheard of!

Friday night after work, I went to my very first Tutu Making Party. Yep, you heard me right… we were TUTU MAKING! We’re just a few weeks away from Jodi’s Race for Awareness, and my team “Team Bev” has opted to wear fabulous teal tutus this year.

We did what any awesome team does… we found a Youtube video, ordered some tulle, and met up to get our tutu on! I have never spent so much time with tulle in my life!

Not everyone could make the event, so we made as many as we could for those who weren’t there. I took home one to finish, but definitely had the technique down by the time I left. SO EASY!

After getting home kind of late, I woke up the next morning to realize I was exhausted. My 11 days away and hectic work week had caught up with me. So, instead of being productive… I laid in my bed reading a book for a long time, getting up only to head to get a manicure and pedicure. Seriously lazy… but at least the book was good!

(Source)

After my mani-pedi, I was hungry for lunch so I headed into Old Town to try a new taco place that a co-worker had been raving about! They told me that it was better than Cafe Rio… which to me seemed impossible.

I ordered the small Chicken Fajita salad, sans cheese with avocado ranch dressing on the side. It was really good, and I’ll definitely be back. I’m not prepared to say I like it better than Cafe Rio though…

Right next door to Fuzzy’s is a little Olive Oil shop I’ve been meaning to stop into forever. After spending 5 minutes in the store, I couldn’t believe that I’d never been to Kristo’s before! I spent close to 30 minutes in the store tasting and getting to know all of their olive oils and vinegars. I never knew there were so many!!

They had little slices of bread and little tiny cups you could use to sample the offerings. There were so many that were my “favorites” that I really had to be conservative when it was time to check out. Here’s what I ended up with though…. all very delicious!

I chose the Sicilian Lemon White Balsamic Vinegar, Black Mountain Fig Balsamic Vinegar, Cranberry Pear White Balsamic Vinegar, and a Cilantro Onion Infused Olive Oil. The citrusy vinegars were SO delicious and will be making their way to a salad in the near future. As for the other two more savory blends, I can’t wait to come up with something to make with them. The folks at Kristo’s also shared that they offer cooking classes… stay tuned for my review of those! I’m going to have to try one of those soon!

I spent the rest of my weekend running local errands, finishing up tutus, and a craft project I’ve been working on for some time. Add in a little treadmill time and some yoga… and that’s all she wrote.

How was your weekend?

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WOW: Blindfolded Yoga Workshop

Every few weeks, I check my favorite yoga studio‘s website to peek at their workshop schedule. I got hooked after I participated in the Restorative Yoga and Aromatherapy workshop. And then I had a chance to check out Shelly’s Yoga Around the World workshop, which I looooooooved.

When I checked the schedule last Friday afternoon, I spotted a class that totally stood out to me: Blindfolded Yoga.

Yep, you heard me correctly.

BLINDFOLDED YOGA

The two-hour yoga workshop was described as follows:

Have you ever closed your eyes during one of your favorite poses? Come join us for an afternoon of exploring your practice in a whole new way…blindfolded! With blindfolds on we will move through basic and foundational yoga poses, tapping into our other four senses. Without external distractions, you will have the opportunity to bring your awareness inward, sharpen your focus and improve your balance. The experience is exciting, challenging and enlightening.

After reading that description, how could I really not sign up. So, I did what I usually do… I contacted LaDawn to see if she’d be interested in attending with me. Not only is LaDawn a blast to be in class with, but I knew that this was a class I wanted to share with a fellow yoga-lover because it was going to something I’d want to talk through afterwards.

When we arrived at the studio, I was a little nervous. Knowing how important sight is when it comes to yoga, I was very curious to see how my practice would be impacted by the blindfold.

I’d never taken a class from Katie before, but she was super nice and I immediately trusted her to guide us through this exercise. Katie kicked off the class with some gentle breathing exercises and then passed out our blindfolds. As soon as our blindfolds were in place, she shared the following quote, which turned out to be incredibly true.

Katie emphasized through the practice that when one sense is taken away, the others become more dominant. I can’t even believe how true this was. As soon as the blindfold went on and I got settled into my blindfoldness, I began to notice sounds that I normally don’t notice, and my sense of touch began much more needed. Example: As your moving through poses, you lose track of where your mat is… but reaching out and touching the mat to find its edges really helped me keep my sense of space. REALLY COOL.

We started the class with some simple poses held from a seated position. Before you knew it though, we were working our way through asanas, moving from downward dog into warrior poses and various standing twisting poses. (Also very cool, she silently took some pictures for me during the class! Thanks, Katie!)

I knew that the balancing poses had to be included in the workshop and I was excited when we had a chance to work through tree pose. Tree pose is one of my favorite balancing poses. I don’t know why, but the idea of standing strong and tall like a tree is sort of empowering. Here’s the tricky part: I rely heavily on a drishti – - a focal point that I stare at while I achieve my balance. Sometimes, this drishti is an actual object, other times it could be something imaginary… but regardless it’s where I stare. To do tree pose without a drishti was going to be a challenge, and I was ready!

In the end, I was able to perform the pose very well and establish my balance. I was really proud of myself, even though I wobbled quite a bit and had to re-center to get back to balance.

Interestingly, I think I also was proud of myself because I COULDN’T SEE ANYONE ELSE and I didn’t have anyone else to compare myself to.

I didn’t have as much success as we transitioned into dancer pose. Dancer always tends to be one that I struggle with a little… it’s not the easiest position, especially with that rear arcing leg. I did my best though… as I did with all of the poses we moved through.

I’ve never had a more private and personal practice than the class I attended on Saturday. While there were five other people in the room, I felt as though I was on my own… being guided by Katie’s voice. I also noticed how freeing it was to not be looking at anyone else, and how amazing I felt about my practice when I wasn’t comparing myself to others.

I’m encouraged to close my eyes more often in class and to look inward, and to definitely take another blindfolded class in the future.

Have you ever tried blindfolded yoga?

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