Monthly Motivation Linkup: September Goals

 

Blogpost on a Tuesday?!? Must be something special! And it is! I'm linking up with Illegally Blonde, Life Love & Puppy Prints and P!nk Persistence for their new monthly link-up to provide motivation for fit and healthy living! Join us as we discuss our goals for September!

September Goals:
Fitness wise, the fall is complicated. Co-ed soccer starts back up so that means at least one solid 90-minute workout each week (and my team is good and so since the level is so high, I do get an actual workout), but that also means a busier schedule, an occasional temptation to celebrate our victories with beer, and a much later bedtime on game nights. My September goals revolve around fitting it into a fit lifestyle, instead of just jamming it in and forgettting everything else.

1) Yoga at least once a week

Once soccer season starts up, yoga is the first thing to go, really just cause of the conflicting times. The bad part is that I need yoga so much more when I play, since my hips, quads and hamstrings tighten up the more I play. I'm going to try really hard to at least do Saturday yoga, however my women's kickball team might start practicing at a conflicting time. I can always just do my own workout but that will require some extra motivation and planning, so I'll need y'alls encouragement!

2) Rock Climb at least once a week

This shouldn't be too hard since I recently made a new climbing-partner-friend and we text each other every Sunday to set up a climb or two during the week.  Climbing is my replacement for weightlifting, and can be a mental challenge as well. I love that I've really picked it back up this past month and can see my progress.

3) One 5+ mile run once a week

I'm doing the Army Ten Miler again this year. It will be on Columbus Day Weekend, so I really gotta get my butt in gear training-wise in September.  Soccer games include running, and help build my endurance but are completely different than a road run in the morning and I need to get my body used to those again. Speaking of morning exercise:

4) MORNING WORKOUTS!

my typical morning alarm (the struggle is real)

 My last fitness goal is to get more (or really any) morning workouts in during the week. Unless I'm in court, I don't have to be at the office very early and so I need to do a better job of actually getting up when I set my alarm and getting out of bed to run, instead of casually rolling out to peruse the newspaper and Facebook. The key here will be an earlier bedtime, something I've always struggled with.

GENERAL GOAL: Drink more water!

I've noticed recently I've stopped drinking enough water during the day.  Something else that becomes more important when I sweat out a ton at weekly or twice weekly games.  However, the water at my new office tastes really bad so I gotta either get over my water snobbishness or be sure to bring a full nalgene every morning.

Have any recommendations for how I can accomplish my goals? Have similar challenges or goals yourself? Let me know in the comments below!

BLOGTEMBER Day Three: Advisensational!

Thursday, September 5: Pass on some useful advice or information you learned and always remembered. 

Stretch Every Day!

See, even the animal kingdom knows this to be true:

  

I had a yoga instructor once say "every day you wake up and your body is a little tighter, a little stiffer... unless you move it." Think about how many elderly people walk very stiffly, needing to take small steps and shuffle instead of walk, cause their bodies have tightened all the way up. Through stretching, you allow your body to release lactic acid from over-used, tired, or stiff muscles, and it actually elongates your muscles, there's a reason dancers have such long, lean bodies (besides the obvious potential eating disorder thing)

Her advice stuck with me and I noticed how much less tension I held in my body on days after I made sure to stretch.  

If you have a desk job, think about how often you are sitting down and the tightness in your hips that results, well, sitting cross legged on the floor before bed and melting your upper body down towards the floor is a great way to stretch your hips out. Also a lunge-based stretch is great too.

No, you don't have to even get CLOSE to this, but it can be something to aspire to

You don't even have to be a yogini like Tara Stiles or even like yoga, but but if you simply find a few stretches you like to do before bed for your back, legs, hips, and shoulders can make you feel limber and ready to face tomorrow.

Also, be sure to stretch your mind, capacity for kindness, and your funny bone everyday! I have a feeling the metaphysical mirrors the physical so if you don't want your mind, heart or humor to tighten and shrink in capacity

Here's some help on the humor front (also keeping with the animal kingdom theme):

Ylvis: The Fox

Musical Monday: Breathe, Stretch, Meditate, Let It Go

After a fun weekend, sometimes the thing you need most on a Monday is another weekend! However, since that normally is not the case, the next best thing is Musical Monday, and in this case a Yoga-themed Musical Monday. This week I'm posting songs you can use for a yoga session to bring you peace, or as we yogis like to say: Shanti.

The following are songs that are incredibly popular on my yoga playlists, for my own practice, back when I used to teach, or that I've discovered from attending other instructors' classes. I've created a playlist below that can get you through about a 30 minute practice with an additional bit of time for savasana at the end.

If you're not a yogi or even sure what yoga is, these songs can be great songs to listen to when you want to mellow out or have some nice ambient noise for work. Just be sure not to listen to it once you're already tired, because some of these songs just might put you to sleep!

Serifs: Calligraphy

Music: I downloaded their EP for free back in 2011 and the gentle ambient rock is perfect for some ordered background noise to begin your practice.
Yoga: Starting either seated or lying down take a few deep breaths from deep in your belly, thinking about the feeling of your breath moving through your body. After a few minutes of that, hug your knees into your chest, make a small circle with them, and rock forward to transition onto your hands and knees.

Jonsi and Alex: Stokkseyri

Music: I've used the album Riceboy Sleeps as the entire soundtrack to numerous classes, and if you like this type of music I recommend you buy it, and just hit play your next session of yoga/relaxing/meditation. If you like ambient rock (as I do) it can be a great background but I have had people in the past let me know it wasn't their cup of tea. I like the surprising ways they incorporate certain sounds (like horses or rice being poured into a cup) with other musical sounds (like wind chimes and a piano) with a soft undertone to create their music (and apparently you Friday Night Lights fans might recognize some of this album from the shows soundtrack).
Yoga: Here, with every inhale come to Cow pose (bring your chest forward, dropping your belly & arching your back), and on the exhale Cat pose (press through your shoulders, hunching your back and pretending someone is pulling your belly button up to the sky one a string). You can also do some twists, or a vinyasa through Hero's pose or Child's pose, just make sure to warm up your core & back.

Angus and Julia Stone: Paper Aeroplane

Music: Gotta say "mmmmm, mmhhhmmm" as you vinyasa along to this fun and mellow tale of an meandering paper airplane carrying a love note.
Yoga: Transition through down dog, rocking your hips back & forth or making a pedaling motion through your feel. Walk your feel up to a forward fold, slowly roll up and from a standing Mountain pose we'll do some sun salutations. Inhale reach up; exhale Forward Fold; inhale right foot back into a lunge; hold your breath into Plank; exhale lower down knees, chest, chin; inhale Upward Facing Dog; exhale Downward Facing Dog; inhale right foot forward into a lunge; exhale Forward Fold; inhale slow roll up to stand.
Repeat with the left leg leading

Temper Trap: Sweet Disposition

Music: A great song for when you start getting into poses that become a little more taxing, heighten your heart rate, or a vinyasa that involves constant movement. I find the driving beat helps me stay up and focused on moving forward. Plus I can always flash to the montage from 500 Days of Summer in my head, to take me to a happy place.
Yoga: Here, you can start a vinyasa between Warrior 1, Head-to-Knee pose, Warrior 3, and Toppling Tree on each side. If you have some extra time you can also do a balance in Tree pose.

Phoenix: Rome (Neighbours Mix)

Music: Neighbours takes this rocking french band's song and slows it down, cutting some lyrics to turn what was an upbeat nostalgic love-song to past youth, into a melancholic reflection that "I never loved you. And if I loved you, I wouldn't say it. I'm sorry." The melody and beat are calm enough not to pull you out of whatever you're doing but interesting enough to give you something to focus on if you need a distraction from the poses.
Yoga: Here we can get into plank pose, then rotating first to your right arm on the ground, left side & arm extended up; then switch sides. Next lie on your back and lift your legs up as high as possible, supporting your back in Shoulder Stand. Hold here for a minute, then you can bend your legs slightly, bring them over your head and get into Plow pose, if you want (make sure to protect your back here). Slowly roll down and then do either bridge or wheel for a back bend.

Matt Corby: Coloured Stones and Walls

Music: I've posted on this song before but it's just such a wonderful song to with either start your practice or listen to as you get into some of the deeper, less taxing stretches, like pigeon or supine twist (lying on your back, arms spread, bringing your knees to one side then the other) bringing your heart-rate back down and preparing for savasana.
Yoga: Here I like a nice sequence staring in pigeon, then sitting up and rolling down onto your front hip, bending the back leg into a quad stretch (you can do bound pigeon here if you want instead). Release the back leg, swing it around to the bent front knee for a hamstring stretch. Then bend the straight leg bringing that foot to the outside of the front knee for a hip stretch. Hug the knee in & twist the opposite way for a back stretch., Transition through hands and knees to the other side. After that, lie on your back and try some supine twists to prepare for savasana.

Yogini: Bliss

Music: This has been my favorite music for savasana after a good workout, and at around 11:00 minutes you can go through the full 10 minute savasana without having a change of music jolt you out of your thoughts (however, at $9.99 for the single track on iTunes, I will continue to use YouTube to listen to this one).
Yoga: As you return to your deep belly-breathing, focus on what worked for you in the last bit of time spent practicing yoga, did you feel especially flexible, strong, balanced, or centered? Think about how you can apply that to the rest of your week. You can also use this time to inhale a positive value into your heart center through the crown of your head, maybe Patience, Determination, Kindness, Empathy. Once you're so full of this value you might burst, exhale it to the world around you, or wherever you need it most, or to a person you want to share it with.
After a little less than 10 minutes, wiggle your toes and fingers, come back into wakefulness and slowly transition to a seated position. Take a moment of gratitude for the fact you were just able to physically do something not everyone can, and bring your hands into your heart center.

Hopefully you now feel fantastic and ready for whatever the next moment brings!

Namaste,

Bitzy

Blog Every Day in May: Day Twenty-One

Day 21, Tuesday: A list of links to your favorite posts in your archives

This is a fun one, prepare for a lot of music! Basically You can go back and see the different themed Musical Mondays in my archives if these son't tickle your fancy.

Favorite Musical Mondays:
Musical Monday: April's Showering Songs (April 2013) 
I submitted this blogpost to wonderly.com for their April theme of "curate" and it was hosted on their blog (i'm pretty sure you can find it in their archives)
Musical Monday: Best of 2012
A month by month guide to my favorite songs of last year.

Other Musical Posts:
Also, in my Finals Study Session series, the Last Semester Ever Edition, was a fun break from studying and gave me a good playlist 
"State of the Art" is an Understatement: Gotye and Kimbra in Concert (I was rather witty with the puns in the beginning of this one)
My Triple J Recaps for  The 2012 Hottest 100 and The 2011 Hottest 100

Favorite Foto Fridays:
(I haven't done too many of these so here's my first and favorite):
First Foto Friday: Cherry Lane Cherry Blossoms

Favorite Miscellaneous Posts:
My first (and only?) Recipe Post: Banana Bread With Wheat and Honey
A very meta post about blogging and vlogging and my Yoga Videos

Blog Every Day in May: Day Two

Day 2, Thursday: Educate us on something you know a lot about or are good at. Take any approach you'd like (serious and educational or funny and sarcastic)

So hmmmm, what do I know a lot about?
See the thing is, I really know a little about a lot of things.
But one thing that I thought would be fun to instruct about (since it's been while) would be yoga.
I was a yoga instructor at the campus rec center at the University of Richmond for about 18 months, and it was wonderful.

Mini Yoga Background Time!
*The word "Yoga" means "unity" in Sanskrit, and it is an ancient Indian (the Asian country, not "Native American") discipline, and actually was meant to be practiced in all aspects of life, rather than just an exercise (its about more than the physical poses, it's a mindset).
*The names of yoga poses, or "asanas," are usually based on natural objects and animals (think mountain pose, downward dog, tree, cat, cow, etc.), and sometimes actually resemble the thing their named after, but sometimes require a bit of imagination.
*The most common yoga practice taught in classes is Vinyasa Yoga. "Vinyasa" means "to move with the breath" so Vinyasa Yoga is all about the unity between breathing and physical movement. Bikram yoga, Ashtanga yoga and other forms of hot yoga are all based in Vinyasa yoga.
*In Yinyasa Yoga it is important to breathe smooth and slow, and let your movements be steady and controlled, reflecting your breath, and bring intention to your movements while you concentrate on breathing.
*In Vinyasa Yoga, you breathe in through your nose and out through your nose, generally lifting/lengthening your spine on the inhale, and releasing/sinking on the exhale.
*Another main form of yoga it Hatha yoga which focuses more on the breath and meditative aspects of yoga.
*For every thirty (30) minutes of yoga practiced, one should spend 5 minutes in savasana or "corpse pose." While it sounds morbid it is actually a way to mentally reflect on what you just did, or focus on your breath, while your body relaxes and recharges.
*Usually a yoga class will end with the participants saying "Namaste" to one another, which roughly translated means "the divine in me recognizes the divine in you"

Mini Yoga Class Time!
Check out one of my YouTube yoga videos, focusing on opening up the hips and sides of your torso:

Or you can follow along with my most popular yoga video, focusing on leg strength and balance:

Hopefully you feel relaxed and zen after this brief introduction to Yoga. For more info, ask in the comments or find me on twitter: @itzbizr

Namaste

Free Write Every Day: Day #2

Wednesday February 22 11:00pm

So today ended up being much busier than I initially planned but I am using my “free day” this weekend when I visit my sister for her birthday, so I gotta write something today.  It was just a rough start, I was a couple minutes late to teach yoga this morning, the first time it happened this semester, but I had to make sure I had my yoga gear (outfit and mat), classwork, shorts to wear for pilates, my work uniform and a business casual outfit for the GRIPLA (Greater Richmond Intellectual Property Law Association) event (where I tried my best to inform attorneys about the Global symposium, and found out my co-editor was sick and therefore not going about 2 hours before the event) and of course after a nonstop day (the only respite was lunch with an old friend after ash Wednesday service, and another brief meet-up at night with another friend) I realized I forgot something rather important.  

After teaching two exercise classes I went to shower and change in the locker room.  Emerging clean but slightly rushed from the shower I went to put on my nice clothing.  Unfortunately, I realized at that moment that I had not packed a regular bra.  I spent the rest of the day in my still-slightly-sweaty exercise top with the built-in sports bra under my dress.  I did my best to forget about it while surrounded by some of the best-connected trademark lawyers in the Richmond area.  Luckily my accessory was a large and sparkly purple scarf I used to strategically cover the spot where the v-neck dress showed the neckline of the exercise top.  

On a completely different note, the Symposium for Global has me pretty stressed out, I will be very glad to wake up March 16, when all of it is behind me.  I have started to seriously space out while riding this, I think that I will take it as a cue to go to bed and make up for lost sleep from last night.  Tomorrow will be busy as well and I have plenty of work left to so before making the drive up to northern Virginia.

Let's Play Yoga (Videos)!

So for almost exactly one year, I have spent 60 to 75 minutes twice a week (leaving time for a couple weeks vacation) teaching yoga.  It has been a lot of fun and has really challenged myself in unexpected ways.  I am less anxious about trying to find the right word when speaking (this comes from calling my foot my elbow, or mixing up some other cues).  I get to share good music with the world, I get to meet interesting people and teach them something, I get time to calmly lead people away from their own problems for awhile to focus on their breath, their body, how to connect the mental with the physical and I really enjoy it.

Before I left on break one person suggested creating some workouts so that people could continue to have guided practice while I was gone.  So far I've posted three yoga videos and have really enjoyed seeing all the other stuff people have put one there.  I even discovered yogadownload.com from a friend, which is a great resource for a variety of yoga workouts..

Here's the first video I posted:

My first Yoga Demonstration Video (SuperThanks to Sarah for helping me out!)

I've filmed three more to post and can't wait to see that people are benefiting from them.  They are a mixture of workouts and a series I've titled "Perfecting Your Yoga Practice" where I show people some of the physical and mental cues for getting into proper poses.  You can check out a playlist of my Yoga videos here!

Let me know if you've any suggestions of particular poses for which you want clarification or muscle groups you'd like to work with a Vinyasa flow! 

New Year, New Endeavor

This winter break I keep telling myself the goal is to finish the final paper for which my wonderful professor granted me an extension, prepare for my last semester of law school,  and most importantly get a job. Instead (and oh-so-obviously), my mind is filled with all the wonderful other things I could be doing with my life.

The conclusion I keep returning to is that as a person-on-the-go, I am constantly filling my schedule with things to do but not taking the time to properly reflect and meditate about them.  The problem with sitting and meditating is that I am an extrovert! While I enjoy time alone to reflect, I re-charge my batteries through interaction with other people.  This means all the withdrawal, alone, focus, study time involved in finals period wreaks havoc with my inner balance.  I become emo-Julia with pensive philosophical thoughts that lead to sadness and inertia (and a lot of web-browsing).

This particular finals led me to a Quarter-Life crisis, (for anyone who was unaware, 24 is almost 25, a shocking conclusion I reached just days ago) where I tried to examine what made me happy in life and how I ended up in law school of all places.

I also had random, not-productive-to-actually-share-because-I'm-sure-other-people-have-expressed-it-much-better meditations on how we as humans shape our own lives through Production vs. Consumption as well as the roles Reflection and Dialogue can play in our lives.

So in order to have a creative outlet, produce something for the world and have time to reflect I have created a YouTube channel that will work like a vlog, which I will connect it to this blog.  The overall goal would be to use it as a platform for connection and dialogue with other people but more than likely it will just be some sort of public outlet for my creativity until law school makes me too busy to keep up with it.

It will be about things that interest me, and I understand the whole idea is somewhat selfish/narcissistic, but really it will be a way for me to explore who I want to be and what valuable connections exist in my life to allow me to impact the world more efficiently.  This means I will examine my relationship with myself, my relationship with my peers, my connection to the activities that interest me (yoga, soccer, performing), my relationship with random people on the internet, my relationship with my environment, and my relationship with my lord and savior Jesus Christ.

Basically, there are multiple goals: reflection, and dialogue, expression, connections, sharing, creative outlet, and my favorite: productive procrastination.

Here is the first entry/welcome video:

you can go to the channel and check out what else I have up but just know the first two things I uploaded were college art projects and also happened back when YouTube videos had to be supercompressed and you can't see everything... who am I kidding, they're just weird!

No Shoes Tuesday

April 5 2011 is TOMS "One Day Without Shoes."

I found out about it on April 4, and while writing a paper in the library deliberated on the potential consequences of going shoeless for a full day, especially one where the weather forcast called for 40 and rainy. After watching some of the videos I figured that any potentially negative outcome: weird stares, being told to put on shoes, stepping on rocks, any cuts on my feet were minimal and that it was something I could definitely do. I stayed pretty late in the library that night composing my final short paper for law of war.

Getting home, I set out my outfit, deciding to wear a long, hippie-ish skirt to pull of the whole look, made sure my toenails were painted, and went to bed. I either forgot to set my alarm or somehow it malfunctioned because I ended up waking up at 8:25am when the yoga class I teach starts at 8:30. I raced to the gym as responsibly as possible, praying that I had not only packed my outfit but proper undergarments as well. Luckily Yoga is practiced barefoot so there was no conflict with shoes there. After a slightly more chaotic than normal class I decided to wear my flip-flops in the shower for obvious hygienic reasons (the only other time I wore shoes was at a talk by a UVA law professor where members of the UR board of trustees were in attendance and I wore my cleats when playing soccer (mainly for common sense reasons).

What I found highly interesting though was that I went barefoot in the law school *all day* today to raise awareness for One Day Without Shoes; however, only 3 people asked about it. Conclusion: a) people just think I'm a hippie/weird enough to do that on my own b) law school makes people not notice rather obvious things or c) people noticed but were either too polite to say anything or thought law school made me crazy enough just forgot my shoes.