On Saturday night I went to a 5 Rhythms Dance class. It was one of the funniest ways to exercise, to express creativity and to feel safe to fully be present in the moment.
If you’ve never heard of 5 Rhythms before then neither had I before last week. I found out about it through a friend who I guess is even kookier than me (you know who you are and you know that I love your kooky self!). So when he invited me to the dance class I gave a shy little “sure” before wondering what on earth I had got myself in to.
I ended up dragging along my entire household plus one more. So our little group of six turned up to the class a little unsure of what to expect.
When we turned up the hall was full of about thirty lovely people warming up and moving along to the gentle music that was playing. We were instructed not to speak with each other after we’d entered the hall so this amped up my vulnerability a little. A couple of my house mates have just returned from a long holiday in India where they attended very similar dance events so they very naturally and confidentially joined the class and started to move along to the music with their own movements.
But then something very unusually wonderful happened. Within less than five minutes my vulnerability and shyness were completely gone. I then felt completely safe to move my body to the music in any way that I wanted to. This feeling of freedom was incredibly beautiful and I started to dance around the room with a huge smile on my face. And then the night just kept getting better and better. Continue reading →
Over the last few weeks my exercise routine has been suffering to the point where my friends have started to tell me that I need to do more exercise (meh!).
I used to be a fit little bunny and I felt so healthy and so clear on the inside for it.
So my mission over the next few weeks is to get back into a routine of regular exercise and reclaim that level of fitness back!
We all know that exercise is good for our body and good for our skin, but sometimes making that effort to start a new exercise routine is really, really difficult.
Jogging always seems like the easiest option because you can do it from the front door of your house and all your really need is a pair of running shoes. But if you’re like me then you’re already huffing and puffing half way down the street and are seriously wondering why you even thought about this jogging idea in the first place.
So what if I was to tell you that there’s a program that guarantees you will be running 5km (or 30 minutes) non-stop without breaks after only nine weeks? And the best part is - this program is a free coaching program on the net. Where would we all be without the Internet??
Sadly I couldn’t fit my yoga mat into my suitcase when I left Australia for my overseas adventure three months ago.
It was silly of me really. I should have taken something else out of my bag so that it would fit, because I like to do a lot of yoga, and I had every intention of doing a daily yoga practice, even while I was traveling.
My friend Cathy advised me in Brisbane to buy a travel yoga mat that I could easily fold up and take with me in my bag. If I’d been properly prepared for my trip I would have taken her advice and bought one. Unfortunately yoga stores are few and far between in Brisbane so I left for overseas minus a yoga mat.
It wasn’t until I was in a bookstore in Chicago two months later (and a lot of doing yoga on a borrowed mat or towel) that I stumbled across one of those fold up travel yoga mats that Cathy was talking about. It had a sticky grippable surface on one side and a nice soft surface on the other. It was a perfect size for carrying around with me while I was traveling, so I grabbed it off the shelf. Definitely worth the US$30 price tag.
As I packed my suitcase to leave for Canada a couple of months ago, I was devastated when my yoga mat didn’t fit into my suitcase. Well, actually it probably would have fit, but I was already way overweight with the luggage allowance so unfortunately my yoga mat had to stay at home.
So I did yoga on the bare sand in Fiji, yoga on a towel in our hotel room in Waikiki, and yoga on the carpet of our apartment in Vancouver. Fortunately I’ve been staying with family in Toronto who’s house came equipped with yoga mats, but on Monday I’ll be on the road again and I do not want to do yoga on a slippery towel.
If you’re wondering what’s with this obsession I have with yoga and what the heck does it have to do with skin care, well …yoga is pretty much the answer to everything [including clearing acne] and apart from all the other benefits that I get from doing as much yoga as I can, I do notice an improvement in my skin when I follow a disciplined yoga practice.
The hunt
So a yoga mat should be easy peasy to buy right? Well you’d think so. But of course I started thinking about the environment, and uncessesary waste, and how buying another yoga mat is just contributing to land fill. So then I found these ‘eko’ mats. Yoga mats that are made out of recyclable and biodegradable material. What a perfect yoga mat to buy, and how very yogini of me.
However, the problem with these eko mats unfortunately are the price. To save the environment it’s going to cost me a bit of money. A regular yoga mat costs around CA$30, but a environmentally friendly mat will cost around CA$50. I’m a struggling traveller at the moment so I don’t really have that extra $20 to spend! Continue reading →
We all know that exercise is good for our body and good for our skin, but sometimes making that effort to start a new exercise routine is really, really difficult.
It wasn’t until I was in a bookstore in Chicago two months later (and a lot of doing yoga on a borrowed mat or towel) that I stumbled across one of those fold up travel yoga mats that Cathy was talking about. It had a sticky grippable surface on one side and a nice soft surface on the other. It was a perfect size for carrying around with me while I was traveling, so I grabbed it off the shelf. Definitely worth the US$30 price tag. 
As I packed my suitcase to leave for Canada a couple of months ago, I was devastated when my yoga mat didn’t fit into my suitcase. Well, actually it probably would have fit, but I was already way overweight with the luggage allowance so unfortunately my yoga mat had to stay at home.
So a yoga mat should be easy peasy to buy right? Well you’d think so. But of course I started thinking about the environment, and uncessesary waste, and how buying another yoga mat is just contributing to land fill. So then I found these 
