That’s what we who are prone to exaggerate say when we’re really tired.

That’s what we who ignored our fairy-godmother’s warnings about dancing after midnight, not once, but twice on a weekend, say on Sundays.

I’m dead.

Something that I’ve always found to be a little ironic about yoga is that one of the best ways to rejuvenate yourself is to spend a few minutes “doing” Corpse Pose.

Savasana, although it may look like just lying around on the floor, is actually one of the most difficult yoga poses.  I’ve heard more than a few yoga instructors say so. That’s probably why I too often skip over it and jump back into my day even though I know I should end each practice with at least 5 minutes or so of the pose.

A couple of tricks I’ve learned that are helpful for deeper relaxation:

1. Try relaxing each part of your body individually
2. As you concentrate on relaxing (is that an oxymoron?) each part, imagine your muscles unwinding from your bones like ribbons. Or, as I imagine – like mummy wrappings. Mummies are dead.

Here’s something to listen to while you relax. This came my way, thanks once again to the always brilliant Joe Grossberg.

Man, I wish I could figure out how to get this on my iPod. I LOVE this.

It’s interesting when you’re writing a pseudo-yoga and fitness blog. There is always that debate: “Maybe I should practice, workout, or walk first before I start writing, OR write, then pose.”

But once my fingers hit the keyboard, it’s no contest. There’s almost always just one more little thing I could do or look up before I hit the mat or the door…or the floor. Today has been filled with many little things.

One of them was this great post about what to do if you have writers “block”. I can’t say that I’m blocked, if anything I’m struggling with too many ideas and lack of focus, but I did just see this awesome quote on someone’s sig file yesterday:

I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.

E. B. White
US author & humorist (1899 – 1985)

I love E.B.White. My favorite was always The Trumpet of the Swan. I love watercress sandwiches to this day. Nothing like butter and cream cheese to make vegetables go down.

But I digress…so although I know yoga is known to help concentration, I thought I’d do a little research on the best pose or poses for con-centration.

Trouble getting going? Try Yoga!

Yoga for “constipation”? Ew. But if you’ve read about me, you’ll know nothing’s funnier or more inspiring. Speaking of which, I got my tickets for BM 2010 yesterday.

Except maybe “ouch” or “help” or “excuse me, you’re standing on my face.”

And what is this guy looking for? I wouldn’t have guessed one could win anything by purposely sticking your head up your own ass.

HeadUpAs(s)ana

So much fun, even I might stick with it. I’ve wanted to learn for several years. It’s been my “intention” to do so, but 2010 is the year!

I listen to a lot of electronica music and started seeing hoop dance performers at shows. Since that first show I thought, “I want to be that girl.” Here’s one of those girls I saw at Burning Man 2009. I was at both the FreQ Nasty and Bassnectar shows. Unfortunately, I never made it to the Hoop Jam.

Thanks to a little Karmic Coincidence (KC) – my friend, neighbor, and belly dance troupe pal Sharon sent me an invite to today’s class, and just to make sure I signed up, KC arranged an encounter with our other mutual friend, neighbor and troupe gal, Melissa, clear across town at a random Starbucks I’d never set foot in! I hadn’t seen either of these lovely ladies in a very long time, so I thought, “Okay, I can take a hint, Hoopin’ is my destiny.”

I thought I’d get a little jump on the class and grabbed my daughter’s hoop. I was mortified to be utterly unable to hoop it up. My 10 year old was visibly disappointed and dismayed, since I do generally have the rep for otherwise shaking the proverbial booty quite well, despite not doing so as often as I should. She could keep it going forever, but my hula hips just weren’t having it.

After considerable frustration, I googled “how to hula hoop” and was delighted to learn that when it comes to hula hoops, size does matter. I was hoping that this would be true and that I was not doomed to hear the constant clatter of my hoop on the floor.

So when I got to class, I picked one of the larger hoops, and what do you know? First try, I came out swinging and kept it going for a good long spin.

Surprise!ingly, we learned a number of other cool moves in this first class. Here’s a peek – from my very own instructor, Surprise! aka Katie Desmond.

And guess, what – she’s also a Yoga Instructor! Very cool. I’m totally psyched for the next 4 weeks.

.

The feature list sounds very cool. I was particularly excited about being able to set up your own session from 1-36 minutes, and especially enjoying thinking about 1-5 minute sessions because, um, I’m lazy and distractable if you haven’t figured that out yet.

However, I have to admit I paid my $0.99 mostly because I like the look of it. It’s really a beautiful app.

I think they should make a YogaRelax/Bejeweled mashup.

Then I might be more inclined to spend 55 minutes working at it.

Is nirvana the ultimate high score for yoga? I’m sure it takes a few more levels and more than 41,270 points.

I better get my ass up and move it some. So far today I’m working on a very high score for relaxing.

I guess I also laugh when I’m by myself. You can too. It’s good for you.

Michelle Roars Like a Lion

A Lion with Three Eyes

Sssshhhhh - The Lion Sleeps tonight

LIONs make me LOL

Here’s a more professional interpretation, but it’s still funny. KISS concert preparation, that guy’s a regular riot.

Oh, and in case you were wondering why no bear?

Why, it’s Colbert -

Decided to watch a little CNN during my lunch break to see what’s going on in the world. Mostly depressing.** Seems like it’s relatively easy for anyone to get explosives in Yemen. The “Big Freeze” will continue throughout the week. And the national chain of yoga and wellness centers, Dahn Yoga, is being investigated as a possible cult. Dang,  Dahn!

Interestingly, there are several, well three to be exact, Dahn Yoga centers here in DC.

Dahn Yoga Locations in DC

I’ve picked up their brochures several times (yes, actually several) over the years and considered checking them out at both their 14th St and Connecticut Ave locations, but I remember thinking their yoga classes seemed kind of expensive so I never followed through. Extra overhead for lavish lifestyle of Ichi Li?

I don’t know. Even though it sounds pretty sketchy, this reporting seems to be rather one sided, although in later segments Kyra (one of my favorite names!) Phillips looks like she’s intrigued by the outpouring of support from Dahn devotees.

Still, I think I prefer a practice of Saluting the Sun, rather than bowing to “the Don”

Come on, you have to admit, whether body guards or “The Family”, those guys look like the mafia.

**CNN is hard up for good news, I guess, so they’ve instituted the “Random Moment of the Day”. This is what they came up with.

Afterwards the news anchor commented that he thought the koalas must have read the research that lead to this article. Random? or another Karmic Coincidence? The main interviewee – a yoga instructor

I haven’t had time to read it yet, but I remembered I first heard about Laughter Yoga when I read his book A Whole New Mind

I was just going to repost MDFWP and shut the hell up, but I haven’t learned that one yet.

Last Monday Rob (re)posted this brilliant “My Distraction Free Writing Program” via Frageelaytwit via terrybain via brilliantorange:

terrybain:

brilliantorange:

1. Get a pen.

2. Get some paper.

3. Fine, you baby, use your computer.

4. TURN OFF THE INTERNET.

5. I SAID TURN OFF THE INTERNET.

6. Open a program. Start writing.

7. SHOOT ANYONE WHO TRIES TO STOP YOU. WARNING SHOTS ARE OKAY.

8. If silence isn’t ambient enough for you, try the following:

Lou Reed – METAL MACHINE MUSIC

George Winston – December

The Carpenters – Gold

Miles Davis – Kind Of Blue

Remember, kids:

Formatting is not writing.

Font size or type is not writing.

Research is not writing.

Writing is writing.

Good luck!

What he said.

Also: Turn off the fecking internet already.

It’s only available for Mac, but OmmWriter is a lovely way to accomplish this. I keep stealing Dan’s MacBook to work on essays and fiction.

And work in plain text (that’s what Notepad produces for you Windows folk, and TextEdit for the MacHeads).

Plain text is the lingua franca of file formats. You can easily go from plain text to Word, HTML, whatever.

Yeah, right. Nice thoughts. Although I have to credit the article for ultimately acting as the the final catalyst to get me to start this thing, here’s a list of distractions I came up with as a result of this post -

1. I actually downloaded OmmWriter, and it is quite possibly the coolest, most beautiful app I have ever seen. And, duh! it’s an “Om” writer.
2. During the first use, however, it also provides just enough distraction to fool around for a good 40 minutes while you try to decide or imagine what would be your own perfect personal settings for the ultimate writing-without-distraction ambience – the next time you use it.
3. My 10 year old daughter came home and started doing homework in the same room. She wanted to know what I was doing when she heard the music and typing, so I had to do a complete demo of all the features for her.
4. I told her to stop being distracted and do her homework. I started mine too.
5. I wrote nearly the first paragraph then decided for some reason I really needed the internet. I realized that I didn’t know how to escape OmmWriter. I couldn’t escape OmmWriter. I hit a magical set of keys and my recently Snow Leopardized MacBook produced the spinning wheel of death and eventually crashed.
6. I now long for and fear OmmWriter. It was so beautiful. I found the perfect settings, but I think that lonely tree is there just to steal my words. The crash may have something to do with the fact that I had 5 windows and 32 tabs open in Firefox, because, well you’ll get the picture…
7. I started writing directly in Wordpress.
8. I did not heed the suggestion of writing in TextEdit. I hit “save draft” after number 5. It took me to the Wordpress login page. It lost my words. I rewrote Numbers 2-5. I’m sure they were better the first time.
9. I wonder why Terry Bain says, “fecking internet”. I imagine it said with a Scottish or Irish brogue. I realize I don’t know how to spell “brogue”. I look it up. I wonder if he’s Irish or Scottish. I wonder why I assume Terry is a he. He has a twitter post on his widget about shoe size. I wonder if he wears brogues, because I’ve just learned that brogue is also “A heavy shoe of untanned leather, formerly worn in Scotland and Ireland.”
10. Copying that definition from dictionary.com has changed my font. I fight the urge to change it back because “formatting is not writing.” I’m glad I won the battle because I realize the CSS overrides the edit view.
11. I think about how awesome the George Winston December album is. I’ve always loved it. Wait, that’s not true. It’s the Autumn album I love. (Why would that brilliantorange character suggest you listen to christmas songs to write. That’s just stupid.) I (used to) play the piano and have written some songs almost as good I think. I wonder why I have no Windham Hill music on my iPod. I know I have the CD somewhere. I wonder if I have any Philip Aaberg. I used to. I fell in love with a boy once at his concert. Later we kissed in the rain. I reconnected with him recently on LinkedIn. He lives in “the other Washington.” It was a long time ago. I’ve been in love with someone else for 20 years.
12. I realize Told or Known is an anagram for Rod Knowlton. I think anagram has two N’s. Google and Wikipedia tell me I’m mistaken. I’ve never been able to spell. I suspect I have a slight dyslexia. I remember that Richard Branson and someone else really cool supposedly has dyslexia. I decide (once again) it doesn’t matter that I can’t spell.
13. Yesterday TK posted something about a Yoga Sign. I think it’s “a sign.”
14. Today he asked about a “woobie”. I knew the answer, but someone already posted it. Both my kids and I had them. I wonder if it’s genetic. We all sucked fingers. I wonder if TK knows I’m stalking him yet. He’s very funny.
15. I wonder if I go to the trouble to find the December CD if it could possibly be any better for writing than Bonobo – Dial “M” for Monkey. That album title cracks me up, but really anything by Bonobo will do the trick. I can listen to Noctuary over and over.
16. For reasons I can’t quite put together at the moment I realize I’ve been planning to write a post about Monkeys.
17. I think of the pose – Hanumanasana – Monkey King Pose. Holy crap. I can think of nothing more awful and painful.
18. I can think of nothing more vicious.
19. So it seems like I can stop procrastinating now.
20. And just WRITE

Some days are more vicious, some days more yoga.

Yesterday was vicious.

But all’s well that ends well.

Today I’ll post two to keep on top of my 31 in 31 Goal/Resolution/Intention…