core myths

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY
and
HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE

Check out the article on the Core today in the New York Times Magazine

Stuart McGill, a professor of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo in Canada, demonstrates a few core exercises that emphasize all the major muscles that support the spine.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/06/17/magazine/1194841000095/core-values.html

Article: Core Myths
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/magazine/21FOB-physed-t.html?scp=1&sq=core%20&st=cse#

american masala

i love to cook, but i have learned that i need recipes to get a successful end result. i can't just 'dish up' something.
i have a lot of recipe books, but most of the time i use max 5 of the recipes in the book and find the books a waste of money, so i find recipes in magazines and on the internet instead.

AMERICAN MASALA on the other hand is a cook book well worth the money. this cook book is AMAZING. i swear that i have made atleast half of the recipes in this book, and there are a lot of recipes. every recipe is like eating in [author]suvir saran's restaurants.

i can't compliment on this book enough. the title is perfect. it has all the indian spices, which i love, but with a western influence. personally, i could eat indian food every single day, my husband (who is indian) on the other hand, refuses to eat indian food every day. but every single meal i've served from this book he loves.

the recipes in this book are a bit time consuming, but once you get into it and get into a routine of putting the spices together in little bowls and chopping up the ingredients it goes pretty fast. advice: you have to prepare everything before you start cooking, it saves a lot of time and is very important! because the end-result is so delicious, to me, the time spent making this food is so worth it!

suvir saran was on the martha stewart show not so long ago and here are the recipes he made on the show. try these as a start. i have not made the chicken wings but am planning on making it for our 4th of july party.

cardamom roasted cauliflower:
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/cardamom-roasted-cauliflower?autonomy_kw=suvir%20saran
stir fried green beans with coconut:
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/stir-fried-green-beans-with-coconut?autonomy_kw=suvir%20saran
spicy sweet chicken wings:
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/spicy-sweet-chicken-wings-suvir-saran?autonomy_kw=suvir%20saran&rsc=header_1
garam masala:
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/garam-masala-suvir-saran?autonomy_kw=suvir%20saran

if you want to see the video of him making the food on martha's show go to:
http://www.marthastewart.com/ and search "suvir saran" you will find both the recipes and the video there.

i would love to see a vegetarian cook book, american masala style.

American Masala @ AMAZON:
http://www.amazon.com/American-Masala-Classics-Home-Kitchen/dp/030734150X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245524632&sr=8-1

bon appetite!

friends that practice yoga together ...

what horrible weather we have today. i do love the rain, but it has been raining for months now it seems, and i am quite sick of it. i know, it's not very yogic of me to say this, but it's true.

it doesn't matter what the weather is, my students are die-hard, they will come to class no matter rain or shine. for some reason today, only one of my die-hard students showed up, ron. he brought his friend, denise, who he has been friends with since they were 5 years old!!! how great is that. they are both extremely advanced yogis, and today on the most rainy day they decided to practice yoga together. so rod and denise were my two students in class this morning, it was basically a semi-private. they lined their mats up right in front of each other (see the picture).

i am not affected by how many people i have in my class. what matters to me is the energy the people bring to class. these two yogis had such wonderful energy and they were so happy to be there practicing together, it was such a great class and such a joy to teach them.

here they are in a side crow split/ekapada kaundinyasana.
they had already done one side and this is the other side. i quickly found my blackberry and took a picture of them.

so, the friends that do yoga together stay together.

Practice with Aarona Pichinson's Yoga Soundscape

wow, this was an amazing week for me. i got in ANOTHER practice with a teacher i had not experienced before. yoga works is opening it's new location in SoHo next Friday (i will be teaching there!) and to celebrate this opening, Aarona Pichinson, master yogini goddess creator of Yoga SoundScape led us through an amazing 2 hour class of movement, breath, heat and pumping beats by Derek Beres (and others) last night.

{sidenote: every friday night i make a delicious pizza, but last night i skipped that, gave my husband veggie burgers and dal (he was happy) and had him put lars to bed as i went off to class. see what happens when you get your priorities straight! i felt like i was back to being a free bird, let out of its cage :-) just partially kidding.}

this class was right up my alley, i have wanted to incorporate more movement/dance into my classes and aarona did it in a very nice way. you could feel the energy moving through you, and derek did a wonderful job playing music that pulsated with you. (derek is also a yoga teacher so he knows what music works for a yoga class!). re: dj'ing: it reminded me of my own dj'ing back in oslo, norway. i took a dj course while in college and did some spinning then "back in the days." i've always loved music and hence find it natural to play music in my yoga classes. i love dance (as you all know from my jane fonda, flashdance days), so the next step is to get going on the real GOA TRANCE class. oh, so much to do, the priority list keeps growing :-)

anyway, the theme of the class was NEW BEGINNINGS, and aarona put a card in front of each of our mats and mine read:

delight in the light!

take yourself lightly and you will cut through the dust and grit of the journey onto outright celebration. when you don't take yourself too seriously, you will be lifted out of causative thought patterns that hook you into believing you are here simply to cope with existence and overcome challenges. instead, you will thrive by delighting in the light that you are.

hmmm. i thought i was pretty serious about taking myself lightly ... maybe i'm not light enough!? :-)

so from practicing with two new teachers this week i got: alignment and pause/ease (natasha rizopolos) and lighten up! from aarona!

two very different practices, but both so wonderful in their own way. that is what i love about yoga, we can all interpret it the way we want. i practice/teach it my way, and they practice it their way. from that, i learn a lot. how boring it would be if we all did it the same way. we would not learn a single thing.

to check out aarona visit http://www.yogaofnourishment.com/

and derek visit http://www.derekberes.com/

move to the groove of your own beat!

Practice with Natasha Rizopolos

yoga works sets up a teachers practice every 2-3 months, either with a local teacher or a visiting teacher. yesterday we were so fortunate to be led by visiting teacher from Los Angeles, natasha rizopolos. i'm sure you recognize her from the pages of yoga journal magazine.

i had heard so much about her but had never practiced with her before so i was very excited to be able to spend two hours soaking up some of her knowledge. natasha has an ashtanga background (like me) and i was wondering how hard the class was going to be.

she started us off in a supported backbend for about 5-8 minutes and from there led us through sun salutations and standing poses with a focus on backbending. she always made it a point to PAUSE and focus on alignment.

natasha is very softspoken as well as well spoken and has a wonderful way of explaining what she wants from her students, all while being encouraging. her voice makes your body want to melt into the asanas.

the practice felt very easy, i was a bit surprise, but when i woke up this morning i felt areas of my body i had not felt in awhile. so it wasn't that easy ...

when i experience this, i am always reminded of how hard an easy class can be when it is designed to focus on the right things.

key words i took away from the class were ALIGNMENT and PAUSE.

natasha made an impression on me and has inspired me to pause and to find more ease in the flow.
practice, practice, practice :-)

[i brought my camera so i could take a picture of us together, but after the class i felt so dazed that i totally forgot, hence the picture above that i found on yogajournal.com. oh, well, next time].

for more info on natasha, check out http://www.natasharizopolos.com/ when she's in your area join her class/workshop. i'm sure you will leave with your own key words to practice.

GoaVinyasaFlow playlist1 & 4

here you got 2 playlists to infuse your practice this month!
1. iMix "GoaVinyasaFlow1" in the iTunes Music store at:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewIMix?id=319397795

2. iMix "GoaVinyasaFlow4" in the iTunes Music store at:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewIMix?id=319398075

groove to the goa beat,
a :-)

Create S P A C E

my son, Lars was born 19 months ago. a new anita was born too. i was aware this would happen while i was pregnant and meditated a lot on accepting the changes.

it wasn't so easy.

for the last year and a half i've wrestled with the changes. not so much that i wasn't willing to change or that i wasn't grateful for Lars entering my/our world. it was more about that i wanted my TIME back. i wanted to be able to sit infront of the computer and surf and write for as long as i wanted! work whenever i wanted, take all the workshops i wanted. workout as long and whenever i wanted.

i wanted to be able to waste time like i did pre-Lars. my mind was rebelling. it was freaking me out that i felt like i didn't have enough time.

bla, bla, bla, so the mind says.

i put myself back on my meditation pillow and as i sat there i had an epiphany: it's all about CREATING S P A C E and MAKING TIME.

we have all the time we need, we just need to prioritize.

starting this blog has been on my mind for a long time, and it was annoying me that i couldn't get it going. when i had the epiphany i wrote down the things that needed to be the priorities in my life, and the blog is one of them. my intention is not to post every single day, but the blog will be a place where i can communicate what i need to share with my community.

it feels so good to have started! it actually takes less energy to get started. it was robbing me for energy thinking about it so much.

i'm so GRATEFUL to Lars and my meditation practice for being my Guru's (teachers). they teach me something about myself and my priorities every single day!

anything you've been thinking of starting? just thinking about it is robbing you for energy. GET GOING and it will give you energy. S P A C E is there to be created.