Only twelve of us showed up last night – a small class isn’t always the worst thing in the world tho. It’s summer, people are busy, sometimes you can’t get a sitter for the kids if you have little ones at home like some of the women do, and then there’s a general lack of interest or a waning interest to contend with. I admit that my own staying with yoga has surprised me a bit. I’ve always started and stopped things like this; my own interest level just falling off and fading after a while, but yoga has stuck to me and I really enjoy doing it, as well as enjoying the night out it affords me.

I got an email from a friend late in the afternoon yesterday who suggested that I do the Lion Pose last night as a way to purge and vent all of the conflicting emotions I’ve been contending with which I wrote about here. I didn’t get a chance to answer her but I made a mental note and when I got to class and noticed how small a group we’d be dealing with, I asked the instructor if she’d perhaps work it in to our routine. Since everyone was familiar with the pose she agreed. She teaches a hybrid Ashtanga style which is all about flowing fluid poses which move from one into another across the length of the class which usually runs for about 45 minutes – with 30 minutes of actual exercise and 15 minutes of instruction on new poses and answering any questions any of us might have. I do my own 20 minutes to a half hour of yoga at home every day, but it’s nice to go to class and make it something of a social occasion too.

So – what’s the Lion Pose you ask? Well, I like to call it the Lioness pose! Because after all… it’s the lioness who does all of the hunting in the jungle and who keeps the pride intact. Click thumbnail to enlarge

1. Kneel on the floor and cross the front of the right ankle over the back of the left. The feet will point out to the sides. Sit back so the perineum snuggles down onto the on the top (right) heel.
2. Press your palms firmly against your knees. Fan the palms and splay your fingers like the sharpened claws of a large feline.
3. Take a deep inhalation through the nose. Then simultaneously open your mouth wide and stretch your tongue out, curling its tip down toward the chin, open your eyes wide, contract the muscles on the front of your throat, and exhale the breath slowly out through your mouth with a distinct “ha” sound. The breath should pass over the back of the throat.
4. Some texts instruct us to set our gaze (drishti) at the spot between the eyebrows. This is called “mid-brow gazing” (bhru-madhya-drishti; bhru = the brow; madhya = middle).Other texts direct the eyes to the tip of the nose (nasa-agra-drishti; nasa = nose; agra = foremost point or part, i.e., tip).
5. You can roar two or three times. Then change the cross of the legs and repeat for the same number of times.

Source: Yoga Journal

Caitlain says that she looks like she’s being electrocuted! And I suppose she does, and I suppose I probably looked like that because I do the mid-brow gaze when I do this pose too! But I just like the roaring part! :P

We stopped off at our favorite margarita bar for a drink after class – but only five of us came and it was only one drink. Lisa and I talked about this weekend — Jeff and Lisa are taking me out tomorrow night for my birthday and Jeff and I are going out tonight. We’ll probably do the standard ‘dinner and a movie’ thing but it’ll be nice.

Other things

I’ve been evaluating my Sanctuary section and trying to decide if I want to open that up again. I go back and forth about this, but I think I’m going to leave things as they are for now and I’ve decided not to decide yet. I keep thinking about the reasons why I moved things to a private area in the first place and none of those reasons have changed. So, I’m still thinking about it – but I may actually post something from that section out in public which I’ve shared elsewhere which was received incredibly well. So, maybe that might be an alternative. We’ll see.

I need to redo all of the .pdf files associated with my reviews. A lot has changed around here and there are some embedded links in those files which don’t apply anymore, so I need to work on that at some point. And I still have more reviews to do too. I’ve decided to finish them because I’ve committed to doing so, and they really are kind of fun in a way too – if I wasn’t so lazy! :lol:

And I changed the CSS a bit so the colors here are now a bit different! Yay! I think it looks pretty! :lol:

So there you are.

Enjoy your Friday and your weekend.