Yoga and the 5 Rhythms

I've been collapsed at home today (Sunday) after quite an amazing afternoon/evening yesterday. Went to yoga class in the afternoon which was quite lovely. Not that anything wonderful in the way of breakthroughs or progress happened - probably the reverse as I still haven't sorted out a new practice schedule since changing jobs (and time available). But it just felt so good to be 'in the slot' of practice - doing the sun salutes and just following the series through. I had to leave early because I was supposed to be somewhere at 6pm, and the teacher had started talking to everyone about pranayama, or the basic beginners' pranayama that he teaches and we do at the end of asana practice. I had to get up and go in the middle of all of this which felt a bit awkward, but couldn't be helped.

So - where I had to be at 6pm was at a 5 Rhythms dance! I'd never heard of this before, but a friend (Ross) invited me to one being put on by his yoga teacher. Basically it's a dance 'practice' founded by someone called Gabrielle Roth, where you dance to 5 different rhythms - flowing, staccatto, chaos, lyrical and stillness. 20 minutes for each rhythm. I wasn't sure what to expect but it was wonderful! I would have thought I'd have been pretty tired having just done about 1.5 hours of yoga, but I didn't sit out any of it! Most of us did kind of treat the last one (stillness) as a sort of savasana, lying on the floor, but still I have to say I was quite amazed that I was able to keep dancing without any thought of sitting down for a while!

However, today is a different matter! I was quite tired, and when I got back from doing the shopping (and visiting the library) I was quite content to have a slow quiet afternoon! Mind you, I'll still fighting with uploading my CMS website to a test server - unsuccessful to date! Hoping to get some (more) help from the user community, who of course are mostly in Europe/USA and so in bed when I'm awake, and awake when I'm asleep!

Photos from Easter

Me and my cousin, my Mum and my Aunt


Jedda, lounging on the antique furniture


hiding in the bedclothes!

Post-Easter holiday

A nice Easter holiday ... I took a couple of extra days and am now just back at work. This is the first break I've had since all of the emotional upheaval that I guess inevitably comes when a whole group of people you've worked with for many years are made redundant / split up. Somehow it seemed a much more significant event than if I'd just resigned.

My Mum came up from NSW (she usually does for Easter) and we had a nice family time. Went to visit one of my cousins on Easter Day - she's just moved into a new house at Mt Tamborine - about an hour's drive south of Brisbane. Very pretty there, up in the hills (Gold Coast hinterland) but also very green and wet! It rains a lot!! We had a big family lunch there with 4 generations (including an 8-week old baby, great-grandnephew of my mother).

On Monday a friend from many years ago came through Brisbane for the day - on her way from a wedding in Melbourne and a Great Barrier Reef holiday in Cairns, back home to L.A. We knew each other when we both lived in London a long time ago, and since then have met up every few years. Talked (and ate, and drank wine!) for hours and hours, so now we are both fully caught up on what's been happening in each other's lives!

I also spent quite a bit of time on one of the two websites I'm developing. It's mostly finished now - just whatever changes/updates that are requested. Next weekend I'm going to meet up with the client for the other website, to move that along too.

And this evening I'm (yet again!) picking up my yoga practice and going to class.

Week 2 - a little tired!

Last week I sailed through with heaps of energy, but I'm a bit more tired this week. I guess it's to be expected - will take a while for my body/circadian rhythms/whatever to get used to the new situation. But that's OK. My cough is also getting a bit worse, which doesn't help. I've got some antibiotics but am holding off taking them until I'm sure I need to.

One thing I'm really missing is yoga. Last week I managed 2 practices. This week, nothing so far! I'll go on Saturday but I can't see any other options. I've already got to get up really early - not going any further (or earlier) down that track. And I just don't have the energy when I get home. When I was at the other campus I practiced at lunchtime - there were heaps of spare rooms around, and we also had a weekly yoga session with 2-5 others. Here - this building is a rabbit warren but I don't think there's much spare space. Anything that doesn't have people in it has piles of computers and parts and cables and so on!

There is, however, this Unifit system where the gym is available for one hour at lunchtime to staff whose departments (mine included) pay for their staff to attend. After Easter I'm going to sign up there and see if they'll let me do my yoga practice there in the gym. Not ideal, but the best (possible) solution I've come up so far.

Weekends have been taken up with work on 2 websites! Never rains but it pours ... One of them is my first CMS-based site. I'm using CMS-MS and am getting the hang of that. The other one is a static one, that's come out of an Arts grant that a friend applied for. She quoted for a website as well as everything else. This is 2 Artists books, so will have lots of images etc.

And I'm really pleased because I'm going to be able to get a new laptop from the proceeds of these two websites. My existing one is over 4-5 years old and is just soo slow. It's a Mac Powerbook, and I've been using the later Intel-based Macs at work for years now. The difference in speed is amazing. But it's not just the comparison - there is definitely something wrong with the Powerbook. I'm making sure I back up to an external hard drive every night, just in case of disaster! Just have to hope it lasts out for another month or so!