This and that!

Went to a big multi-choir rehearsal this morning (Sunday) for the Brisbane Sing for Water concert, which is next Sunday. It's wonderful to be singing with 450 or so other people - sounds great! There are about 50+ primary school children too, and they sound angelic!

And the 5-day event with Maharaji is flying towards us ... Just can't wait! T and L, friends from England are arriving in a couple of weeks (with my new eco yoga mat!) to stay for it, and then it's just a week after that. I've got a week and a half off.

In yoga, I've got 3 things I've been given to work on since I last went to class. Firstly in Marichyasana C - I can bind on the 2nd side, but the first side I'm a mile away. Richard was looking at me doing it last Monday and we agreed that I don't seem able to twist as much left to right. So I'm going to just keep working on that, do the first side twice. Then in Bhakasana (we get given that as a preparation to bhujapidasana) and which I still can't lift both feet off the ground in, Richard's got me just leaning further forward and lifting one foot off at a time, then the other. Hopefully if I keep doing that I'll get 'airborne' sometime this century :)

And finally, he saw me trying padmasana (I'd managed to do it OK one day the previous week so thought I could manage it, but ...!) anyway, I'm doing this sort of cross-legged thing with my feet half-way between hip and knee, and foot flexed. A hip-opener thing ...

If anyone was at all interested ... !

New yoga mat

I'm excited - I've just ordered a new Eco-mat from yogamatters.com in the UK. I haven't found anywhere in Australia that sells them, and now some English friends are coming to stay next month and they are going to bring it over for me - yeayy!

The census collecting is going ... and going and going!!! In the delivery phase, 2-3 weeks ago, I came down with some awful virus and ended up being off work for a week! Can't remember ever being sick off work for that long before! And it was right in the middle of the delivery phase - such bad timing! I had to creep out and deliver maybe 10 forms a day! That was all the walking I could manage!!! However, I'm better now, though I do still have a rotten cough that must be very annoying for the people I work with ...

Didn't do any yoga for that week, so I was pretty stiff when I started again. But things are moving again ...

And preparations are going a-pace for the September event with Maharaji. It doesn't seem real yet!

News from my day-to-day life ... :)

My sister in London thought I hadn't done any yoga since May, when I last posted here! I'd be very stiff if that was the case ... no, it's just I've been busy I guess, and haven't made time to blog about my normal everyday activities!

I actually just did a short (3/4 hour) lunchtime practice ... I've got a second job for a few weeks, being a Census collector. In Australia they do a census every 5 years - and although they pay well, it's a lot of work. I'm certainly going to earn it ...:) I've done the training, and will start delivering the forms this Friday night - to 300 houses!! Anyway, it looks like I'll have a hard time getting to a class for a few weeks so I will need to grab the opportunities for self practice where I can!

I don't think I've "progressed" in anything, except maybe flexibility. I can put my palms on the floor now, to my amazement! But what I really need to 'progress' is in strength! Don't know why that's so hard for me!

I went down to Sydney for a long weekend at the beginning of July. Had a really nice time down in Bowral with Mum. She gave me a gorgeous alcpaca jumper - cardigan really. I love alpaca and haven't had an alpaca jumper for years ... Thanks Mum!!

And on the day I flew back, we went to this gorgeous exhibition about Pearls ... it was huge! So many beautiful pearls, and amazing pearling stories and historical exhibits! Then we had lunch with Jo (nephew) and Emma (gf) at the Mint, before heading for the airport and home.

I'm also up to my ears in preparations for Maharaji's 40th anniversary event at Amaroo in September ... it's going to be so sweet ...

It's a GREAT DAY in Australia!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200605/s1633713.htm
and http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,1770790,00.html

The 2 miners have walked out of the mine! 2 weeks after being trapped 1 kilometre underground by a rockfall triggered by an earthquake!! This was in a goldmine in northern Tasmania.

Eight days ago they were 'found' alive, but it's taken the rescue people this long to tunnel in to them. 14 days trapped in a 1.2m cube steel cage - 2 of them in a space not big enough to stand up in or stretch out!! - I just can't believe it! Wonderful scenes on the television at 6am this morning of them walking out of the lift into the arms of their family and fellow miners!!!

The whole of Australia has been following this, particularly since last Sunday week when they were discovered alive. At that point they'd survived 8 days on a muesli bar and licking water of the rocks. After that the rescuers managed to get a small pipe drilled 3m through to them that they could send food and drink down through - they even got sent a couple of iPods. Because the rescue kept running into problems and they obviously didn't want to do anything to trigger a further rockfall, it's taken this long to actually get to them.

Their health has been monitored by medical crews and paramedics for all this time - but even though the miners had said they were determined to walk out of the mine gates, no one quite believed that they'd be well enough to do so. But they were and they did!!

Sadly a third miner caught in the rockfall was discovered dead. His funeral is today (his family having held it back in the hope that the other 2 would be out and able to come to it). Although they're in the hospital now having checks, I feel sure they will go ...

distracting ...

Yoga this afternoon was - hmm, a bit distracting! There were a couple of people there taking photographs (can't remember what for), and although in general I was fine with that, it did sort of take my concentration away a bit ... particularly because I'm actually doing a 6-week digital photography course with LVS online, and so part of me was thinking about focus and F-stops!!! (Which I have never known anything about before, having been just a 'point and click' photographer, but that's another story!!)

But anyway - the fact remains that I was really hopeless in the balancing poses - Utthita hasta padangusthasana was a joke!! (Except for my language!!) However, things did improve when I got to seated. I can bind on one side in Marichyasana B now, to my amazement! Once my left foot/ankle stops hurting from being squashed, I should be able to bind on that side too!! And Marichy C is coming along well too. I can bind on one side, not the other ... It's so nice, after maybe 2 years of nothing happening, to actually see myself moving into poses more deeply.

I've been having fun with the photography course. A bit overwhelmed with all the technical stuff, but still it's been really great. I've been taking my camera (Canon Powershot A520) with me a lot, and taking photos. Of course I have to do this for the course - after the first week when we all just posted stuff we'd done before, now we have to post 2-4 shots a week relating to whatever the lesson was about. The past week's one was on composition - below is one I took on Friday which I'm going to post! I was just driving home and saw the sky - if I hadn't had my camera with me ... !

Busy busy busy ...:)

The last 2 weeks have been sooo busy at work - I just come home and crash out in front of the TV or head in a book. Uni Semester 1 starts on Monday, and typically lecturers leave it till 3 (or less) days before the start to suddenly announce they want all these Blackboard websites created! To top it all, the person I work with has been sick for the past 3 days, and the casual we were getting to come in, rang in sick too! So I was there all by myself yesterday, half the time on the helpdesk phone helping out people who hadn't thought to request their courses yet, and the other half frantically trying to churn out their course profiles in html ... sigh!!

At least it's the weekend. Yoga class this afternoon - hoorayyy! I just managed to find time to do a few sun salutes a couple of lunchtimes during the week, apart from that it's Monday since I last did a proper ashtanga practice ... Ah well, life happens, and yoga is just part of my life. It just has to fit in with what's happening.

Getting back to websites - I'm finding it easier and easier as I go on to use CSS and not use tables for layout. I resent it when I have to use tables (time constraints!) And my freelance webdesign business is going really well. Last year I don't think I did any new websites - just maintenance on various ones. But it's only February now and I'm working on one new website, plus I've got another 2 new ones lined up! Great!! I'm also doing my friend Angela's poetry ezine - www.foame.org. It's a yearly thing - this is the 3rd year. The new issue goes live on 1st March ...

on my iPod: retro 60s music from Heartbeat

The Ups and Downs of one practice

It's odd how you can start one practice (yoga practice that is!) and think "oh, I can tell it's going to be that sort of a practice" and then it changes back and forward! I practiced at lunchtime today at work. By myself - the other two who sometimes come were away in meetings or whatever ... And I was really stiff in sun salutes. (I only went to class on Monday night, so that's less than 2 days ago!) Then the balancing poses were just a disaster! I keep tottering over, couldn't keep my balance ... sigh! So by then I "just knew" what sort of practice it was going to be.

Come the marichyasanas, and Marichyasana C, (which I had been making some progress in - had sensed that it wasn't really impossible and that one day I'd be able to do this ). And then on one side I suddenly thought - "what if I stretch these fingers a tidgy bit more?" - and I touched the other fingers!! I nearly fell over! Only on one side, the other side is miles apart still, but - wow!!!

Moving on and I get to bhakasana (sp? In our shala we're given this as a prep pose till we can do an arm balance and then we swap it for bhujapidasana). So I've been having problems with this one too. I'd finally just managed to get 2 feet off the ground at the same time, and then I fell out of it a few weeks ago. Now I feel very unsafe - my legs wobble on my arms and I'm scared to try and take my feet off the ground. Last week in class I got the teacher to go through it with me. But now I've forgotten again how and where to balance my legs so they feel secure! So I guess I'll have to wait till I go to class again and get him to go through it with me again!!! I'm a slow learner!!

on my iTunes (work computer): Chris Berry and Panjea - Mandela