I’m approaching the age where I’ve started thinking about having kids.  One of my concerns is how will pregnancy affect my yoga practice and my workouts.  There are videos online of pregnant yoginis doing advanced postures.  And there are videos of pregnant women doing hardcore fitness stuff.   It’s inspiring.  And whenever I see one of these videos, it makes me feel less nervous about how being pregnant will impact my yoga practice.  In fact, I should probably be more concerned with how to balance my practice and workouts with taking care of a child after the pregnancy is over.  Luckily, I’ve had my mom to look up to in this area.  Ever since I can remember, she and my dad have gotten up at 4am to start their workouts.  Now, she still gets up that early to exercise, but then follows her cardio with a full yoga practice. 

    There’s a new video on youtube from a woman in Toronto demonstrating dropbacks at 9 months.  I love my dropbacks.  Hopefully when I get pregnant, I’ll still be able to do dropbacks up until 9 months. 

    Ready for video #2?  This one of much shorter than the lotus jumpback video (only about 3 minutes).  So I didn’t have to spend all night waiting for it to upload to YouTube.  Obviously, I’m not working on urdhva kukkutasana myself, but it was fun to see an explanation of how to get your knees up onto the upper arms.  I had always figured you just kind of lean forward and slide the knees up the arms.  But I like Kino’s explanation of trying one knee at a time.  This makes it much more accessible.  I may play around with this at home…just for fun.  Hopefully one day I’ll make it up to third series to work on this pose.  Practice, practice, practice.

   I brought my video camera with me to last week’s Old Shala workshop with Kino and Tim in Miami Beach.  In addition to all the video I took of the waves at the beach, I got a little bit of video from Kino’s “Asana Question  & Answer” session on Wednesday night.  Unfortunately, it takes me a while to edit and process the videos.  So, I’ll be posting them one at a time over the next week (or so).

    Below, Kino talks about jumping back in padmasana.  I have to say that she gives some incredible tips, and really breaks down the movements into smaller, more accessible steps.  So….enjoy.  More videos coming soon.

   I love a good balance beam montage.  The old Soviet Union routines were always so original and graceful.  Strength, flexibility, and grace are all good things to strive for. 

    Remember the excitement you felt the first time you reached forward and touched your toes?  Or maybe the first time you got your fingertips to bind in one of the marichyasanas?  What about the first time you went up into a headstand without using the wall?  I’ll never forget the first time I stood up from a backbend.  It was in the gym…in the stretching corner, where I used to work on random yoga postures after my morning workouts.  I was still using the wall to walk my hands down into urdhva dhanurasana.  Then, as I reached back to the wall with my hand to start to walk myself up, I felt the weight shift up toward my toes and I kind of flew up to standing.  It wasn’t very graceful…but I stood up nonetheless. 

    The first two years of my yoga practice were filled with many of these exciting moments when I “got” a new pose.  It seemed to happen at unexpected moments.  And these moments were frequent since I made quick progress at the beginning.  Now these moments seem few and far between.  Most of my progress has been in the form of “baby steps” instead of big “wow” moments.  But progress is progress right?  Maybe I should be a little more excited about the little things. 

   I love the video below.  It was filmed by an obviously very proud father as he watched his daughter perform her first full.  The look on her face after she completes the move is priceless.  It inspires me to try and be more excited about the progress I make in my practice….even if it is just in tiny increments.

One day I hope to be able to practice tick tocks.  But right now the thought of flipping over backward from a handstand terrifies me.  Here’s a new video from PeaceLoveYoga that’s pretty inspirational.

Namaste