First of all, yogAttitude, a range of wonderful yoga-themed offerings from Nadine Fawell, yoga teacher extraordinaire. Nadine teaches yoga classes in Melbourne, cultivates a lovely online space in the form of her inspiring blog, and she has a yoga DVD and also a beautiful set of yoga practice cards that I use often. I think of them as tarot cards for yoga, as I always draw them at random and am always astonished that what I've picked is usually just want I need to hear:
The cards are a wonderful tool for a home yoga practice, I really recommend them!
I read a lot of blogs (as you might imagine!) and Nadine's is one that I check in with most regularly because there's always some wonderful wisdom there waiting to be shared. I love reading about yoga. It's become my thing lately, having finished Desikachar's The Heart of Yoga. If you love yoga, whether you're a beginner or have been doing it for years and can do lolasana with the best of them (!), check out Nadine's blog! It's a goldmine! These are a few of my favourite posts of hers:
- Beginners' Yoga: Warrior Pose
- The Splits. Or, Where Is The Line Between Yoga & Porn?
- How Do You Cure Fear?
- Sore Back Yoga
- Surrender. Let. Go.
- The Skinny on Yoga
Recently Nadine did a post (and I can't remember which post it was, sorry Nadine!) that talked a little about the yoga postures we find difficult. The temptation when doing a home practice, like I do, is to just do the poses we like! Nadine's post said, from memory (!), that sometimes the reason we find some poses difficult is because we don't practice them. How can you expect to be able to play the piano, for example, if you don't practice? Sounds obvious but all of a sudden it made sense to me! I bit the bullet and have started doing the "Fire" sequence of my favourite Shiva Rea DVD and have managed to improve both crow pose and wheel pose! I'd forgotten that sometimes to get into a good flow there needs to be an element of challenge "and learning to do poses that you can't yet do provides that challenge."
Thank you for your constant wisdom Nadine, and for being a part of SLSB this month! :)