Monday Again!

I love it when I have Mondays off! It makes the week feel special. :)

This morning, my brother Allen and I went "back to school". One of my goals for this year is to help him get caught up to grade level in his math skills, something that he has been working very hard to do. I am not mathematically inclined, but I did take a lot of remedial math in college, so we pretty much struggle through together. Somehow our math lesson turned into an impromptu yoga session - Allen studies Tang So Do at a local dojang - and many of the moves he learns or observes are related to yoga moves.

Two weeks after I got my drivers license at sixteen, I was driving home from work in the pouring rain and I rear-ended a poor guy driving a little Honda, completely totaling his brand new car. Even though I wasn't "injured" in the accident (we both walked away from it without needing any medical attention), I had some form of back pain ranging from mild (take an aspirin) to severe (go back to bed) for the next two years. One of the things I found that really helped ease those painful muscles and keep them from getting worse were simple yoga stretches. I brought home a book from the library and basically tried out every pose I could figure out. I enjoyed it, but I'd never seen the poses put into a "routine". After awhile, my back healed, and I got out of the habit.

I would love to get back into this form, so I downloaded this workout from Exercise TV by Meaghan Townsend. It's a $1.99 download and lasts only 10 minutes, so it makes a nice mini-session. The speed is a little fast for me, and the poses move pretty quickly, so I usually follow along at my own pace, but it's a nice routine.

Another DVD that I like is Megan Garcia's Just My Size Yoga. I'm a big curvy girl and I sometimes have issues figuring out if I'm doing a pose correctly and it just looks different because of my size, or if I'm actually doing something wrong. Megan Garcia is no bikini-babe but is beautiful, and it's wonderful to see yoga performed gracefully by a larger woman.

One of the routines I'd like to try as soon as I get my own computer back up and running is the Beginner Yoga routine, also from Meaghan Townsend.

Anyway, Allen and I enjoyed doing some of my favorite poses together, like downward facing dog and warrior one and two. Allen is so flexible it's crazy! :) I'm ridiculously jealous, especially when I remember I used to be able to do a bridge pose. I would love to find a simple yoga video that Allen and I and maybe some of the rest of the clan could do together. Anyone out there practice the art? Any suggestions?