www.forestfitness.net

HI!

What does it mean - yoga house sitters? How is a yoga house sitter different to any other. Perhaps not. The yogic practice of looking after something - and particularly animals. In the beginning they wonder what is going on. Where have the people they known gone - and who are these new people. We try to create as much fun as we can for the dogs - walks, swims, play.  We have just been summer pruning a bit in a vineyard and the dogs we have cared for the last six moths loved coming out there for a change of scenery.

Are you thinking of taking a break and want your dogs well cared for in or near Hobart, Tasmania? We are back from overseas by the beginning of January.

 Contact Craig on craig@dogsrulehousesit.com or Annica on annica@dogsrulehousesit.com 

Check our sites: www.dogsrulehousesit.com www.forestfitness.net  www.forestyoga.net

One last thing: Good luck Obama! Good luck America!

Change. Inevitable. Constantly happening. Beyond our control. Something is created, nurtured and then - eventually - destroyed or just disappeares. The law of the cycle of change. I tend to change more quickly than most people in some regards and slower than other is other aspects. Interesting how that is.

I’m just about to change environments. Say goodbye to great friends. Drive far and even fly.

The aspect of change that I value most is when I noticed that I am no longer driven by fear. I feared what we are conditioned to fear: the what if this happens, what if that happens, what will I do then. Creating a big story in the mind to keep it occupied. Now if that happens we tend to forget the here and now. To be ourselves; relaxed, at ease and with the natural goodwill of our nature.

There is various degree of hardship in change. But to think about the value change is great for me!  To no longer be  ’home blind’ (a Swedish saying meaning when we have predictable habits we take thing for granted - and we don’t really appreciate it.). Going with the tide of change we become more open to experience the process of seeing with fresh new vision. I treasure this. Appreciating each moment.

Annica

Writing on the here and now. What a challenge. Better start down the page Or next week. Or maybe next week.

Right.  Images.

I’ve recently had to do some more study. And does it require to sit in front of the computer nowadays. Hours and hours and hours of research, assignments and reporting. And this is only Certificate 3 in fitness! What I really think would be great is to have a kind of exercise bike or even an ergonomic chair exercise machine that can be used to pedal, to strengthen the abductors or the adductors, to climb, to pedal backwards - while the upper body is still and the brain thinking, thinking, thinking - and fingers typing away. It would make sense. I hate sitting still for so long,  but all this work has to be done at the computer. If someone could invent this kind of desk exercise machine, I’d get it to get through these fitness studies! I’ve aldready put on a belly from all the sitting still!  Hello inventors out there - there is a new fitness machine out there to invent! It’s going into offices all around the globe, to keep people moving while working at a desk. Because there is so much desk work to do. And things to learn. And so many of us don’t like to sit still.

Annica

The memories don’t come back to me often, but today they did - and prompted me to put some words on the web directed to those of you in pain and searching the web finding this. What triggered these thoughts and memories? I read something someone famous once said: When two people meet there are usually six people present: One person is the person you see yourself be. The other person is the person the other person see you as. Then it is person two as he or she sees him/herself. And then the person you see them as. Finally: It is the person you really are. And the real person the other person really is. Who said something like this? William James. I was reading a really inspiring article in Network Magazine (06) about a concept as magical as Transformational Personal Trainers. Taking personal training to an other level, by Jon Denoris and Gary Stebbing. Some of us knew someone who we thought were tops, seemed happy and together - and even threw some great parties and was really there for everybody - showing them a good time. Then one day we find out that this person committed suicide. And we are dumbfounded trying to work out how on earth this could have happened - on top of the heartbreaking grief we feel at the loss of this great person. What! What did he do? You are not serious? Are you sure it was him? I never would have dreamed of this friend disappearing so suddenly and in such a violent way. I did not see his pain in a million years. How could I have missed it?

 In the same magazine (above) there was an article or an advertisement saying something like: Every company is like a stage production and every person in that company has a role to play. But can this be taken to far? When do we allow ouselves to take off the masks - relax and be ourselves? Is it more important to keep up the image? To what point?

Today  my heart aches from the loss of a friend. Being reminded of the devastating effects people’s secret suffering and mental afflictions can have. Very important. Can yoga be a help? It depends on the yoga style and the yoga culture. If a yoga instructor is competitive and has strong need to show off various gymnastic talents or expert talents - I’m sure that kind of yoga would make the person feel worse and close up. But if this person can find a yoga teacher with compassion and with whom trust and openness can be rediscovered, this person can create a place of sharing - and a team work can start - walking from the six person situation (see above) to being real  - and we find tools - to bring us toward transformational change. What is transformation? A commercially exploited word in the new age field. I’d like to define transformation in this context as individual change that work toward a sustainable constructive and meaningful life path. Still no magic fixes. No I’ve done it all - I’m already there. It’s all to be done. Yoga practice and personal growth is committed hard work. But a rock solid path to follow. Like granite rock. With it’s ups and downs.

Deep down we want to be more involved, do things that we feel really matter. Yoga practice can help us make little steps in the direction our hearts are calling for us to go. Listen inward. Learn to breathe fully and use meditation as a tool to combat anxiety and fear about the future. Be brave. Start with changing my world. My ways. Change the world in that way. And the culture within it. To admit what is really real to us, so that we can show others who we really are. Even the tiniest steps matter. With awareness and purpose.

To do yoga is not enough if you are in a lot of pain. If you don’t have anyone you feel really listen and to whom you can tell exactly how you feel without judgement, and you are contemplating suicide, try calling Lifeline. There are also some brilliant people in the helping professions. I am particularly impressed by Narrative Therapy, a technique developed by Michael White in Adelaide, Australia, that is available in a lot of places around the globe by now.

We need to find places where we can be ourselves and relax. If we don’t do that the emotions build up. And from expressing the raw pain we can look inside ourselves and reconnect with ‘the spark for life’. Using the tools of yoga can help you look inside and perhaps see the emotions as fluctuating and unpredictable - as if they are visitors in our awareness.  Finding a yoga instructor that can walk with you in this journey with sincerity will make you feel less alone. Try individual sessions. A time slot to just to explore yoga and listening to yourself, to your body mind and heart’s yearning while stretching that body.

annica@granitebeltyoga.com

How cold is the water today? How cold were you this Winter? Did you, like me, treasure those long hot baths before heading off to a freezing hall to try to do a bit of yoga. No sweat. Just shivers. And this is Australia! Sounds like I should have moved to the tropical parts of this continent (just like Heather Agnew who took her Trinity Yoga from Canberra to Port Douglas)! The ultimate dream. Yoga in a place that is always warm. That brings me to the topic of today: Yoga in water - it has the added benefit of the water massage from the pressure of the water on the muscles and connective tissue. It also brings out that part of us that still has a sense of wonder. We feel less self conscious in water as it envelopes us and we  float, feel light and supported. It has the added benefit of triggering our imagination of playing like a dolphin, making sounds like a whale. Sometimes we feel one with the water, as if we belong, and life is easy - simply beautiful! Come to think of it - combining yoga and just moving freely in water would be on the very top of my wish list of today. What are your experiences of yoga and aqua? Write to me! I’m dying to find out! Just finishing with a poem by Shih-t’ou:

like a blind turtle

swimming on the sea of changes

coming and going

up and down

around and around

annica@granitebeltyoga.com

My husband and I really love Tasmania and would like to come down there from Queensland - and can do a house sit in or near Hobart, to look after dogs, cats, horses or other farm animals from the first week in January until mid April, if needed. I grew up on a farm and has trained quite a few young horses and love it - so if there is a need of that also, great! Craig is wanting to get back into his field in Hobart, working with people with disabilities and running men’s groups. So, do you want a break, and do some travelling - while being assured that your animals - and your home - are well loved and taken care of? You got the right guys! Just go to the dogs rule website to have a look! www.dogsrulehousesit.com or email craig@dogsrulehousesit.com or annica@dogsrulehousesit.com

How do we make the changes we want to so that we are ready for Summer again?It’s coming real soon! I’ve just started Certificate 3 in Fitness and have to learn all about fitness testing, VO2 max,  weight training, diets for athletes and much more. It’s pretty thorough and challenging and it takes a bit to work out how it fits with my work with yoga qigong and natural therapies. And how will it work to bring the concept of ‘effortless effort’ into weight training? It is commonly used by weight training Kung Fu practitioners. From my experience previously, there is a lot of sweat and ‘huffing and puffing’ in gyms.  So to try the ‘effortless effort’ mindset is quite refreshing. We have a tendency to think that it has to be hard unless we know there is an other way. I still fall back on the habit of making it ‘hard work’ and I’m learning ways to  break this habit in my pilates body mind reconditioning home practice at the moment. I get help by Julie Johnson at the Warwick Personal Training and Pilates studio (jjpt@gil.com.au) in my weekly individual sessions. I really have to get away from the mindset of exercise as ‘burn’ and accept that I have to re-learn new movement patterns- and that it takes time and is very subtle. Not surprising that dancers use Pilates extensively, creating the potential for grace in movement. (I hope!) To re-learn how to isolate muscle groups, keeping the muscles that do not need to be involved relaxed when they can, while using other muscles sometimes makes it feel as if my brain get a short circuit, like a black out, it just won’t do it. But if I relax and don’t try too hard, re-wiring happens and suddenly I can do these movements again. When I’ve learned to put less effort into movement, I think I will progress quicker and have the well needed energy left at the end of the day - to do all the other things I want to do. To at the same time build strength with weights using this approach is really good. Even if yoga, qigong and pilates probably work more of a range of muscles than weight training, it’s been good to do some weights and feel stronger, getting more muscle bulk. I still really miss power yoga though - have not got any access here in the woods! It’s such a rush being in an energetic power yoga class!

Annica

The new forest sound

An owl with hick ups

Misty moonlight

 

Grey and mountain shade

Icy winds and chill

Tiger snake sleeping

 

This heart will stop one day

Not now - one moment

Dawn and magpies waking

 

What am I doing here wandering

It’s cold, totally freezing

One hundred shades of mosses

 

A yellow box

Wattle, push button and pling

Anything there - still nothing

 

The years fly by

Like fairy wrens of the shrub

An apple a day

 

Palm prong

The sun is crossing lines

Curled over, passing

 

So many flying dogs

The smelly ones

Not one soul by the pool

 

Eat now or later

Want this, don’t want that

Having it too good are we

 

Looking for this or that

Searching and sifting through layers

of what has been kept

When so much has been lost

on endless journeys

 

Who speaks in that wind

The crow, the crow - always the crow

Gone now, waiting

 

So lucky this moonlit night

Not a sound or a soul around

Can you hear me

 

Waiting, hoping and postponing

Immediacy, magic

Who took that bite off that gum leave

 

Feng Shuei cat waving

Cheery gold and red

Beyond - something completely different

 

Mountains to be climbed

An easy task unless it rains

Does it rain less and less

 

Counting dragonflies

Metallic colours

Only this day

 

Very seldom in society I see

But always in nature

A wealth of perfection

 

Dogs shake well

Ears flapping loudly

Sound of music

 

Step by step, this journey, this life we have

Of growing up, growing old

Then it’s all over - gone. How strange

 

In Swedish:

 

Haiku på svenska:

 

Vi yrar här

Och väntar

En myra och jag

 

Sitter i snickarboa

Och täljer

På självförtroendet

 

Tänk att det flyter

Under ytan

På isen

 

Nu väsnas dom

Lorakiterna

Konkurrens!

 

Idag är jag tackam

Imorgon kanske jag nästan

Sliter ut håret

 

Stora hotande moln

Lorakiterna överröstar brandkåren

Hjulen snurrar baklänges

 

Så många valmöjligheter

Och här sitter man bara

När solen går ner

 

Jag strosar tills jag finner en myr

Dimma och skört gräs

Dagg under mina bara fötter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi!

It was not long since I was asked if grante belt yoga is really hard. Is it like Kung Fu, Marshall Arts, something coming after a black belt? Now that is an interesting thought… If we spend a lot of time in nature, on granite rock, working to increase our internal energy, working on the belt meridian exercises- well there might be something like grante belt power! Let’s use the ancient techniques and have a go and get fitter! We never know what is possible until we have a go!

Annica