Sanskrit is a language that was not taught in my high school. Its vocabulary has not slipped in the street chat that is the beachead for any new lexicon, although the increasing popularity of yoga may change that it the future. But in the meantime, anyone wanting to know how pronounce their favorite pose can turn to the Online Sanskrit Pronunciation Guide. This service is provided by Tilak Pyle, and I can see my daughter Stephanie using it all the time for her teacher training studies at Flow Yoga. This is not a tutorial for learning Sanskrit, but is does take some of the mystery out of the nomenclature.
I took the advice of the Doctor's Center at RealAge: Drs. Mehmet Oz and Michael Roizen says that a better indicator of health is your waist measurement, rather than obsessing about weight. That advice struck a nerve with me because I have been conscious of my poor core strength.
For the past two-three weeks, I've been concentrating on getting core work in almost every day, even days when I go to my yoga classes. Lots of yogic crunches, bicycle crunches, side and regular planks, kind of working all sides of my trunk so that I don't overwork my abs and distort my muscular balance. This week I took out the tap measure and was rewarded with a full inch drop in my waist. I'm down to 38 inches. Optimally, I need to lose another three inches, and that would probably go a long way to getting my weight down.
Another reward: in my yoga class last night, I noticed that in trikonasana (triangle pose) I rested my lower hand on the floor. Before, I had to place my hand on my ankle or lower shin.
Fear of Yoga in CJR November/December 2006 issue :
Yoga is the Survivor of the culture wars: unbloodied, unmuddied, unbothered by the media's slings and arrows, its leotard still as pristine as its reputation. Everybody loves yoga; sixteen and a half million Americans practice it regularly, and twenty-five million more say they will try it this year. If you've been awake and breathing air in the twenty-first century, you already know that this Hindu practice of health and spirituality has long ago moved on from the toe-ring set. Yoga is American; it has graced the cover of Time twice, acquired the approval of A-list celebrities like Madonna, Sting, and Jennifer Aniston, and is still the go-to trend story for editors and reporters, who produce an average of eight yoga stories a day in the English-speaking world.
This article by Robert Love is informed by several years of research in newspaper archives and microfilm. It tells yoga's story from the early 1800s to now and how it has been reflected in headlines and fads in the media. Love has a fresh angle because he does not profess to be a practitioner and knows the weakness in most newsrooms for a trendy catchline.
I chanced across the Fitness Fixer blog and personal website of Jolie Bookspan. She practices and teaches Ashtanga yoga, and incorporates a lot of yoga techniques into her sports medicine and injury therapy work. For instance, I've always considered myself to be balance-impaired and have usually grabbed a spot next to a wall to stretch out my mat in class. But "Dr. Jolie" says that we should not refrain from practicing balance; otherwise, we'll never improve. In a Healthline entry, she gives common-sense opportunities for balance practice -- putting on my pants, socks or shoes while standing when dressing each morning -- by working them into your daily routine. It does not have to be something you work on separately. If you don't practice balance, your muscles lose the fast fire capacity to make micro-corrections to maintain balance. She also has lots of advice for improving back pain.
