Monday, April 1, 2019

Yoga retreat magic

One thing on my bucket list was to go to a yoga retreat in Costa Rica, a country where I lived 23 years ago and holds a special place in my heart.

Last month I got to do the thing, and it was magic.  Healing.  Restful.  What I needed.   

First of all, the site was amazing.  Perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific and near the town of Montezuma, Anamaya Retreat Center is intimate and beautiful.  The views were spectacular.  Only 31 guests who all check in on Saturday and stay a week.  The food is fresh, healthy and so delicious.  The teacher Harumi is a wise and beautiful soul who taught twice a day classes that left me feeling amazing.  I specifically chose her because she's a woman of color (Japanese) and older (in her 60s).  By the end of week I had made so many new friends, and what I know now is that yoga people are my tribe.  The bodywork I received was profound and healing.   Another amazing thing for me was that they had some hula hoops, and I got to hoop in the yoga platform with those views.  I taught so  many folks to hoop, and it created yet another dimension of joy, movement and connection for me and others at the retreat. 

I've been committed to integrating the meditation into my daily life, after getting such compassionate instruction from Harumi.    It's been a bit of shock to my body to go back to only a weekly yoga class, and I so miss the views and heat of the tropical rain forest. 

I will be uploading photos of my experience, including a video or two of the hula hooping. 

Monday, January 14, 2019

Hanging around - we are primates

Since I last blogged a lot has happened to my body, including a couple of surgeries and a car accident (whiplash).  After all of that I am grateful to be healthy and well.  I took these as "wake up calls" to better care for and heal my body.  It's meant (so far) transitioning to a keto lifestyle, which is HUGE if you have Mexican-Puerto Rican heritage, as we eat carbs as a way of life.  I am back in the gym lifting weights, and getting a lot of body work.

Since the car accident my neck, shoulder and wrists have been crunchy and tight, often painful, so I'm all about figuring out ways to address these issues without medication and using movement.

The body thinkers (I made that up just now) that I enjoy reading and listening to are Petra Fisher and Katy Bowman (great podcasts). 

Here's Petra's blog post on the value of hanging for our bodies; we are primates, after all.  So many amazing reasons to hang out from monkey bars or branches.  I've started to incorporate hanging when I do my walking in the park workout, since there are monkey bars.  Because she points out the value of starting where you are, I am hanging with my feet solidly on the ground. I know that my wrists cannot support anything harder right now. Can I say that it feels frigging awesome during and especially afterwards?  My arms, wrists and shoulders feel so good.  Like a yummy free Thai massage session. 

I just noticed that my blog photo is in a playground.  Well, it's kinda perfect.