This is especailly true for women as some how, women tend to age faster compared to men in terms of loo. Men for some reason, tend to look better when they age. This is demostrated with those male hollywood stars like Johnny Depp ( I used to like him alot in 21 Jump Street when he was young but I really love him when he got older… so much more! ). Well, stars aside, we ordinary folks also want to look fabulous as we age!

I have been told numerous times that I don’t look my age. I look far younger than I look and always surprised people when I revealed my age. Secret? Well, there are a few "secrets" that I believe in :

1. Use sunblock! That is my number one must do before I step out of the house. This is one scientific fact that has been proven by dermatologist all over the world that we really need to keep the sun out! Above SPF 15 please! Currently I am using SPF50… better to be very safe then sorry…

2. Yoga of course! One of the most importance thing that I do to keep me youthful is of course yoga! I strongly recommend doing inversions as one of the best way to stay young as in our normal day to day  life, we hardly have any chance to allow blood to flow towards our head and face area. Headstands and handstands and even the simple downward dog are terrific way to keep our skin radiant.

3. Then comes what we eat and drink. Do you know that sugar or rather processed food is the number one enemy of premature aging? So think twice before you sink your teeth into sweet things like doughnuts, sweets, cakes etc. But then again who can resist? I for one, will still indulge in some sweets once a while…. but of course, not everyday!

4. Then we need to good facial products to upkeep our fragile skin on our face. Depending on your skin type, always choose those products that are suitable and if possible go for natural products. I tried to use those products from normal shops like Watsons from brandnames like Loreal, Garnier and Olay, but somehow my skin hates them as they are pretty oily they feel heavy on my skin. I am especially adverse to loreal products as using them often causes "oil" sacs on my face! Anyway, I have already given up on using these products.

However, recently I discovered this particular cream from the US which seems to be working well for me. It smells funny ( probably due to the content of Alpha Lipoic and DMAE )  and look like those light brown foundation cream but once you use it, you know that it works! A tiny dab each to the cheecks and forehead is more than enough. The skin feels firmer and softer in an instant. I love it! But remember a little goes a long way! I was greedy once and use alot on my neck and there was some redness as a result of that ( coupled with a few sprays of perfume which chemically spell bad news ).  Plus, its pretty cheap!

This cream is by Derma E : DMAE Alpha-Lipoic-C-Ester Retexturizing Creme

So far I give it a thumbs up as it is working for my skin ( firming and moisturing + anti-aging all in one bottle) and it does not cause any oil sacs. The only thing to note is not to use too much of it at one go. I bought mine here with the discount coupon HEW497 to get $5 off your first order.

5. Finally the most important thing I do every single without fail is to drink lots of water! Water is so important to flush out all the toxins of the water as well as to keep our skin supple. In fact, the less you drink water, the more your body tends to retain the water. Your skin will look clearer and more radiant if you drink water to help the body detox.

Yup. Notheless, I am trying to get back into practicing by starting 1-3-5 morning yoga practice of sun salutations plus a mix of yoga asanas as a start to get myself back to consistent practice.

It was not easy… so it shows that I lacked the discipline to practice on my own. But I tried… sometimes just basic sun salutations. At times just do a simple stretch, a simple twist , then perhaps a few handstands. Plus I did do my headstand for as long as I could.

Not very proud of the progress though. But I guess some is better than none. I even woke up early one morning and went for a jog. And the following week another jog. I hoped that I can increase my jogging eventually to at least 3 times a week with 2 sessions of yoga at home ( Ashtanga combi with inversions ). Ambitious? Likely… In fact, even though I stop exercising, I have not gained weight but in fact, lost 2 kgs due to stress at work.

But I think no matter what, I take exercising to be quite an important part of my life that I must work on in order to keep fit and stay healthy!

Wish me luck!

Namaste! ( yes, I still do my anusara chanting at every chance I’ve got! )

Grabbed a nice workout bra at only $38! Oh Joy! Perfect for jogging and rock climbing… ( until I lose another 5 kg…this will stay under my trusty racerback T )

Another major thing happening is that I have given up my membership at the local yoga studio ( getting commercialized and charging quite extorbitant prices… especially when the yoga classes I enjoyed were not as many as before… and no Anusara yoga! ARGGGGGHHHHH… talk about bias…. anyway I really hope that studio do not just focus on getting new members in and forgotten about loyal fiercely devoted practioners of yoga… this is one niche market that no one is really focusing on!!! Don’t they know that eventually, the massive numbers of beginners are going to get more advanced, more experienced and need better teachers?? Also moving into deeper practices that involve meditation, pranayama and more? )

Ah… the sad state of yoga in Singapore is as such.

Meanwhile, once my membership ends on 10 jan…. I will be "lost"… I’ll have to figure out and plan my own yoga practice. Perhaps this is a good thing! I am planning to add at least 2 jogging sessions per week for myself to keep fit ( hence the workout bra ) on top of daily mini yoga practices. Perhaps 2 days of Ashtanga Primary series on 2 weekdays. And a fab chance for me to turn my time table around from a night owl to a morning person!!!

PLUS I also hope to join Bo and Shirley in their anusara yoga classes when they are back from India ( I need you guys!!!! ). Please do visit their website and support them. They are wonderful teachers, kind ( almost too kind & nice that others often bully them… ) , giving, loyal, fearless, selfless, always forgiving,fun, beautiful yogis – their website : http://www.spandananda.com

Namaste!

Think about it.

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.

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The thing that every one does without fail that I am talking about is locking your house before you leave. Now don’t tell me you don’t lock your house!

So why do we lock our houses before we leave? You probably go "DUH… because we don’t want other people to enter the house! " Yes, indeed, we lock our houses before we go out to keep our precious and valuable things in the house safe.

In a similar way, locking our bandhas in our body is also a way to "lock" our precious energy in us and not let it "disperse" out of us. That’s what happened when you don’t lock your bandhas… your energy disperses and is gone before you know it. Hence the we are unable to "float" in arm balances, jump throughs and inversions.

I have so much more to learn about pranayama and bandhas. Seriously, these are very very important in the yoga practices if you want to take your practice a step further once you have the physical fundamentals covered.

Plus the attitude and mentality are also crucial and not to be dismissed. In fact the first few chapters of Patanjali’s yoga sutra talks about the importance placed on a person’s attitude towards life and society, beyond physical practices (Charat pointed these out today in class). Any wonder then why Anusara yoga practice emphasize so much on "Attitude"? =)

First, one must be friendly to everyone in your life, never be jealous or otherwise. Second, one must empathise with those with less or is going through hardship, pray for the person in need or do whatever you can for that person. Third, one must give blessings and help those who are on their path to divinity ( whatever path they choose ), be happy for them. Fourth, if one knows that a certain person is out to harm you, do not fight back. Instead choose to distance yourself from such person. If they confront you, just say "Namaste", smile and move away. Never fight or allow them to do harm to you.

( forgive me if my interpretation is not perfect of Patanjali’s book – download a copy and read it yourself and tell me what you think )

PS. Gosh… I have 27k spam comments… *rolls eyes*

This time, he wanted us to think of the variation in the yoga poses that we take as the action we take to make ourselves happy.

More often than not, people often think of variations of a pose as a lesser pose, in other words, "poorer" or "lesser". To many practitioners, if you do an easier variation, you are weaker and not so good. Don’t blame yourself if you do think that way. Many of us do that.

We think that if we do the easier variation, we are weaker, we are not as good as those who can do the super hard poses. And similarly many of us who can do the "advanced" poses, many times, we feel proud and with time, our egos grow as well. And so much so that our basic yoga poses tend to suffer as a result.

But looking from Charat’s angle, yoga variations are viewed differently. Yoga variations are now ways that we make ourselves happy, our body happy. Why struggle in the hard poses? Why scrunch our faces in torture in the hard poses? Take the variations that we are comfortable with and progress with that. Do yoga with ease, grace and happiness. Yoga when expressed with happiness and grace is truly beautiful and inspiring.

~Namaste

*PS. Keeping my fingers crossed that I can wake up early for Ashtanga class on Tuesday

Is that why Hot yoga is very popular with most people? All intense work outs that just push you physically relentlessly? Your body probably feels good after such a “workout” and then that feeling probably goes off in an hour or so… and then what? The very next day, you rush to another class to workout and get that rush of endorphins, a temporary high.

Yoga is not only about the body. We all know that. But how many of us practice the yoga of the mind too? Yes, we do try to connect to our body but that is just one small part of the practice – on the mat. What about off the mat? I think that is even more important than being able to do a perfect pigeon (sure it’s a most satisfying feeling when you are able to do it finally – and then what… ? ). So what if you can do all the poses and yet you behaved as if the whole world owes you or you are so selfish and inconsiderate that you step all over other people’s mats?

It’s pretty amazing to learn how yoga can be used as a parallel to your life. During Bo’s Anusara class yesterday , he shared an important lesson. Life is not one straight road. Rather it is much like a “yard sale” – with aplenty of objects all over the yard – this is analogy of the distractions in life.

So we need to be able to overcome the distractions and refocus back to your center – on the mat as well as in our life. How do we do that? We practice and be aware! Imagine if I have just kept practicing yoga without thinking or reflections, with no one to enlighten or “seed” the thought, I would not have grown myself internally, mentally. ( Another excellent way to grow our minds is to read and I don’t mean main stream novels…. but books that get you to think. )

Ultimately, it is what we think that determines exactly what we do – we can choose happy thought or sad thought despite whatever happen as with an enlightened mind, we are able to choose to observe our emotions, not to react to our emotions and then choose the best reaction to whatever happens.

Hmm.. anyone understood what I’ve just said? Haha…

Maybe an example can help… imagine you are on a train and a man and his son sat besides you. Then the man’s son started to make a lot of noise, irritating everyone around him while the man just sat there without doing anything to stop the son or calm him down. Probably at this point of time, if you are tired after working the entire day, you would feel irritated, angry at that man for not controlling his son. Totally pissed and angry, boiling inside, you probably shouted angrily to the man “Hey, can you please control your son and quiet him down? So inconsiderate!” ( perhaps an even stronger term? ) This is what most of us do… we react to our emotion and react to the emotion.

What if then the man turned to you with a sad and forlorn face, and say apologetically “I’m very sorry…. my wife just died hours ago and my son is missing his mother… ” ? Is there a change in what you feel now?

What do you think?

~Namaste

During our menstrual cycle, it is advised that we rest! DUH… however, I have noticed that many women ( including me… guilty as charged sometimes ) are still going for tough yoga classes. However, I do notice that doing some easy yoga like restorative yoga and certain light hatha yoga is very helpful in keeping those cramps at bay as well as helping me feel less uneasy on the tummy.

However, there are some poses that you should avoid ( especially during your heavy flow ) :
1. Any inversions.
Headstand – OUT
Handstand – OUT
Shoulderstand – OUT
Forearm Balance – OUT
….
Generally any pose that has the pelvic area below above the head is not to be performed.

2. Any pose that require strong twisting on the stomach area.

3. Kapalbhati or any breathing exercises that require you to contract stomach muscles are to be avoided as well.

If you have menstrual cramps, heavy bleeding, pelvic discomfort, do try out some of these poses :
1. Reclined Bound Angle Pose (Supta Baddha Konasana)

2. Supported Open Angle Pose (Salamba Upavistha Konasana)

3. Child’s Pose (Balasana)

4. Seated Forward Bend (Paschimottanasana)

5. Lying Knee to Chest Twist ( light twist )

You can use blankets and bolsters to support yourself on your lower back to relax and gently open the lower belly and pelvic floor and womb area when resting.

The best pose? Just rest….

He’s funny too! Just delightful!

www.yogajournal.com/video/112?utm_source=MyYogaJournal&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=myj_361

The amazing thing, the class is over 800 people!

PS. I gotta transcribe this!

Especially when the person chanting has a beautiful voice. It is soothing, calming and captivating.

When you chant at the beginning of a yoga practice, you are setting the intention of your practice. I always feel calm and at peace when I do a chant at the beginning of my practice.

In the studio where I practice (very commercialized), most teachers do not do any chants. Probably due to the fact that some students there are not comfortable with the chants. They are of other religious groups that may deem yoga and the chanting inappropriate for their followers.

True or not, I am not sure. But I am of the mindset that as long as the intention is good for the common good and for peace, whether the language used is English, Chinese, Malay or Sanskrit, it does not matter to me. It’s like watching a program on TV with a different language translated, as in the case of a fan of Korean serials like my friend. To her, watching a Korean serial in the original soundtrack with no voice over is way way way better. She rather read the transcript off the tv. So in the similar sense, chanting in the original Sanskrit language captures the “feel” more than if you were to chant in other languages. But do know what you are chanting as it brings more meaning to you when you chant them.

Here’s an article by Yoga Journal that gives a run down on the chanting basics :

www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/841

Actually I am a terrible singer and I used to hate chanting. I have no way of sounding like an angel. Then I started to do my Anusara Chant on my own everyday as I go for my yoga classes. Plus it is a way for me to remember the chant as I have poor memory.

Listening to beautiful chants by wonderful voices of Krishna Das, Jai Uttalare uplifting and moving. They bring the chants to another level. Their voices are rich, powerful and emotionally charged such that you can feel them as you listen to them.

So, every time I don’t feel so good or just upset, I listen to them to clear my mind, find peace within and lift my spirits. It works every time!

~Namaste!

This is taken as is from what my friend wrote :

Lately I got a forward email from my sister.
It’s a column in Thai magazine written about the story of Ajahn* Chah’s** disciple named Ajahn Prom.
And here’s the story goes.
Few years ago, Ajahn Prom was building a new temple in Perth, Australia. A lot of money was spent to acquire a land at the most peaceful location that he had very little money left to complete the construction work.
Therefore, he needed to do some part of the work by himself, including building a\the temple’s wall. He was dedicated to build the finest and most beautiful wall and tried hard to make it a master piece. The work progressed slowly yet he eventually finished his job.
Then, His eyes scanned through the big beautiful hand-made wall. He felt so the proud of his delicate job till he found out that there were “the two ugly bricks” that did not align well with the rest of the wall. This made him so unhappy. He wanted to destroy the wall and started all the work over but the master did not allow him to do so. Ever since then, every times he passed that wall, he always saw “the two ugly bricks”. One day he needed to walk a group of people around temple to show them all the area. When they stopped close to the wall, every body was so impressed with such a delicate hand-made wall.
Ajahn Prom thought they were kidding. So he asked them back “Have not you seen the two ugly brick on that wall?” “Yes” they replied but I saw 9,998 well-aligned bricks at the same time and just two bricks that were not placed properly, so “what was the matter?” “The wall still look so beautiful, isn’t it?” Ajahn Prom scanned through it again, up, down, right and left….and finally he replied them “YES”.
This was the first time in three months that he saw the true beauty of that wall. “When our mind opens, we see real self” Now a day, he could not even find where “The two ugly bricks” on that wall were.
In our yoga practice as well, sometimes, we tend to see only “Two ugly bricks” a.ka. our bad alignments. Oh!! my hips were twisted, my knees were not align well… blah blah blah…
Instead of feel happy with our practice, we only feel unsatisfied with ourselves. We tend to see only “What our weakness is…” and do not try that to correct it. The Worst is, sometimes we (a.ka. me…knotty) even try to use it as an excuse not to practice some of the hard postures. For example, I can not do arm balance posture because I had so weak arm…I will never be ever strong enough to do that posture in my life. Finally, I feel unhappy with my practice.
C’mon guys, the truth is, no body’s perfect, that’s why we need to practice yoga. Even the most perfect posture performed by the best guru…”I am quite sure that we can find something wrong with his alignment if we want to do it! Honestly, I used to see the picture of swami vishnudevananda, the great yoga guru and thought that…his alignment is not good…how notti I am….:P
Nevertheless, the aimed of the practice is to bring back balance to your mind and your body,
to balance strength and flexibility and to balance all emotion….and the most important thing is that “We should feel happy with ourselves”. What I try to say, in case you get confused, is “We all have two bricks inside” but do not let it becomes a “Distraction” in your practice and do not use it as an excuse not to try any posture. Try to use it to realign your mind and body and appreciate the thing we had. Not only in the small space in yoga mat, even in our relationships, friends, wife, husband and family, try not to two see only two ugly bricks inside them. So many people break up or loose their best friends just because of two ugly bricks. Do not let it distract you. There are so many things inside them that they are lot far better than that those two ugly bricks.
Finally, what I would like to say is “The art of living life is not to find the perfection in everything but to see the beauty in imperfection as the way that it is” Beauty belong to the eyes of beholder…so make sure you are the right beholder of your self:D
Namaste,
KNOTY
26/2/09
Singapore
Ajahn* means “teacher” in THAI language.
** Ajahn Chah (1918-1992) is a highly revered and influential Thai Buddhist monk.

Sometimes after a long time of practicing yoga, people may get caught up with the “physical” part of yoga. They get agitated when they cannot do a certain pose or when they see others can do but they cannot… they get hung up on getting the perfect pose or they get obsessed with a certain pose that they miss the whole “picture”.

I get lost sometimes too. It’s hard not to when you are practicing in a community when people tends to look and judge. But at the end of the day, it’s how you think that really matters.

We cannot control many things in our world. Things are beyond our control. We cannot stop rain, we cannot stop the bad things from happening and we cannot stop what other people think ( <– very important — so no point getting upset at what others think or say! )
But the good news is that we can control is our mind!

That is the only thing in the world that we can truly control.

If you choose to focus on the “ugly” part of things, then you are making yourself unhappy and probably those around you too!

However, if you choose to concentrate on the “beauty” the big picture, then you will be much happier and people around you will feel the joy too! I know it’s true and the feeling is so much more constructive and these positive energy will bring out the best in you and others too.

You are what you think…

Namaste!

PS. I am thinking how to climb Mt Ophir this weekend! Woo hoo!