Yoga: Dos and Don'ts of Downward Facing dog aka Adho Mukha Shvanasana

Teachers vs Students

I have a close friend and teacher who once told me this story:

I was at an Ashram in India once for 8 months where I was still young. We had to attend a certain amount of lectures each day, and every day they would be different. The school would bring in many teachers to give the lectures and this is how the students and teachers there would learn. One day I went to a lecture, and immediately could tell that the lecture would be horrible. The teacher giving the lecture was stumbling over facts, slouching, mumbling, and flat out lying. Students who had attended enough required lectures were leaving. What I noticed next was that all of the people leaving were newer students. Many of the people who I knew as my teachers, and mentors stayed. I decided to stay. At the end of the lecture I went up to one of the teachers who had stayed and asked them why. Why would you stay when the lecture was so horrible? The teacher replied

“It is custom here that even the young are seen as teacher because everyone can teach you something, no matter how old or young. What was it about this speech that was so horrible?”

My friend replied the teacher was slouching and mumbling, and didn’t say anything I didn’t already know.

“Well instead of noticing these things and critiquing take these things and learn. Now you know how not to give a lecture. Learn from this experience and apply it to your life when you give a lecture.”

I had a sponsor once with 25 years clean who loved hanging out with ‘newcomers’ (people who had 30 days or less sobriety). He told me once: Never tune out a newcomer. You will always hear from people with time, but you may not always get the chance to hear for a ‘newcomer’, and they have much to say. Newcomers have taught me just as much as old-timers. They just teach me different things. A newcomer is a stronger reminder to me not to relapse than any old-timer could ever be.

Take time to listen. No matter who it is. You can learn from everyone.

Legs Up The Wall

Flow of the day

Throw back to when I was working at FLYOGI's old location!

Taco Ring Fun Night

Im not sure what you do for fun, but when Tom goes out and its just me and my Mini, we like to GIRLS NIGHT!!! this normally involves eating really greasy foods, watching movies and doing our nails.
Last week during our girls night, we discovered a new way to make tacos thanks to my mama and I absolutely had to share it with you all. See in my family Taco Tuesday is a must, but having tacos every week can be boring, and isn't always healthy so we search for other fun and creative alternatives, such as tacos salads, chicken tacos, soft and heard shell tacos, fish tacos, and the list goes on.  Anyway, this week we discovered the Taco Ring! This my friend puts a whole new spin on Tacos!

Heres what you need:
1 lb ground beef
2 packs of pillsbury crescent rolls
1 packet of taco seasoning
2 cups cheese (or more if you are like us and really like your cheese)
Butter spray (pam)
1/2 cup taco sauce (optional)
8 oz sour cream (optional)

Preheat oven to 375
Cook your ground beef on skillet until brown. If there is excess fat, scoop out with spoon, before moving on.
Add and stir in taco seasoning and cook for about 5 more minutes.
Spray down a cookie sheet with some butter spray (or your favorite non sticker)
Take out crescent rolls and tear apart into triangles, laying them out on cookie sheet in a circle. So all the triangle bases are touching and points are facing out. Then press down around the center of your circle.
Add cheese to your ground beef taco mix, and stir together. Then scoop out your cheesy mixture and put it on crescent tolls where you just pressed down. Make sure you pat it down flat and even all around the circle.
Take each triangle tip from your rolls and fold over the taco meat. Then tuck it under the ring. (I like to sprinkle some more cheese on top at this point)
Now Bake for 20 min or until the rolls have turned a golden brown.

We served ours with taco sauce and sour cream  dipping sauces, and a salad.

The Pelvic Clock Bridge

This exercise (its really a game) can be done many different ways. My personal favorite is done in a bridge because you can get a lot of feed back from the ground. Use this to help you learn how to isolate pelvic movements.

Homemade Apple Pie Filling

Ingredients:

3x 600mls glass jars

6 large apples (if you only want some apples in the filling, then only use 4 apples)

1teaspoon cinnamon

5 cups water

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

1cup corn starch

3 tablespoons lemon juice

2½ cups sugar

1 pot

1 ladle

1 wide mouth funnel

Directions:

Sterilize your jars how you would like, with bigger jars, I like to use the dishwasher just to make sure I can sterilize the entire jar, because most of my pots are not big enough.

Cut out the core of your apples and slice thinly, then put aside until jars are sterilized.

In a large pot, mix sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cornstarch, and water on high heat stirring continuously until it boils. Then let it sit and boil for 1 minute, no more and remove it from the heat.

Add your lemon juice to the pot and stir it in.

Take your apple slices and stuff them down as much as you can into each jar. (I like a lot of apples so I try to stuff as many as I can in, but if you only used 4 apples, then just fill them about ½ way with apples.)

Use a ladle, and funnel to scoop out the contents from the pot (your sauce) into each jar. (Do not fill your jars up past ¼ inch from the top of the jar, or if you freeze them, they will explode!) You can use a smaller spoon to help push the sauce down more into the jars if you over stuffed them like me.

Wipe the edges of your jars and lids and seal them up.

You are all ready for pie making season!!!