Bettina's Profile

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• Yoga, Type 2 Diabetes and Me--A Warning for "Pre Diabetics"!

  February 9, 2013 at 8:34am

  At this writing, l am weighing 78 pounds less than in my youth. About 8 pounds over my goal weight, and a loss of 6 pounds since joining My Yoga.

  So, now, what is the problem?

  I think the yoga, and the pilates. Not cardio enough.

  I think the diet, the SAD but calorie-controlled, flexitarian variety of same: Not South Beach-ish enough ...

  [SAD stands for Standard American Diet ...]

  I know my lifestyle of a lot of environmental noise and vibration pollution where I live and sleep helped engender this problem. The Diabetes range (not quite the lowest border--I tested in at 195 mg/dL, never going through a pre-diabetes phase) was a build-up over a few years. Not totally asymptomatic. But such mild, ignorable symptoms.

  I did not go on the medication (Metformin) right away ... I wanted to try a little experiment.

  So, for what it's worth, my symptoms (suddenly not mild anymore; remember, I had hesitated to take medication by then, but they seemed to be worsening by the day--me having a sore throat, hocking up loads of blood on the side that DID NOT GET tonsilitis ..)

  This turned out to be NOT a mistake by a long shot.

  I did my first yoga practice--an active, lengthy practice, as you may know if you read my blogs--in 3 weeks ... yesterday, a snow day ...

  I caretake an elderly relative in addition to a lengthy commute to a full-time job, that does not pay enough for me to farm out household chores (sad, huh?) . And I have been a cholesterol patient for 17 years, though I never have spoken about THAT ... just because it had been stabilized ...]

  About three weeks ago, within the space of 12 hours, without diabetes meds, I tried yoga as (in my apartment) ... just under an hour was all I could take before my left leg cramped up again and again [it had done that, to a lesser degree, in my pilates mat class, but not enough to disturb the energy of the class], even though I have been much more cross-trained in vinyasa yoga than my cardio of choice which is freeform ecstatic dance -- (yes, deeming 5 Rhythms not cardio enough ...) ...

  Yes, without meds, I ascertained that yoga asana practice would not serve me insomuch as I have been feeling a lot better, most likely due to changes in type of exercise .. I have to be using the largest muscles of my body, in a rapid, repetitive fashion (a.k.a. aerobic or cardio activity). such that it actually causes me to break a sweat ... if I have less than an hour to do that in ... AND - BELIEVE ME, I DO!!

  Seems that highly cardio but low impact dance is my yoga, now ... belly dance full of shimmies, ecstatic freeform dance full of skipping, etc. ...

  {Don't worry; I'd started taking my medication now ... about 2 weeks ago}

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• Back to the Future Self Practice

  January 5, 2013 at 8:32pm

  Got my practice down to 68 minutes. Down from hovering around the 100 min mark all the time. My sequencing is better-

  I will let the pieces fall where they may, as such. Since I meditate again, in order to help me sleep I have more leeway in how I practice vinyasa yoga these days.

  A shorter practice both cross trains me better to the dvds and downloads I have and acts as possible incentive to do it more frequently.

  • 
    floating-drumbeat

    Ahh, my core is burning right now. I can only imagine what might ache once my injured finger gets totally better ...

    5 months ago in New York City, US

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• January 4, 2013 at 7:00pm

  I'd really needed to do my own yoga routine after work, but as it was at work yesterday, I'd banged my finger really bad and it bled and I still had to use the hand keying in for my job. Then, looking at (= viewing without sound) some of the videos on this site that are really in heavy rotation by other MYO members right now, I am seeing shades of having to put an earlier version of my practice into the mix. To keep it at about 70 minutes, tops--WITH the apex pose. Sacrificing leg strength development. I mean, camel pose gives me more than doing a lengthier-held funky version of Sun Salute B in terms of knee rehab ... Mainly trading off some calming effects for time constraints .. I did do yoga last night--my Jonathan Urla Yogilates 3 ... all except the last 8 or 10 minutes (that meant no dancer, no shoulderstand but a LOT of pilates) .. I modify that dvd down to the usual "All Levels" kind of level ... I know what I have to do... Incidentallly, it has been nearly a year since doing that dvd ... and I noticed increased flexibility, grace and balance (the strength was the same in my legs--and where the finger did not get in the way--in my arms; but I had been quite the washout when I'd first got that dvd, about 2-1/2 years ago ...)

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• A Practice fit for a Queen

  December 30, 2012 at 8:24am

  I did my self-sequence again, with the apex pose. I decided that apex poses featuring backbends or early-intermediate arm balances will be in the heaviest rotation. This is because I can approach them, do them, balance somewhat in them, prop intensively for them without compromising my balance ... all the things necessary for self-instruction sans spotter--video/audio or no video/audio.

  I also do not own a bolster, meditation cushions, 3 minute eggs or any fancy apparati because my former body sculpting fitness tools take up too much room-- and I have no room. I will not use a wall to teach myself headstand. I don't have room for the head-through body benches.

  The thing I MUST have is an apex pose. I feel so much better afterwards. Like a great euphoria (and a feeling of being wired for sound and video) that washes over me anywhere from 95 to about 120 minutes after practice is done. Now, I have to get the time down from over 80 minutes again ...

  That may be impossible.

  My neck hurt so much, nearly 20 hours after said last yoga practice. At T + 22, it does not hurt much. Maybe partially a spillover effect of the winter storm that resulted in my skipping pilates class, which may have helped me more. (I do have borderline hyperkyphosis.) So, no Hemalayaa Bollywood dance for me today. It will aggravate the neck. I probably could trace the fleeting neck pain back to the Sethu Bandasana-style transition into Urdhva Dhanurasana .... So, perhaps I will do my Bollywood Boogie routine from amazon Unbox, instead ...

  Other than a couple issues, I am loving my yoga practice.

  • 
    floating-drumbeat

    Yes, I talk about the physical a lot. I find it refreshing to be talking about that BECAUSE I had been a meditation addict for about 7 years--no movement associated with the meditation. But the contemplative nature of my practice does not suffer, because I practice -- of course, down at my own level -- in a contemplative way ... really on the cusp of being parasympathetic and prana inducing ...

    5 months ago in New York City, US

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• December 25, 2012 at 4:21pm

  About to take on the Hemalayaa video from here. But modify it. Have reason to believe it made my knees sensitive to this trouble in the first place. About 90% stabilized right now (or so I told my pilates instructor Saturday--but that had been a dry day) ... I think I could do it. I did 80 minutes of my mostly-yoga practice earlier today. My shoulders are killing me from that practice. Hemalayaa Bollywood dance won't task my shoulders. Ten minute rule, is going to rule this time ... Nothing personal, Hema ... you actually float my boat pose ...!

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• Apex Poses - More than One ?

  December 18, 2012 at 11:32am

  My home self-sequence is over 4 years in the making. I reserve the right to have a shared apex pose if full expression cannot be realized at this time in two poses after 5-1/2 years of regular yoga practice. Too bad I could not keep it down to 75 minutes. Unless I know the rest of the sequence absolutely cold (a rare occurrence; by that time, I'm bored enough to advance and/or tweak)--and I'm not needing to tweak and experiment trial-and-error style.

  That being said, yesterday evening's shared apex pose - a double-billing in flashing lights --was tripod headstand and pendant pose.

  The pendant pose I totally taught myself from books and videos--did not get taught that at my first studio ... they'd never been able to get me into kakasana either. Headstand (classical arms version) had been totally assisted - AND using a wall (against their policy, but there is a very long story on that ...); suffice to say, tripod headstand they were sane about with me ... and never expected much ... at all ...

  I actually do not have the requisite longer upper arm to forearm proportions needed to do justice to the classical arms version without hurting my neck (if that ever comes to fruition)--in fact, my forearms are blatantly a LOT longer than my upper arms.

  If I may say so myself, I do have the tools. I have not been to a live yoga class at a studio or elsewhere since October 9, 2011--and I may never return.

  It's not really personal.

  I'm not sure what I'm gonna do when my discounted class pack for mat pilates runs out LONG before its (generous) expiration date.

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• Full Wheel which I thought I'd Never Be able to Do Ever Again

  December 16, 2012 at 5:52pm

  Not just because my knee pain has vanished for the most part, and my torn meniscus has stabilized.
  Not just because I grokked that my arms had to be in a different position on start for leverage than they had been earlier on (one's body is always, always changing)*
  Not just because of my new sequence with the one apex pose per session (and this time it lasted about 80 minutes--using my intuition, I forgot not to put in some extra standing balancing backbends--knowing that full wheel was the apex pose.
  And not just because I forgot .. a bunch of other things I usually do to prime myself for my practice ... like downing a cuppa or taking a green tea supplement ...

  So, maybe my heart center was feeling especially open.

  Anyway, I really have to rotate apex poses each session. So far, it is turning out that Kakasana is in heaviest rotation so far ... Now, tomorrow I will not have the time for a session on my mat that goes into overtime; so - although I'm not exactly friends with inversions, I did hold shoulderstand for the longest time ever, since doing yoga at the overheated, trendy studio back when there'd still been room for me in their Level 1 class (where I should have stayed even longer--after it was time for me to "move on")--my toes went a little numb, and the preprogrammed music ran out right after I was done with matsyasana - the shoulderstand counterpose - and just starting savasana. Of course, I needed my thick Mexican blanket. Because not only do I not like inversions, including shoulderstand (however, I love plow and viparita)--for the past year and a half of my practice, this queen of poses has been hurting my neck and shoulderblades when I didn't use the prop ...

  ---------

  *Note that in Body by Bethenny, Bethenny countermands one of the guiding alignment principles set forth by Kristin McGee (re. foot position); and has no trouble executing full wheel pose ...
  On that dvd, all I do from it is the 40 minute yoga section and Core Fusion "taster" with Elizabeth Halfpapp and Fred DeVito

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• Yoga for a Short-Torsoed "Curvy" Older Lady

  December 15, 2012 at 2:43pm

  A string of standing balancing backbend "beads" on a Parsvottanasana "chain"

  That is the secret of my self-sequenced practice. Rather than take my body through a vinyasa, I will strengthen my pecs and biceps with the push-ups themselves.

  Speaking as someone 58 years old and not small, overly bendy or thin.

  Although I do have a practice (though not from here) that I downloaded, that has a Camatkarasana "chain" at the height of its sequence programming. (It's not Flowmotion, but it's very similar--supposedly draws from Qi Gong ...) Well, I won't take too well to that practice, for obvious reasons--but I still can learn from it ... and I won't be doing it often since my lower back takes the brunt of it
  

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• Who/What am I Practicing For?

  December 11, 2012 at 7:23am

  I was stuck indoors, waiting for maintenance people who never arrived to fix something in my apartment, just previewing (watching, not practicing along with) videos from on this site; somehow feeling inspired to come up with ideas for my self-sequence--which still contains the higher-order practice of pranayama--but now, a not-so-lengthy savasana. Also could not help but comment on an article from on here (my comment synopsized here):

  'Having eschewed live studio yoga classes well over one year ago (and counting), I never appreciated inconsistency in the intensity of the practice presented ... I am all for repetition..."

  Well, maybe not so much. I will not go so far as to say I am a weaker, older, less athletic version of the typical Ashtangi ... repetition kind of gets you bored real quick in your own self-sequenced practice; if you're anything like me, unless you are practicing yoga nearly every day--which I am NOT--you go not much of anywhere in your practice. The plateau (in yoga) lasts as far as the eye can see, punctuated only by fatigue or injuries already present in one's (householder/worker bee) life.

  The amount of pilates in my (this is a fusion) yoga practice is the least it has been in years.

  I have to feel centered in my practice. Even if the feeling is not so intense.

  So I took the concept of the apex pose, and turned it on its ear, for once.

  Apex pose, better definition than I've seen elsewhere: http://www.acefitness.org/blog/1791/one-thing-leads-to-another-intelligent-sequencing

  In a typical commercial power yoga class, there are actually about four or more apex poses each session--assuming a 90 minute class ... that is TOO much. As a(n) [level-deflated] advanced beginner, it is easy for me to consider padagusthasana, crow, wheel and headstand to each be apex poses. YES, (I am THAT old lady who brings it up to the teacher each time--ask me why I haven't been taking studio yoga classes in well over a year)--and I didn't even include eagle pose (which would be #5 because of what the class does with it) because I am controlling for the effect of having one torn meniscus—now in partial stabilization ...

  I intend to have only one apex pose, which varies each time and practiced up to three times -- but must be more than once. Some more favorite than others. [Inversions--SO not my favorites!] So sue me. My practice: still 73 minutes and I could set my stopwatch by it ...

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• 73 Minutes, Not a Second More

  November 24, 2012 at 9:02pm

  Well, it's been a little over 4 years since a studio (soon to have instructors headlining at Kripalu, but, which for my blogging purposes, shall remain Nameless) had turned my former self-sequenced yoga practice upside the head [no, NOT LITERALLY! I still am not big on inversions--even after all these years and the attempts by only 3 - of several - yoga teachers within that 4 year period, at three different studios each, to grab onto my body parts and hoist them from my one-legged dolphin with my head on the floor--where I'D BEEN PERFECTLY FINE (although there had been some deceptive (though not really to self) dynamism involved there] ...

  Most of the time, the practice had been about an hour and a half or more each session, since then ... and I could not get the duration back down (unless I left a whole bunch of things out due to time-crunch or did SOMEONE ELSE's YOGA via VIDEO/AUDIO -- that ALWAYS worked ...) I was afraid I could not cross-train to the vigorous vinyasa studio ... if I don't cross train, my aging, not very athletic body is sore for 36 hours straight. In the '80s, duration never could trump intensity in home-cross-training with aerobics studio classes - taken a maximum of 2x a week. This time would be different.

  Things got even more interesting after I switch to a throwback old-school (read: mild) yoga studio ... but I still had the workout-practice wherein I could not get the time down.

  Things became super-interesting, even after all live studio classes ceased to exist in my life 14 months ago. My bank account liked it, since I'd had the money now for the occasional conscious dance workshop; and, of course, fairly frequent (but they don't have to be) mat pilates classes (because mat pilates is the only kind of discounted punchboard classes I could get that have a forgiving expiration date--thanks for nothing, NYC yoga-hyping hipsters!).

  And I'd even gotten some dumb luck on my side. I'd won a membership to my yoga--this very site. I had 15 and a half months of online yoga (but I took mostly dance on here) to look forward to back in February ...

  The time kept increasing.

  Until one day ... about 2 weeks ago, I'd decided I'd had enough.

  I am not exactly a beginner at yoga, even though I'd taken beginner-level (level-deflated "beginner" level such as what a highly wannabe trendy vinyasa studio might offer) for well over a year ... long after the time they wanted me to depart for tougher classes to make space for the Groupon-ers and deep-discounted newbie beginner students there ...

  I needed to slightly concentrate the sequence/effects of the practice, so I did ... When I practice more frequently, my balance improves greatly, but not my flexibility any more ... Lopping off 35 minutes of a comprehensive yoga practice is no joke.

  I had to ask myself the one important question: Who/what am I practicing for?

  I have a life which involves caretaking an elderly relative, a lengthy commute to a full time job (one where I have to work among computers always breaking down), loving movies, loving to think and write ... and I know when yoga takes up too much of my time. Some people in my immediate age cohort have retired already; but I have to work, while I still have a job, or I can't eat.

  Most importantly, I'd rather have something intense (not particularly vigorous---but active and intense) for a shorter period of time; it's over that much quicker, and I could get on with my life.

  73 minutes. Not a second more.

  • 
    floating-drumbeat

    I thought I should mention one important thing about live yoga studio yoga in New York City right now: Disconnect is what sells well, unfortunately. So unlike class I took in the 1990's.
    
    Just because I am paying for a yoga class, does not mean I came for the kick-butt "workout". I do that to myself at home for free, because I have infused my primarily-at-home yoga practice with loads of accessible corework ... In pilates, I am a little more Type-A than I am in my yoga ... even now--and that's saying quite a bit--I resisted doing what it took to get the time down [namely, safely getting rid of some restorative/recovery-intensity asana (I still need higher order practices in my session such as meditation and, especially, pranayama], even though my lengthy practices were killing my time management.

    6 months ago in New York City, US

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• My "Arthritis" is actually Torn Meniscus on one knee ...

  July 8, 2012 at 4:10pm

  My pilates teacher thinks so. And over at the pilates studio, they have a background in physical therapy, not aerobics and fitness. So they've seen these things before. Unlike at a yoga studio - wherein I will not name names and where they conducted classes as if in a cult - they asked about injuries before conducting class. In fact, they had an intake form - preexisting conditions, as if they were running a physical therapy clinic. I did my second-ever social buying stint to get a class card for mat classes at that pilates studio at a real discount.

  But, time and money permitting, I will be a customer. They are really concerned ...

  Now I am on this site for pilates, but I do my own pilates as encapsulated in my yoga fusion routine ...
  I can safely say that, what *I* do on my own, is not classical pilates; I conduct my torso in a more STOTT or other revisionist manner with a slight pelvic tilt ... and I incorporate more of an influence of killer calisthenics I picked up at an exercise studio in Miami Beach, back in the day ...

  Let me say this: accidentally this studio seems to embody my "secret" of making pilates really effective --- inadequate air conditioning for the proper practice of that art. Southern exposure, greenhouse effect, and a 96 degree day in Greater New York ....

  I cannot believe the apparatus they introduced us to (well, to ME, anyway) - the owner stated that the class is all one level--"Challenging" ... big foam roller the length of a tall torso, Thera-band and the Magic Circle ...

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• Dancing!

  July 3, 2012 at 8:12am

  I went to the Movie Store and picked up Hemalyaa's Bollywood Party Workout. Around $17.

  Now, THAT, bar none, is now, officially the most cardio DVD I own. And cardio is necessary for me.

  Unfortunately, my arthritic knee likes that one a little less than Bollywood Boogie (also by Hemalayaa) ...
  So, this dance routine won't be in my rotation quite as much. But variety is abounding in this Party Workout.

  So why does this DVD remind me so much of Judi Sheppard Missett's Jazzercise and Marine Jahan's Freedanse—from the lower-impact '80s stuff?

  Maybe because it makes me feel younger ...

  No, that can't be it ...

  Some reviewer on Amazon says she does the Bollywood Party Workout with weighted gloves (not suggested by Hemalayaa, btw) because of all the arm movement.

  I CAN'T, for my part. My arms and shoulders need a break on alternate days from my S.E.A. Change routine, which is heavily, heavily big on the pilates compound pushups. And long holds in dolphin poses. Some nascent arm balances in the mix.

  I'm not what I once was in yoga. But who's comparing?

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