HeavyWeight Yoga with Abby Lentz

Tis the Sprinkle Season

This time of year with all the demands of the holidays it’s often hard to find the time to be on mat. That makes this a great time to sprinkle yoga throughout your day.  Stretching at the desk, holding a posture in front of the coffee pot or my very favorite, practicing Tadasana when standing in a line (without the arms of course).

Looking for these off the mat opportunities can turn empty time into yoga time and ease whatever your task. I’ve a list of postures that can be integrated at the office (Download Office Yoga) and don’t forget to add deep belly breathing whenever stressful situations pop up. Yoga’s not just for mat time, but for any time at all.

Percentages

Today it’s 8 weeks since my surgery. Decades ago when President Johnson showed off his scar there was quite the outcry. But in 1966 I was just a senior at Great Mills High School. I’m afraid I didn’t give him as much thought as I later would. For then I was more concerned about other important things, like homework, my boyfriend and having a good hair day. Now after this surgery I find myself totally getting IT. If you’ve seen me lately, you know what IT is — that strange desire to show off one’s wounds. (Remember that scene in Lethal Weapon 3 when Mel Gibson and Rene Russo compare injuries? So it’s not just me and LBJ.)

For me it seems to represent not just what I’ve gone through, but how miraculous our bodies are — what they are capable of doing. No matter where you are in life's cycle, you can heal. I’m beginning to think of my body’s scars, wrinkles, and gray hair more like life lines — signposts if you will.

Little Things

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been home from the hospital 3 weeks today. I had great ambition, thinking how much I’d be getting done — more blogging, cleaning closets and drawers,  unlimited chatting with friends and family. Whoa, as you can see from this date, I couldn’t have been more wrong about how I would be spending my “free” time!

Nothing like having something large in your life to help you realize how precious the little things can be. A little thing — like taking a step without limping or waddling. Little thing — like using the bathroom without any help. Little thing — like driving the car to get my legs waxed. Little thing — like sleeping 5 hours straight through.

This list could go on and on, but then there’s the list of things that came from all of you. The emails, cards and calls. The flowers and food, food, food. The prayers and fulfilled promises of rides and cleaning and general help around my home and office. People stepping up and filling in my life.

HeartFelt Healing: Hip, hip, hooray!

 This week's surgery to replace my hip has been a great success. I am doing pool therapy at the hospital and loving it! Imagine being able to walk on a treadmill in a warm pool. Then there's all the flowers...

Tomorrow (Monday) I come home to my beloved studio and the heart of my practice: Sharing the love and inspiration with all of you who make my life as a yoga teacher such an everyday joy.

Thank you so much for your affection, awareness and acceptance of my first step back into my teaching and my practice. I will remain in touch with you and keep you updated on my rehabilitation process, plus what I'm learning from this lesson that life has given me to practice off the mat.

My husband Ron has been updating some of you on my progress, with a lot of details. But the important message is that I am healing and receiving all of your love.

In the meantime, I invite you to honor yourself and your practice of HeavyWeight Yoga with a copy of my DVD, available on my Web site or through Amazon.com.

Lists

Growing up on Saturday mornings, after we kids had our fill of sugary cereal and cartoons, waiting on the  dining room table would be small pieces of paper — our lists of chores for the day. Handwritten by our mother, these lists flagged that the fun was now over and it was time to get to work and do our part.

It’s human nature for us to make lists. In general we love to create lists, they help us organize, motivate and just let us to get a grasp on things. Lists are a way to winnow down lots of stuff into manageable stacks that allow us to think more clearly.

So imagine my surprise to be on a list that includes the Hula Hoop and the WiiFit; a city, San Francisco, and a state, Colorado; songs from Rihanna — hey don’t ask me, I know more Cole Porter and Gershwin lyrics than anything performed today — and
a vitamin, D.

Synergy

When the whole is greater than the sum of the parts describes the state of synergy. It’s a situation where the outcome of items coming together to create a single event that’s greater than all of the parts added together as single items. It’s science so there’s all kinds of other technical ways to describe synergy, but yesterday for me it all came together simply with my interview with Daryn Kagan.
     Daryn is a former CNN anchor who's been running a "good news" Web site for years now.  Several weeks ago she called on my cell phone that was set up on speaker mode. I sat in front of a camera and answered her questions while we chatted on the phone. It’s a great way to be interviewed spontaneously, yet not be in the same room.

Receiving the stretch

Often when on the mat rewarding our feet with a “point, demi-point, flex” (you know —ballet slipper, high high heel, earth shoe) I remind us that it’s not about the number of repetitions, but about the foot being able to receive the stretches. It can be like that off the mat as well, especially when on trips. Rushing, filling in every moment with lots to do, but not really being able to enjoy what we’re doing.

Over this past weekend Ron and I went to Corpus Christi to celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary at the SunSpree in North Padre Island. You might ask if we went to the Texas State Aquarium, or did we tour the Lexington? Did we visit any of the many parks, the Wildlife Refuge or even go shopping at downtown Corpus Christi? So many items on the Must See, Must Do lists.

Realize that dream

How do you thank people for helping to make a dream come true? How to express enough gratitude to those who unselfishly gave of their time, talent and in this case their stories and images?

Last month 15 women came to a Photo Party to help me realize an idea that was only 10 days earlier a concept on my journal pages. Without their help and inspiration the Change the Image of Yoga project would still only be an idea in my head.

I have long thought of myself as a facilitator. I love to create new things and make them happen — however most of my ideas just lie dormant to be blown away by common sense. But every once in awhile, something takes root and comes to be.

My first husband, Bob, and I came to Austin to start a business in 1977. I’ve been involved with many friends to help them get business and personal goals off the page and into the real world. In my former career in computer publishing I founded two magazines for others, AutoCAD World and MicroStation Manger. Ron and I started our publication, The 3000 NewsWire, over 13 years ago and it continues to prosper as a blog with quarterly print issues. Becoming a yoga teacher was a dream come true in 2004 when I was 56.

It's a Small World Afterall

With the internet the world seems be to shrinking and expanding all at the same time. I grew up in a very small town in Maryland, Tall Timbers, where only 35 lived year round at the time. It's a beautiful place on the Potomac River so most of the houses were built to be summer retreats and not for full time residents. We were lucky however, my dad was a tugboat captain so we lived there year round. He pushed oil barges up to D.C. and back again to get the winter fuel to the big city.

Now, in D. C. thanks to the closeness of the internet an internal communications advisor at the British Embassy contacted me about reprinting my 12-Secrets to Practice Yoga in the Office article for their wellness newsletter. It first appeared in the always thoughtful  and funny Elastic Waist .  He works just blocks away from my first home away from home after high school when I moved to Washington to become a telephone operator. Yes, it was 1967 and I held and matched cords to flashing lights, but that's another long story. He also asked me to sent a note on the benefits of yoga. Here's my reply:

Red Lights

Driving to class last night, I found myself at a long red light. A quick glance to my left, and I noticed that the other driver was taking this time to get her cigarette going. Watching her light up I was reminded as to my observations on smoking.

I was very fortunate — I grew up in a household with a smoker. My mother loved her Kool cigarettes. We kids, all 5, hated how dirty they were and how they smelled, not to mention they seemed to take her attention away from us. Even as we got older and smoking became “cool” for our age groups, none of us picked up the habit. (Of course, we all picked up the ice cream habit, but that would be for another entry.)

In her defense, my mother grew up in a time when everyone smoked. It was not only acceptable, but sexy. Who could forget Paul Henreid’s “Shall we have a cigarette on it?” proposal to Bette Davis at the end of Now Voyager? Smoking was reinforced everywhere back then, even by doctors.

Taking smoking apart, I believe that under the nicotine addiction, there’s deep belly breathing that’s so attractive.