Blakely, my boss and friend from JB and Me, and I cooked a vegan meal and fed it to the yoga instructors for Yoga Festival this year. It was amazing to see such a different mentality of people wandering around in an almost eerily calm manner. However, I was intrigued and because we got paid with a free pass, Blakely and I set out to harness some chi.
First stop after a week of 15 hour days with each other was the ever-fitting class called, "Feed Your Demons." Now, you are thinking, " what??? You catered a bunch of demons?" Well, no. We learned a very ancient Tibetan way of conquering your fears, worries, addictions, stresses, and on and on. And the way you do this is by acknowledging their presence instead of fighting them. We were very interested until I began to feel those 15 hour days, so we booked it to this other yoga class taught by this woman, Amy Ipollini (see link), who was so wonderfully down to earth and teaches yoga in what I felt was the hope of body detoxification.
http://wildspirityoga.com/
*Just as a side note, I learned that yogis are vegetarian/vegan because when they do inversions, it is much easier on a veggie stomach then when filled with meat. How do you like that all you Paleo people? Don't worry, I am not converted and that is mostly because I was not meant to go upside down.
Anyway, the point of this story is that behind all the oms and such and calming and tranquility, there is this nitty gritty amazing thing going on with all of these movements your are doing. It is not just about flexibility and balance and stretching, those are just side effects. It is about detoxifying. Amy teaches from the Anusara, which revolves around the heart and many other things, however, the method she teaches involves a variety of twisting poses and others that essentially "massage" your organs. If your body is rid of bad toxins, then your heart is healthy and open.
By the end of the class we talked about poop, one of the best subjects to meet lifelong friends. (I have a few). Basically, Amy informed us that if we do not go to the bathroom after every meal, we are constipated. It makes sense right? You eat breakfast and then you eat lunch and dinner and say, you are an evening pooper, all of that food from the day has been sitting inside you. EWW.
Here is your homework: watch your bowel movements for a few days. Think about how often you go, what your stool looks like and if you wipe, is it clean? Your poop should be clean and floating and should not be messy. It's like looking in the fridge, you can tell a lot about a person by what they eat. (I know the detail seems grotesque, but it is a part of health and wellness.)
POOP on my friends and while you're at it, come on baby, do the twist!!
