Hot Journey x Leap of faith

your mind is everything, what you think you become

I've been meaning to write a post on my completion of 30 days hot journey & here goes. Right from the start, I was pretty determined to complete my challenge and 3 days ago, my last morning 7am class came. This journey has left a huge attachment on me and waking up on Thursday morning, I felt as though something was missing, I needed my mat! I've began to love yoga even more, the people around me, the teachers and every beads of sweat. I miss pasting color dots against my name.

Through the journey, here's what I felt taught my most:

1. Planning ahead

Scheduling yoga classes ahead of time has became part of my routine. I always plan 3-5 days in advance. If I'm expecting to be hanging out after work, I had to double up on weekends / do morning classes. Carrying yoga gears around with me to work has also began to become a norm & these will continue even for now :)

2. Waking up at 535am 

Not that I can do that daily! I never thought I can get myself out of the bed this early to get moving on the mat. After sometime, I kinda enjoy taking the train at wee hours with lesser crowd (now im hating the 8am crowd), bathing at 8am after some morning sweat out, grabbing my cup of coffee & bread for breakfast and then slowly settling down at my office hot desk to kick start my days. Most days like this, I do feel more cheerful and energized!

3. Dualities: Struggling and going beyond

It's OK to be struggling. When life gives you lemon, you make lemonade out of it right? :) Not all days you feel good. Some days you just want to get it over and done. But someday you get all hyped up and just go beyond, beyond your body capabilities. 

4. Eating habits 

After a good yoga practice, all you want to do restore your body healthily. It's so funny how this fixes your eating habits. You find yourself craving for healthier food, not junk, not processed. Why would you want to inject fries & coke right into your body? At least not right after class! But with that say, I've also been overspending.. on food! because I've been eating out so much more. It's time to work on more home prep food!

5. The value of support
I read Tara's value of support post few days back and today, I realized the importance of it. In my 3rd practice, I was pretty tired and drained. At full locust pose, I was struggling to lift my whole body up when suddenly my dear friend beside me held my hands and we both went higher up together. When we support we are connected.

If you have the opportunity, I'd encourage you to take a 30 days class. You'll find in it so much joy and love for yoga. Join me with this now! :)

Do good, feel good

ooohh, finally weekends again!

In a blink of an eye, I'm left with 4 classes out of my 30 days journey. So fast?!?! To be honest, I kinda lost track on my journey records in my little notebook because I've been so caught up with work lately. Just in summary, I try to attempt 7am class once a week on weekdays and usually do the rest after work. I take break on alternate days if I'm tired and double up on weekends.

Class 22 (Tuesday)
- 7AM Hot Hatha - R

Class 23 (Wednesday)
- 630PM Hot Flow - R

Class 24 (Friday)
- 7AM Hot Hatha - R

Class 25&26 (Saturday)
- 930AM Hot Flow - O
- 11AM YIN - O

Between class 15 and 22, just passing the halfway mark, my body began to show signs of fatigue and soreness + laziness. In some way, I also felt my practice seems to be a little stagnant, and I don't attempt to go deeper in the pose. It could be due to the sudden high demand of practices. So this week, I planned my schedule well and took rest on Monday & Thursday. It's important to take time to honor signals of your body and try to get plenty of rest, H20, sleep and nourishment.

To be honest, I prefer the Orchard studio to Raffles but because Raffles is nearer to my office, I usually do there during the weekdays. Anyway, this week is the last week of my challenge and the themeeee is.. Triumph :) Perfect because it's a hit on and I'm so proud to have completed the past 26 classes and another 4 would be nothing. I felt like I'm going to miss the journey so much already haha.

Life in mini boxes lately:

1. With my colleagues at our company event at butter factory last Friday.
2. Lunch at Toss & Turn with my dearest new yogi friend, Priscilla after our practice. Such a babe :)
3. Dinner catch-up with Sammi & Jack, 2 person I'm so glad to have met in my life. And of cause their baby Kagennnnnnnnnn!
4. Lovely cakes at Lady M - perfect sweet treat to end on a Friday.

I'm so unprepared for my 10km SHAPE run tomorrow!!!! I haven't been running for a long time. Praying for good weather tomorrow morning.

I'm baking some granola from scratch. Gonna check it out now xx

Have a lovely weekends! :)

Sunday x Nylon Coffee Roasters

The number of brunch cafe & coffee chain continues to grow in Singapore. After our brunch at The Plain on Sunday, Jack suggested to bring me to Nylon Coffee Roasters for a mid-day cup. Located under a what seems like deserted heartland residential building at Everton Park, with only about 3-4 seats, not much standing space and limited items on the menu, I wondered who would make their way down specially.

I looked interestingly at the lady who was making our cups with lots of passion and when I took my first sip, I'm truly surprised by the quality of the coffee. Very good. No wonder my boyf speaks so much about it and loves their roasted beans so much.

If you're a coffee lover, you should take some time out and make your way there! :)

Nylon Coffee Roasters
4 Everton Park
#01-40 Singapore

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 So just a little update on my 30 days challenge. I'm half way through the journey today :D gosh, I wondered how I made it through the past 15 days.

Class 12 & 13 (Saturday)
- 11AM Yin - O
- 1230PM Hot Hatha - O

Class 14 (Sunday)
- 11AM Hot Hom - O

Class 15 (Tuesday)
- 1030AM Hot Hom - O

1. Saturday's Yin was all about exercising the tissues of our body, where we stretch connective tissues by holding in yin poses for a long time. I reckon it would be great to take a break from hot classes and enjoy some stretching. But boy, I was wrong.. the class was so much more challenging as compared to the very first time I took about a month ago. It wasn't easy holding in extended poses and I was kinda struggling!! My muscles were all tight from the sudden intensive classes and I was nothing but so glad when the class ended lol.

2. It won't always feel good. yeah, this is the first time I'm feelin' this after 14 classes today. I was pretty tired in class (even though I was well-rested) and felt lazy to move. Wanted to do 2 classes since it was PH but decided not. Always listen to the body. Treated myself to Sumo Salad & fruit juice after which. It's important to keep my energy level and body high up with good, nutritious food :)

So good not to be working on a weekday :) Happy mid-week in abit!

Day 9, 10, 11 - Reconnecting

Class 9 (Wednesday)
- 630PM Hot Hom - R

Class 10 & 11 (Friday)
- 430PM Hot Ashtangah - O
- 530PM Hot Flow - O

I'm one-third through the journey! :) Amazing how time flies and I'm lovin every single bit of this. I'm exactly on track and we're done with Week 1.

Week 1's journey theme was Presence. Finding presence is at the heart of all yogic practices and essential for living a happy, fulfilled and enjoyable life. In these 10 days, I've came to learn to find ease and reconnecting with my body. I am pretty flexible by nature so it wasn't hard for me to get myself into stretching poses but anything else, like balancing, arm strength poses still requires so much more practices. With my recent regular practice and right breathing control, I found that my body gets into poses more intuitively itself without being forced. Example, I couldn't even used to hold a crow pose for more than 1 seconds when I first attemped 1 month ago, but now I can even hold up to 10 or more seconds :)

Anyway, I had to cancel my class soooooooooooo last minute yesterday evening because I was called back for a meeting. Thankfully we had family day today and get to leave at 4pm :) Hot Flow with Lily was crazily tiring, so much vinyasa but I was stoked to get to learn challenging poses from her. We played around with crow and headstand variations and I've so much to improved on. always a wip.

More flow to come!

So it's Day 12 and 13 tomorrow & meeting the busyboy finally!! :)

Till then, have a great weekend!

Day 8/30: Sore

 

Class 4 & 5 (Saturday)
- 4PM Hot Ashtangah
- 5PM Hot Hatha

Class 6 & 7 (Sunday)
- 2PM Vinyasa  (75m)
- 330PM Hot Hatha (90m)

Class 8 (Tuesday)
- 7AM Hot Hatha

I doubled up my practice over the weekends and took 2 classes each day. Ran late for Saturday first class and was so annoyed with myself (for being late), with the bus (for moving so slowly), with the cars (for causing jam) and I had to miss the 230pm class. But my spare hour gave me an excuse to get myself a smoothie king to cool myself down, then I thought 'hey why so mad :)' Anyway, it was my first Hot Ashtangah with Hom and I pretty much enjoyed it! We get to play around with more challenging poses like headstands during class, which I literally flipped into wheel pose because I couldn't balance on head and forearms. thump. haha I was a little embarrassed though but Anton turned and signalled it's ok.

Sunday was intensive because in all, I did 2 hours 45 minutes of yoga in a day. That could have been the most I've ever done in my entire life and my arms were sore from all the Chaturangah flow & I couldn't sleep on my sides that night haha. But I was happy because I managed to do my first forearm stand (with the help of mirror wall of course!) I still remembered the very first time I was challenged to do this, I thought it was crazy! I am loving Ashtangah and Vinyasa and that'd probably be my weekends classes ;)

Monday was rest and this morning was Hatha with June. I've been doing lots of Hatha because the classes always seems to best fit my work and schedule timing. In Hatha, I hope to master my standing head to toe posture, which I never dare to keep my head to knee because of fear of falling :/

Ok, I've been up since 540am. Need a rest now and Day 9 tomorrow! :)

What are you truly grateful for?

One of the most commonly asked questions, I realised, by many people who knew I'm doing a 30 days hot yoga journey was, "Oh, what do you get after you have completed it?"

When the very first person asked, my response was, "haha, nothing, a 20% off their next package".

Then another guy came along and asked the same. I thought about it for a while and replied, "Oh I'll get a 20% off their next package. But it's not about the discount, it's more about personal achievement and self satisfaction laaa".

Some 3rd and 4th person enquired the same but each time, my response seems to be different.

This little episode frankly got me thinking. It seems like it's natural for all beings to want something in return for whatever they have contributed. For everything you give, it's always in hope to achieve something. Then, are we sub-consciously quite self-centered because in everything we do, we are harboring returns rather than unselfish giving? All kind of level of giving is good, but when we give with expectation of receiving something back in return, we are not actually letting go of what we are giving.

I'm learning something with Yoga everyday. One especially inspiring quote I learned from Cindy from Strala - "Pushing is never a good way to approach anything - everything will come in time when we are ready, in yoga or life." This is very true and I'll keep this reminder at work.

raffles at 8am

Class 1 and 2: (Tues/Wed)
- 7PM Hot Hatha
- 6PM Hot Hatha

Class 3: (Fri)
- 7AM Hot Hatha

The first two days were probably the most exciting with me all filled with energy and ready to kickstart the journey. Class was all fun except I need to work on my balancing poses. I have an over-reliance relationship with the mirror, ready to fall when I can't see myself.

Decided to do a 7am class this morning since I am meeting Jack for dinner. I was extremely surprised to see the class almost full and there were so many people on the mat before the sun was fully up. The morning class was extremely body opening and mood lifting because I felt very energized and happy the rest of day at work + I was eligible for free MRT ride ;) hahaha I can't wait to do more morning classes next week.

Catching up with 2 hot classes tomorrow since I had to give a miss on Thursday & a shabu steamboat to end the night!

 Sweet treats for the sweet, have a great week ya'all :)

October x 30 days challenge

I haven't been feeling great and well the past days. Caught some bad flu bugs and lost my voice. Took almost a week off from my studio practices, am just glad I'm finally recovering!

September is coming to an end in another 2 days. With the last quarter of the year to go, I felt inspired to set a new challenge for myself. So, this October, I've decided to sign up for a 30 days challenge, something which I have been contemplating about for quite sometime & that is doing a..

30 days hot yoga journey

Whatttttttt? Yeahhh, #yogaeverydamnday. I was initially apprehensive about the physical and mental challenges I may faced. Working 9-6 meant I have to get myself to studio after work almost everyday or even before if I have important stuffs on. On top of that, with the rising peak at work... that will kinda leave me with really little weekdays rest time. I would really love to try this out and since I'm not sure when would be the next journey, I told myself there will be no hard forces :) if I can't complete this journey, 25 out of 30 days is already some accomplishment. and after all, it's all about moving with ease and comfort in yourself right?

Not only I'm excited bout this, I'd also like to see how transformative can 30 days be :) With that, here's what I'm hoping to achieve:

1. Practice better - I hope to bring my yoga practices to a higher level - to pick up more tips and posturing cues. Get greater focus, get better.

2. Practice commitment - "It doesn't matter what you decide to do tomorrow as you go to sleep in your comfortable bed - what matters is what you do when the alarm clock goes off in the morning" ~ Max Storm. We are creatures of habits. Breaking old and creating new habits is by no means easy feat. How many a times we aimed to do something but ended up not because of road blocks in life. People procrastinate in nature and I am of course one of them. Thinking of getting to studio daily is easy, but this requires lots of self-discipline... we'll see when the time comes :)

3. Practice fun - yoga is all about fun time too! I love stepping into my mat. Sometimes, it's just not about getting into asana but enjoying the process. It's a great place to destress, loosen up and relax yourself. It also helps one to be calmer and positive.

I'll try to post updates on my 30 days yoga challenge and a little on how I feel. Hehe so with that, I'm looking forward to an awesome new month :)