Yoga Goes on Vacation!

We've officially taken our yoga on vacation, and it feels good! It's been over a year since we last traveled, so our savvy traveler skills were a bit rusty. As such, we were fortunate enough to encounter some gentle challenges right away. I believe the yoga-fy tip of the day was, "Let go of expectations." Did that ever come in handy!

The challenges:
1. flight delayed 5 hours
2. forgetting to bring a credit card "safety blanket"
3. the emergence of manic energy
4. unhappy young children on a 5 hour+ flight

The yoga-fied solutions (in order):
1. easy procurement of an alternate flight which was shorter, nonstop, and arrived right on time
2. letting the credit card go, trusting that we've responsibly arranged our available finances and recognizing that we don't want to accumulate debt anyways
3. sliding into meditative mind and breath at every conscious moment
4. maintaining a meditative mind and breath at every conscious moment

We practiced postures wherever and whenever we could, from the gate, to the plane, to baggage claim. Scott felt more inclined to take active asanas like parsvottanasana (at right) or seated postures like simhasana and sukhasana on the plane, while I felt I needed more grounding, so practiced sitting meditation and pranayamas like nadi shodhana.



Garudasana arms

 The most helpful technique I found was putting on relaxing music and sinking into meditation. Jack Kornfield speaks of "taking the one seat in the center of life." I found this meditation to be the most grounding and calming practice of them all. Taking the one seat on an airplane full of people chatting, laughing, yelling, and crying felt like catching a glimpse of God hearing the reverberating sounds of planet Earth. Try it sometime. Check out an excerpt of this meditation here: http://tinyurl.com/39woc83
With all of this, we arrived safe and sound and feeling wonderfully rested. Thank you yoga!

Stay tuned for the next installment: Yoga on the Go tours Encinitas, CA! Have suggestions for studios we should visit in Encinitas? Let us know!

Namaste!