Tag: how to

Video

Hurrah for Yoga in Pyjamas

by Dominique ♥ 3 Comments

Heyyy! How have you been?

I know, I have been away for so so so long. I missed you though! I will totally update you on what I have been up to one of these days. But, let’s get down to business, yoga business.

Please can we pretend I said that in a Morgan Freeman type voice.

Are you wondering if I was away doing a Masters in how to be even more cheesy? Maybe I was.

ANYWHO, I promised I would upload a yoga video for the Not So Flexible.

Let’s make it a series!

High five to those of you who, like me, roll out of bed and are almost deafened by the sound of creaking as you stumble around the place. And you also struggle with identifying the difference between words and grunting. Oh, aaaaaand you feel incredibly un-coordinated and any kind of activity that involves looking graceful and fluid just leaves you standing there on the spot, blinking with a thought bubble hovering over your head that goes, “NOPE”.

Enter: a very short session for easing into the morning. This little segment takes about 2 minutes so you don’t need to worry that you will lose your spot in the queue for the shower/someone will finish all the coffee. Well done, by the way, if you have a queueing system for who gets to use the bathroom next. We sort of have an “I’ll scissor-paper-stone you for it”/arm wrestle system.

So, ok, not really a system.

Shall we get moving? I didn’t bother with an introductory greeting (who can speak coherently in the morning?! besides, we’ve already met) so be prepared to just hop straight to it.

Super important: Please be kind to your body, practice safely and I really hope you enjoy! No judgement here if you head straight back to bed with your coffee/tea/cat/dog/human/all the above/etc afterwards. That’s just awesome!

If you’re already at work for the day, then just give this a go when you get home. Ixnay on the changing into PJs in the office, unless you work at home, then, cool, go nuts!

Chat soon X

Good morning!

If you’re anything like me, it doesn’t matter how much stretching happens at night, when you wake up in the morning you can just about hear everything creaking as you start to move around… into the kitchen to make coffee. Ha!

So here’s a really short easy sequence you can do to help you ease into the day. Whilst the coffee brews. No special equipment needed and you can do it in your pyjamas.

You can repeat this sequence as many times as you like just be sure to take it slow and gently to give your body a chance to awaken. Please please please listen to your body, practice safely and enjoy!

Thanks so much for watching. Please let me know if you enjoyed that and if you have any special requests, comment down below. X

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YOGA ALL DAY

by Dominique

Why am I shouting the title at you?

Sorry, I’m a little deaf these days, there’s constant hammering away in the apartment above my head since we last chatted. They’re doing it to drive me crazy renovating.

float

Hence why, I still haven’t uploaded that video I have been promising! I need to construct a sound proof room first which reminds me of the old music room at my school. I would go there every lunchtime for piano lessons. The entire room was wall-papered with egg cartons and painted blue to accord with the school colour. The effect was, uh, very crafty and three-dimensional. But aside from being quite visually effective the egg cartons really didn’t work very well.

Which brings me back to where I am seated right now. It sounds like the people upstairs are diligently tinkering away with teeny tiny hammers and chisels at the ceiling above my head. Which makes me imagine they are either chiseling a statue or they are trying to tunnel their way into my apartment.

Am I annoyed? Sort of, I guess I’m half laughing at the imagery and half wishing the noise would stop. I am distracted by the incessant tunnelling hammering. That’s what is getting me, that I am allowing myself to be distracted and affected by this external activity. It is beyond my environment so why is it having such a huge impact on me?

It is just like in yoga classes, if you have had the fortune to experience, when a person, perhaps on a mat next to you is a REALLY LOUD BREATHER. Really, really, really loud. There is silence all around, except a sort of hum of coordinated movements and breathing… then this fantastically pervasive rasping sound emanating from the person next to you. Has that ever bothered you?

Or how about if the lady next to you in her struggle to do any postures is blustering and swearing away. “Oh geez. Oh !@#$%^&*#@#@***” on and on and on she goes for the entire ninety minutes. She hangs in there for the full class. She has paid her entry fee and by *&$#@ is she gonna get every last #$@&* minute out of that @#$%^&* session.

What about the self-appointed class joker (hey, why did you look at me for?) on the other side of the room, who takes it upon himself, everytime the teacher claims says “One more breath here” to do a countdown “Five, four, three, two aaaaaaaaaand ONEEEEEEEEEE!!!”

EVERY. TIME. No one laughs after the first time. But he persists.

Or what about the person who is just too sweaty? Or the showoff? Or the two ladies who won’t stop talking in the back? Or the person who doesn’t smell nice? Or the person who is wearing hardly anything and you can see right up their bandha?

The list could go on and on ad nauseum.

Well? Do you recognise these people? Do you think to yourself, “What classes do you attend, and why haven’t these people been thrown out?!”

Well, these people don’t just go to yoga classes. They also show up in your life. They’re in the supermarket, at your workplace, at uni, they’re on the bus with you, the train. Yep, sometimes they’re in the guise of your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, best friend, mum, dad, or child or brother, whatever.

And they’re doing something and it just bothers the bejeezers out of you.

What is a ‘bejeezer’? You don’t even know. You’re just so annoyed right now you’re creating new words. Oxford Dictionary look out, coming soon your way, get ready to take notes.  

Oh, and of course you’re not being nitpicky. It’s them. Right? It’s always them.

Do they have to do that? And in that way?*

YES THEY HAVE TO. And the more that it bothers you, the more they have to do that.

If you have ever experienced this then my suggestion is below. It seems to snap me out of my egg-cartoned mindset quick-smart. What works for me, might work for you. If you have never experienced this, well done, I guess you can carry on reading for entertainment?

Here’s the solution: Change your mind. Leave the world alone. Your world will evolve with time to fit the shape of your mind. You can make it as easy or as hard as you like, as I like to tell my students about our yoga practice. The choice is yours. You can struggle, or you can float. You do get to choose. You always have a choice.

Take a good look at these supposed ‘challengers’ and be glad they exist. They’re your true teachers. You will learn more from them than a workshop with a ‘celebrity’ yoga instructor. These are the teachers that teach you how to live. And they do it so effortlessly.

“Look at

all your fellow

humans and name

them accurately.

‘Brother.’

‘Sister.'”

– Erich Schiffman

I have met all sorts of teachers in yoga classes and I have to say over the years I still catch myself feeling exasperated and yes, distracted! It happens less and less but it still happens sometimes! Sometimes it’s the small, seemingly insignificant things that trip me up the hardest. I forget and think, “I am beyond that point. I love life. I love everyone. I’m fine.”

And then bang! I totally walk on my floaty cloud feelings into that trap my mind has set for me. I’m no longer practising yoga when that happens. I’m in somethingsomething-asana but it’s just a shape my body happens to be in. Because at that point, I have chosen to be more important than anyone else, more deserving to be there than anyone else and have decided that my comfort is more important than the comfort of anyone else, there in that class room. How egotistical does that sound when said out loud?

Instead of saying, “Oh, they’re so ANNOYING” but instead to phrase that as “I’m more important than they are.”

Yeesh! No, we have left yoga at that point. We’re just sweating and bending and stretching.

No yoga there. Just ego.

Oh, beware the ego trap! It is there all day everyday. There will never be a day when you reach nirvana and the trap is no longer set for you. You need to be on alert at all times. Be present in the moment. Live mindfully and completely in each moment. Question yourself.

And so, this is what I mean by

YOGA ALL DAY.

You do have to shout that a little at yourself, to get it through, past that ego trap. It has egg cartons painted in a hideous colour to distract you to the point of rage from realising that you have fallen deep inside. You can hear the sounds of life around you, but all you can see are those cartons. You are blind to the lesson in front of you.

There is far more to yoga than just yoga as I say. Our ability to do the splits, to touch our toes with our legs straight, or to stick one leg behind our head or stand on our head will not insulate us from the lessons of life. The ability to do any of those things are just acrobatic.

The goal of yoga is to cultivate an attitude of equanimity and one of compassion.

We’re all in this together, some of us swearing away, some of us panting loudly, some of us excitedly talking, some of us silently and we’re all chiseling away at this unshaped rock to make sense of our life purpose and find our way. When we look to our left and right and see we’re all trying in our different ways to do the same thing, live our lives any which way we can, the scales fall from our eyes, and the sounds and activities of life become what they always have been. Just a soundtrack of life.

Don’t get distracted by the soundtrack to your life.

Breathe. Practice your yoga all day. Know your fellow humans by name. Thank your teachers.

And between you and me, I don’t know what it is, maybe the renovations have finished upstairs, but I can’t hear any noise anymore. It is perfectly silent. All I can hear is the sound of my breathing and the sound of my fingers tapping on the keyboard.

Thank you thank you thank you. x

*Sometimes we are those very same people. We may not think it, but someone somewhere may be looking at us with disdain and think, “Oh go somewhere else, will ya?” How hurt would we feel if someone said to us that what we were doing was supremely irritating to them? Did we even aim our actions at them? Nope! We were just doing our own thing, right? Funny, that. Hmm. 

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Monday Mornings in the Kitchen

by Dominique ♥ 1 Comment

How was your weekend?

Sometimes I’ll catch up with friends and they’ll want to know what B and I do for our weekends. In truth we do a whole lot of nothing. And we LOVE it.

On Saturdays I might teach a class or two in the morning time whilst B sleeps in. And then we’ll head out for coffee and a bit of lunch. Sometimes yum cha. Don’t be surprised, of course I get into yum cha. It’s been a while so on Saturday afternoon I whipped up some focaccia to have with some cold things for dinner.

Sunday mornings we lounge around in our baggy t-shirts, having brekkie, coffee (me), homemade chocolate milk (him) until one or the other of us decides it really is time to get off the couch. We usually spend Sunday afternoon at the market stocking up and then stop by the car wash before spending the evening at home watching whatever the Powers-That-Be decide to air on tv.

We watched Divergent last night and felt so lost (what’s going on? what mean Divergent? Abne-who? erudite, what it do? why does everyone only wear black? what happened to Jennifer Lawrence? oh, she’s not in this?), I kept expecting to see some zombies for some reason. At certain points in the movie, I’d turn to B and say, “This would be a perfect time for some zombies.” Meanwhile, both of us were googling the plot synopsis to figure out what on earth was happening. Thank you IMDB.

I don’t know if B and I are the kind of couple other people would want to hang out on the couch and watch tv with because of our running commentary.

B: Is his name Four?

Me: Yeah, like the number.

…

B: I need to look up this Divergent movie.

Me: Make sure you search for ‘synopsis’, plot summary tells you nothing.

B: On it.

…

Me: (looking up from IMDB) you know he’s from Sydney?

B: No, you don’t say.

Me: Yeah. Says so right here.

B: What website are you reading the story line from?

…

On the screen, Shailene Woodley asks the man named after a number if she can see his tattoo.

B rolls his eyes at me.

I roll them back and send mine after them.

Me: You know she drinks clay water too?

B: Really? Wow.

…

Now Shailene is saying to Four she has no idea who she is anymore.

Me: You’re Mrs Four.

B: You’re Divergent.

Both of us: You’re welcome.

…

B: Do you think I’m a Divergent? (perks eyebrows meaningfully, whilst retrieving his imaginary gun from his imaginary holster)

Me: Definitely. It’s written all over your face. (nods solemnly)

B looks pleased.

Later that night in bed:

B: What does ‘divergent’ mean, by the way?

Me: Um. Away from normal.

B: I thought so.

Et cetera. And that is how we watch tv in this household. Which might not be for everyone.

Also not for everyone is cooking fish. People can be so nervous about cooking fish. I know I was to begin with. It’s really quite simple – so don’t be scurred!, as someone once said to me in a nightclub. I must have looked petrified. And I was. Especially after they said that.

Anyway.

To begin, I’ll help you get started with what I made for B to bring for lunch today. It’s so so so easy, which is always helpful on a Monday morning when I’m stumbling into the kitchen still trying to identify my elbow from my knee.

Wait, wait! First, look at my kimono? How pretty is it? I feel like those men who wear floral printed bowling shirts. Let’s move on.
Ta-DAHHHHH! And we’re done! Kidding.
Demo of the ‘love squeeze’/’are we done here’ test.
Tomato and Basil = BFFs
Instant infusion.
Insert face into coffee. Better now.
But seriously, hydrate before you caffeinate, ok?

What you’ll need:

Piece of fish fillet with skin on. We picked up some gorgeous salmon yesterday but white fish is fine too.

Oil of your choice (I went with extra virgin coconut oil)

Bit of butter

Parsley, good quality sea salt and cracked black pepper

Ready? Here we go:

Grab fish out of the fridge.

Heat up the pan.

Whilst the pan heats up, pat dry the fish fillet with a paper towel, sprinkle bit of salt/pepper each side of the fish.

Add a good glug of oil to the pan and let that heat up. If you’re using a nonstick sort of pan, you may use less oil.

Place the fillet, skin side down in the pan. You will hear some very satisfying bubbling sounds as the skin starts to schleeerrrpppp! and crisp up in the pan.

Give that about 5 minutes to do it’s thing, just have the fire around medium to high. This would be a good time to chop the parsley, rinse some tomatoes, tear up some basil. Drizzle the tomatoes with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sprinkle with cracked pepper/salt and throw the basil on top.

Back to the salmon: very gently, turn the fillet skin side up now. Depending on the thickness of the fillet this could do with just 1 minute or another 2 minutes. Don’t forget though that when you take the fillet off the heat to rest, it will still continue to cook through.

Now, this is a good time to throw in that knob of butter to melt into the pan. Sprinkle of parsley, maybe more pepper and you have a buttery sauce for your salmon. Although, I will just mention here that a good quality mustard (whole grain or Dijon) or just a squeeze of lemon goes very nicely. But I forgot about the lemon this morning because VERY EARLY IN THE MORNING.

Take the salmon out of the pan and let it rest to one side. To know if it is cooked you can do the loving squeeze test – squeeze the fillet gently with thumb and index finger. It should be firm but not rock solid (very cooked) or still squishy (bit raw).

If you find the fish is really overcooked, panic not. You can get two forks and just flake the fish and turn it into a salmon salad. Have no fear!

Anyway, you should be fine! When you’re ready to serve it up or pack it into a lunch box, chuck more parsley up top, drizzle some of that butter sauce over the top. I will admit to spending far longer than I liked trying to navigate how to pack everything in. Finally settled on having the avocado stand in as a makeshift bowl for the tomato and basil. And then I squeezed in a slice of focaccia for B to mop up any juices and smear the avocado onto. Clamped the lid down and took a victorious sip of coffee from a mug the size of my face.

Fait accompli! Just took me a while is all.

Waste not, want not. Remember that basil? After you rip the leaves off the basil stalk, plonk it into a glass of water. You will have the most gorgeous, refreshing infusion of water to drink.

Trophy please?

Never mind! B just texted me to say lunch was good. Awwwwwwww. Fuzzy feelings.

But please do try it, if it’s something you’ve always wanted to get on to, and let me know how you go! You’ll do great, I know it! Have you watched Divergent? What did you think?

Happy Monday! xx

 

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First Things First. Hello! But Firstest, Coffee.

by Dominique ♥ 1 Comment

Firstest? What.

Hello. Hi. Welcome to my world! So nice to meet you! It’s about to get even nicer for me as I’m about to get started on my pot of cold brew coffee. Have you ever had any? Give it a go! And then we can have a chat over our mutual love of cold brew. You just need filtered water and good coffee, soak the coffee for 12-18 hours and then strain, pop the liquid in the fridge to keep. It’s less acidic than the traditional method of brewing but it takes longer. I feel like this method can make even the worst quality of ground coffee I may come across taste pleasant. It’s not a miracle method but it certainly improves a situation of disappointing coffee. There’s a sweeter, rounder tone to cold brew and it keeps in the fridge for ages. Unless you finish it all. Then, no, it does not keep for long at all. I make a batch at night and by morning all I need to do is strain, pour and drink. That plus ice cubes and a dash of milk equals a really smooth ice coffee. Too easy ✌️let me know if you give it a go! xx

Precise recipe below.

It’s pretty straight forward, click on the photos to enter gallery mode if you’d like to really get in close!

Everything a girl needs first thing in the morning.
From the top.
Is that a coffee to have whilst I make more coffee? Yes, yes it is.
Excited.
Scoop a doop doop.
Coffee break.
Filtered water PLEASE.
Stir.
Stir enthusiastically, like you mean it.
Cover and wait 12 to 18 hours.
Wipe spill.
Press and pour!
Pour over ice.
Sooo good!
Mmm still so good!

It was only a matter of time before I discovered cold brew coffee. After I lugged my espresso machine all the way over here from Sydney first. That’s how I do. I’m all about taking the scenic route in life.

1 Hurl ground coffee into glass jar (I use my plunger but you can use a jar), I use about 3 heaped scoops plus 1 extra whattheheck scoop for good measure. Scoop away! Precision, precision, precision.

2 Fill her up with filtered water and stir the coffee enthusiastically so every coffee ground gets coated. Best to use wooden utensils not metal. There’s a fancy science reason for that. I guess, if you made me, I could go into that. (Your call! Let me know in the comments below!)

3 Option to wipe up mess, sip existing coffee.

4 Cover (I used a ziplock baggie, although glad wrap works too) and let stand for 12-18 hours. I leave my jar out on the counter overnight.

You could pop it in the fridge but I did some research and it doesn’t make much difference and not everyone has that kind of real estate in the fridge just hanging out. Certainly no such room in my fridge anyway. Would you like a tour of my fridge one day? I love peeking inside fridges. Oh, and wardrobes too. 

Confession: I haven’t always waited the full 12 hours. Hee. I was THIRSTAY. I’d say try to hang in there for at least 8 hours. You should be sleeping a minimum of 8 hours anyway so.. just stir, leave it alone and go to bed! By the time you roll out of bed, everything is ready!

5 Strain the liquid from the grounds, using a paper coffee filter or paper hand towel to line the strainer, although at this time of the morning I don’t always line the strainer. (I can’t lie, by that I mean I never line the strainer, it’s metal. In my mind the stirring with chopsticks is plenty of effort) So I just push down on the plunger and pour into a jar for storing in the fridge or straight onto a glass of ice for drinking. Usually the second thing.

6 Those with willpower can put the strained liquid into the fridge to chill whilst the rest of us can serve immediately over ice cubes, with rice/almond/soy/cow/goat milk or no milk at all.

Tadaaaah!

SOOO good, right? Let me know what you make of the cold brew method if you give this a go and tell me a little about yourself!

So nice meeting you! x