I'm thinking of preparing this salad later for a friend's birthday dinner using kesong puti instead of feta. Hope they'll like it. Some of the grilled vegetables can also be tossed in pasta and we'll have another dish. Might taste the same but I guess the difference will be that the salad will be tangy because of the vinegar and the pasta will be savory. I wonder if I can get caramelized walnuts later at the groceries to add to the salad. Maybe instead of caramelized walnuts, I can use honeyed cashews or pili nuts.
Wish me luck.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
No glow...
"Your face is clear but there's no glow...", a friend said.
Maybe because I haven't been eating well (by that I mean homecooked meals) for the longest time.
I need to take charge of the situation... but not now... in 5 months inshallah. For now... I'm just surfing along.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Dr. Weil Discusses Eating Mindfully
Dr. Weil Discusses Eating Mindfully
When I went to the Sivananda ashram in Neyyar Dam two years ago, silence is observed during meal times. It was to practice mindfulness while eating and be really aware of the different tastes that the food offers... experiencing the present... and "concentrating on the enjoyment of the moment".
Om.
When I went to the Sivananda ashram in Neyyar Dam two years ago, silence is observed during meal times. It was to practice mindfulness while eating and be really aware of the different tastes that the food offers... experiencing the present... and "concentrating on the enjoyment of the moment".
Om.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah - Part 2 of 2
continued...
Yoga is control of the energies of the mind
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...
Yoga citta vritti nirodhah...
Done. One hundred and eight repetitions.
“So, what is yoga?” While traditional practitioners understand that itself is not limited only to the physical practice that most people do nowadays, a study done in Australia reported that at present, yoga is understood as a form of physical activity which people engage in to increase health and fitness, improve flexibility and muscle tone, and reduce stress. Before yoga hit mainstream, yoga was practiced as a spiritual disclipine. However, at present, practicing yoga for spiritual reasons only come in the picture after the practitioner has been doing for a long time. But still, that reason only comes in 5th of all the reasons mentioned in the study.
“You still haven’t answered the question. Again, what is yoga?”
Yogascittavritti nirodhah. Yoga is the control of the energies of the mind. That's how Patanjali defined yoga in the Yoga Sutras. However, as I mentioned in the previous article, yoga has now become a popular form of physical activity all throughout the world and people have come to equate yoga only with asana practice. Studies have been conducted and have showed promising results in yoga's ability to improve health, fitness, and well-being, that even physicians are recommending it to their patients. I leave the discussion on yoga as a spiritual discipline next time.
There are many styles of yoga and most of the popular styles which are practiced in the West are now here in the Philippines. I did some data-mining a few months ago and here’s a list of the styles that now being taught in the country. They are listed according to the total number of available classes per week.
Om.
***
The author is a faculty in UP Diliman where he teaches yoga as part of the general service physical education program and as a mind-body training for the UP Pep Squad.
He has long retired his cheer uniform but still cheers for the UP Fighting Maroons every UAAP basketball season... (but really, that's only because I want to see the Pep Squad perform live). He is contemplating on teaching them the yogic technique of levitation thinking maybe that will help them win the next championship title.
Yoga is control of the energies of the mind
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...
Yoga citta vritti nirodhah...
Done. One hundred and eight repetitions.
“So, what is yoga?” While traditional practitioners understand that itself is not limited only to the physical practice that most people do nowadays, a study done in Australia reported that at present, yoga is understood as a form of physical activity which people engage in to increase health and fitness, improve flexibility and muscle tone, and reduce stress. Before yoga hit mainstream, yoga was practiced as a spiritual disclipine. However, at present, practicing yoga for spiritual reasons only come in the picture after the practitioner has been doing for a long time. But still, that reason only comes in 5th of all the reasons mentioned in the study.
“You still haven’t answered the question. Again, what is yoga?”
Yogascittavritti nirodhah. Yoga is the control of the energies of the mind. That's how Patanjali defined yoga in the Yoga Sutras. However, as I mentioned in the previous article, yoga has now become a popular form of physical activity all throughout the world and people have come to equate yoga only with asana practice. Studies have been conducted and have showed promising results in yoga's ability to improve health, fitness, and well-being, that even physicians are recommending it to their patients. I leave the discussion on yoga as a spiritual discipline next time.
There are many styles of yoga and most of the popular styles which are practiced in the West are now here in the Philippines. I did some data-mining a few months ago and here’s a list of the styles that now being taught in the country. They are listed according to the total number of available classes per week.
- Bikram Yoga - the original hot yoga.
- Hatha Yoga - the generic term for all asana-based classes which cannot be classified elsewhere (of course, all of these are really just forms of hatha yoga but for some reasons, when you go to yoga facilities, hatha yoga is used to classify generic classes.)
- Ashtanga Yoga - the traditional method taught by Sri Pattabhi Jois
- Vinyasa/Flow - all other methods which uses breath-movement synchronization technique.
- Hot Yoga - generic term used for any class done in a heated room.
- Gentle Yoga - a more restorative and relaxing style of class.
- Power Yoga - almost similar to vinyasa/flow but inspired more by the ashtanga yoga tradition.
- Iyengar Yoga - created by BKS Iyengar, a contemporary of Sri Pattabhi Jois. Uses props like blocks, belts, blankets, ropes, and chairs to help the practitioner sustain the pose longer.
Om.
***
The author is a faculty in UP Diliman where he teaches yoga as part of the general service physical education program and as a mind-body training for the UP Pep Squad.
He has long retired his cheer uniform but still cheers for the UP Fighting Maroons every UAAP basketball season... (but really, that's only because I want to see the Pep Squad perform live). He is contemplating on teaching them the yogic technique of levitation thinking maybe that will help them win the next championship title.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah - Part 1 of 2
Yoga is control of the energies of the mind
It was in November 2001. We won the UAAP cheerleading championship for the third straight year a couple of months back and were still high with cheer spirit when my teammates and I found this poster announcing free yoga classes every Sunday at the COD Shopping Center in Cubao.
“That’s cool, maybe we can learn some new moves and use that for next year’s routine,” we thought.
A year back, I was already reading this Sivananda Yoga book that I found at the library and sporadically tried to practice the asanas in the living room of a 2-storey-2-bedroom apartment in Katipunan that I shared with six other friends. Three of us shared one tiny room and I could only have my privacy in the toilet. For a state university instructor who earned less than USD300 per month, the privacy of my own room was beyond reach.
Fritz and Jill went one Sunday to the free yoga class. Both said the class was awesome so I joined them the next week to experience my very first yoga class. The class was taught by this hippy-looking-red-haired mestiza. Her name was Sandy Carmona, one of the frontrunners of mainstream yoga in the country, who later became an influential person in my own journey. She instructed us to lie down in a pose called, savasana which means corpse pose. You were not suppose to move any muscle in the body until the end of that segment because it was in itself is an asana, or yogic posture. The idea is to remain motionless and as still and steady as possible observing each sensation that one feels in the body. You’re not suppose to scratch your nose or your butt, nor slap that mosquito that’s enjoying your Type AB blood. Sandy then led us through a 90-minute long of moving meditation that made me sweat like I never had even in my years of movement and sports training.
“Whoa!!! So this is yoga.” (If there was already Facebook, I would be “like-ing” this status many times over.)
I would later learn from Sandy that yoga is much more than what we were doing on the mat. Yoga is a way of life, a discipline, and a holistic approach to health and wellness. Oh, and did I tell you that you couldn’t buy sticky yoga mats from Toby’s back then? You have to order it from the US. I’m not even sure if Lululemon had already reached the Philippine shore.
“What’s a Lululemon?”
You don’t know “Lulu?” Hmnn... let me put it this way. If you think Nike is expensive, then you’ll think that Lulu is beyond expensive. One Lululemon top is already worth 1/3 of my salary in UP when I was still an instructor. Of course now that I’ve been promoted to assistant instructor level, that’s equivalent to ¼ of my current salary. We’ll discuss this whole Lululemon-thing in another post.
For now, let’s go back to yoga and I will let you ponder upon the meaning of yoga according to Patanjali.
“Who the hell is Patanjali?”
Dude, do your research. You can check him out on wikipedia later. Just sit, close your eyes, and repeat this 108 times.
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...
Yoga citta vritti nirodhah...
To be continued...
It was in November 2001. We won the UAAP cheerleading championship for the third straight year a couple of months back and were still high with cheer spirit when my teammates and I found this poster announcing free yoga classes every Sunday at the COD Shopping Center in Cubao.
“That’s cool, maybe we can learn some new moves and use that for next year’s routine,” we thought.
A year back, I was already reading this Sivananda Yoga book that I found at the library and sporadically tried to practice the asanas in the living room of a 2-storey-2-bedroom apartment in Katipunan that I shared with six other friends. Three of us shared one tiny room and I could only have my privacy in the toilet. For a state university instructor who earned less than USD300 per month, the privacy of my own room was beyond reach.
Fritz and Jill went one Sunday to the free yoga class. Both said the class was awesome so I joined them the next week to experience my very first yoga class. The class was taught by this hippy-looking-red-haired mestiza. Her name was Sandy Carmona, one of the frontrunners of mainstream yoga in the country, who later became an influential person in my own journey. She instructed us to lie down in a pose called, savasana which means corpse pose. You were not suppose to move any muscle in the body until the end of that segment because it was in itself is an asana, or yogic posture. The idea is to remain motionless and as still and steady as possible observing each sensation that one feels in the body. You’re not suppose to scratch your nose or your butt, nor slap that mosquito that’s enjoying your Type AB blood. Sandy then led us through a 90-minute long of moving meditation that made me sweat like I never had even in my years of movement and sports training.
“Whoa!!! So this is yoga.” (If there was already Facebook, I would be “like-ing” this status many times over.)
I would later learn from Sandy that yoga is much more than what we were doing on the mat. Yoga is a way of life, a discipline, and a holistic approach to health and wellness. Oh, and did I tell you that you couldn’t buy sticky yoga mats from Toby’s back then? You have to order it from the US. I’m not even sure if Lululemon had already reached the Philippine shore.
“What’s a Lululemon?”
You don’t know “Lulu?” Hmnn... let me put it this way. If you think Nike is expensive, then you’ll think that Lulu is beyond expensive. One Lululemon top is already worth 1/3 of my salary in UP when I was still an instructor. Of course now that I’ve been promoted to assistant instructor level, that’s equivalent to ¼ of my current salary. We’ll discuss this whole Lululemon-thing in another post.
For now, let’s go back to yoga and I will let you ponder upon the meaning of yoga according to Patanjali.
“Who the hell is Patanjali?”
Dude, do your research. You can check him out on wikipedia later. Just sit, close your eyes, and repeat this 108 times.
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...
Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...
Yoga citta vritti nirodhah...
To be continued...
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