Control Strength Yoga

I've not posted anything for so long as I don't have the usual excitement in my life (well in the context of endless traveling, kayaking and rafting) although there are still things to be excited about.

After not being home for over 3 years I decided to move back to Australia last year in August so I could focus on completing my Master's Degree.

Even though Australia is my home it's been difficult to settle back into what now seems like a completely new environment and form a routine. I guess living in such a big city it means it's harder to make new friends as I'm no longer living in environments such as small towns/rural villages where you get to know almost everyone in the community.

Whilst I was living in the UK I got into Jivamukti yoga and had a fantastic teacher called Salema. I loved how challenging her classes were and the fact we had the same group of people in class every week - all supporting and encouraging each other. I tried a couple of yoga studios when I first moved back to Melbourne and I was a little disappointed that they did not have the same vibe as Salema's classes. This disappointment ended up in me stopping yoga for about 10 months.

A lot of people make the comment that with yoga it's all about the teacher. Everyone has their own individual preferences and will find different teachers will meet their needs differently to other yogis.

2 months ago, by chance I came across a new studio in Prahan called Power and Posture with an incredible teacher called Shimi. I knew straight away that she was the teacher I had been searching for.

Chin Balance - Ganda Bherundasana 

Shimi's classes are challenging because we focus on gaining control strength so we can learn and perform different inversions and arm balances. This appeals to me as I've never ever been able to do a handstand (not even against the wall!), or a headstand. We do a lot of gruelling core work, drills and Shimi's signature 'psycho sequence' - all in the one class. In only just 2 months I have found myself to be able to get closer to achieving inversions I never thought possible and arm balances I've dreamed of.

The best part is we have small classes, with the same people attending consistently. This means we have all quickly become great friends who support and encourage one another. Even though the classes are intense there is a lot of fun and laughter in the class. If I haven't been to class for a day it feels like a week as I get so excited about class and what we may learn next.

The week before the program ended Shimi arranged a photoshoot for us. It will be really great to look back on these in the future to see how we have progressed because even though many of us can do certain inversions and arm balances if we keep up the hard work obviously we will gain a lot more strength, control, flexibility and achieve better alignment in our poses.

Eka Pada Koudinyasana - Still got some work to perfect this pose!

These photos were taken by a faboulous photographer called Grace Petrou.

From India - Sweden - Australia - Norway!

So I am now feeling the shame of not updating my blog since November after seeing how fantastic my friend Toni's blog is. So instead of writing a long-winded post about what I've done the last 8 months I decided it would be easier to break things up into a few posts chronologically....

So after returning to Sweden after Bjorn and my adventures to India and Nepal things didn't exactly turn out as planned. My VISA to Norway took 7 weeks to process (about 4 weeks longer than the usual processing time) so I told my employer in Norway I had no VISA and a day later it arrived but my job had already been given to someone else.

I decided to return back to Australia and Bjorn and I took our own separate directions. It was pretty weird returning to Australia as the longest time I've really spent in Aus since 2006 is around a month or so in between travels, this time I was spending 5-6 months in Australia.

While trying to land back on my feet at home I did some bar work and then at the start of the year finally landed a job at Vic Uni lecturing in Nutrition and tutoring Nutritional Therapy students in clinics. It's a different aspect of being a dietitian that I am used to so it kept me interested and I really enjoyed my work in Australia. The only weird thing was sometimes teaching students my age or older!

In Melbourne it's also pretty hard to go kayaking (the main reason is it being a spread out city with very little nature!) so I kept busy by doing Swedish classes once a week and joining the gym and starting yoga and boxing classes. Yoga is something I've made fun of time and time again when I'm in India but I decided to give it a try to see if I could get any of the benefits people talk about and now I will do it for the rest of my life! I've never been able to touch my toes before and now I can wrap my hand over them, I sleep better, feel more peaceful and don't get as stiff from work and exercise.

It wasn't all work and no play in Melbourne. I did my fair share of re-living Melbourne nightlife, saw a few bands (which I haven't done in a few years and realised I missed live music so much!!!) such as Tool, Sparkadia and Dead Letter Circus and spent more money than I am used to on things which are not kayak related!

Boat shed at NWR

But in May my downtime at home came to an end and I flew over to Norway to work in Sjoa again for the summer. This year I've been really lucky to get a job at Sjoa Raftingsenter (NWR) as a photo kayaker which is like a dream job for me. Not many people get to take photos and kayak everyday AND get paid to do it!

NWR is a pretty great set-up and one of the best rafting companies I've worked at so far. We've got a proper guide-house all to ourselves with our own bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, drying room for gear, laundry room and a walk-in fridge (which is now turned off and used as the beer brewing room! It's okay we have 4 fridges in the kitchen, it seems like each morning I wake up we have another new fridge in the kitchen!). We've got it pretty good here and best of all our bosses are super nice.

View over the Sjoa River

I also saved enough money to buy a decent car this season. NWR is a bit further away from the river than the other companies so by not having a car you kind of leave yourself stranded. I was lucky in May and June that I had a lot of free time to catch up with old friends in the Valley such as my Norwegian friend Erika so I could go kayaking lots (for fun not work!). One of the best kayaking days we had was just Erika and I doing a Birthday run down Åseng (Sjoa River) with chocolate birthday cake in the back of Erika's boat. Nothing hardcore but it was nice just to have us girls on the river with a big slab of cake!

Start of our hike in Bessheim

Another thing which is a little different this summer is now there are heaps of female kayakers in the valley. I didn't realise until the other day that pretty much all of my boating this summer has been down with just girls. It's pretty awesome because usually it's such a male dominated sport.

So far I am really enjoying this season in Norway. So as promised I am going to update my blog so there is lots more to come including high water on the Sjoa, Ekstremsport Veko Week in Voss, Sjoa River Festival, running my first 'thing' and slide and more about Norway and my job!