Thursday, June 17, 2010

Writing and Yoga challenge



(Photo from Yoga Journal)

On Monday, reading Jennifer Louden's blog, I heard about a writing and yoga challenge put together by Bindu Wiles.
Here's the challenge:
For 21 days, we’ll be doing 5 days of yoga a week and 800 words of writing per day.
THE WRITING: The writing can be ANYTHING. Memoir, blogs, business plans, essays, fiction, free-writing, letters,……..ANYTHING. The point is to get writing again daily and to have the boundaries and challenge of a daily word count to reach.
THE YOGA: There are several options for you to do the yoga portion of 21.5.800 5 times in 7 days. Here are the options: 1. Go to a yoga class in your ‘hood. 2. Do a yoga dvd at home. 3. Take a 20-40 minute savasana* (see above) at home on the floor.


Ok, it sounded a little overwhelming. Especially in the face of all the other things on my now, mental, 'to do' list. Yes. I eliminated the paper lists, but getting rid of the mental list making, a well worn life habit, is proving to be a bit harder. So, when I came across this challenge, my mind balked at the task. Which I know means that it's just the right road for me to take right now.

As far as the yoga is concerned, I already do a weekly yoga class and a short morning routine and sometimes savasana for meditation. So that part of the challenge should be easy for me. And believe me, doing savasana is not only easy and relaxing, it's a little slice of heaven for me, the busy bee. If you don't know what it is, it's what's called 'corpse pose' in yoga and basically, you lie down on the floor, arms out at your sides, palms up and your toes out with your heels pointed in. I know the title is a bit weird, and at first I had a hard time keeping my palms open all the way and my back flat on the floor(too much hunching in my past). Now, I fall into this pose and love it.

The writing is part of my everyday life, but I don't have a routine and I definitely don't do 800 words a day, everyday. How I'm going to do this, where, when, and about what I'm going to write, I have no idea. So, my friends, this is going to be my biggest challenge. But...I'm going to do it. Starting now.

Any ideas for me? I welcome your suggestions and/or writing prompts to keep me going. Hey...I just realized something...this counts. Writing my blog counts as part of my writing requirement for today. Together with Monday's blog, that's over 950 words. What do you know? That wasn't so hard after all!

1 comment:

Stacy said...

I LOVE this idea! I just went to Bindu's site and got lost there for a while. I wish I would have heard about it when it started, but maybe I will join late.

Savasana is so wonderful, especially at the end of your practice.