For a couch potato like myself, easing back into exercise is not easy. I know. My history is pot marked with good intentions. In the past, the one thing that was able to push me to be consistent was doing it with a group, like meet-ups with my good friends from my backpacking/hiking days. We had training exercises three to four times a week, which made it regular and fun.
The second was attending classes. Being there with other people and with a teacher or leader that guided you was the best solution for me. However, classes mean money, and I have given up classes before because of budget concerns. But now, with Youtube and the tons of generous, talented people out there willing to share their talents, that's not an excuse anymore. One of those is Adriene. I do not know her personally, I only recently found her Youtube videos but I am enjoying it immensely - just don't ask my aching muscles.
I've written about a couple of her Yoga vids on easing into the practice. And today, I started Day 1 of her 30 Days of Yoga challenge. It feels good! BUT. I will not push myself to do this daily - I need to be able to forgive myself if there are days that I can't sit still for 30 minutes of introspection (and torture) but I do aim to follow the challenge at least 2-3 days in a week. Hope you can try and enjoy it too. Here's the link to her vids.
My father passed away three months ago from lung cancer. It has been a very hard time. And it took a while before I could bring myself to work on any project. It's still hard, only last night I was dreaming he was in the hospital, diagnosed with something else and he was going to die in just a few minutes. He wanted to talk to a priest that he does not know personally, he's already spoken to his friend who's also a priest. I called my friend who knew a priest but his contact cannot be reached, I tried the priest at the hospital but he could not be disturbed because he was holding a service and I think I woke up sometime after that, running around looking for a priest before my father goes which was just a few minutes away.
When I finally found the will to open my boxed up clay, I could not find any inspiration. I did not know what I wanted to do. No spark. Nothing. At that point, I've been absent for a few months in all my social network sites as well. Since I could not find anything that interested me, I went back to Facebook and started looking at my feed to see what my family and friends have been up to.
One of my cousins regularly posts pictures of her fraternal twins, a boy and girl, and their antics, and that stirred up some creative interest. Those two are adorable. After a few days, the muses started humming, setting me on an ambitious note: two dolls at the same time, The Twins or in Filipino, Ang Kambal.
Kinda funny how the start of dolls are always scary looking. Creating heads, hands and feet and curing them separately looks like a twisted factory but the end is so much fun and full of beauty. So here's the first look at The Twins:
Boy or girl?
Originally I wanted to make shoe-shaped feet but I changed my mind
Hands waiting to be cured
Cured and "mummified"
Adding feet and hands
These two are going to be a little older than my cousin's twins but they are, finally, going to be dressed in Filipiña. I've long wanted to create Filipiña dolls, and these two are going to be the start. More updates definitely coming soon.
Which reminds me, I have not posted about my weekend at the Faerie Character Workshop taught by Wendy and Toby Froud yet. Now, that was super exciting. The doll I made during that workshop was a product of the vision quest by Wendy and my tribute to my Dad. I'm glad he was able to see that, he's always been very supportive of my art. These two dolls are based on what I learned on that workshop so I'll definitely be posting about that too.
Part two of finishing the twins: hair, painting and costuming are here.
Part three: outdoor photos are here. Yoga Day 2
I am loving Adrienne! I just finished her Day two, 40-minute Yoga session (Day 1 is here) and I feel great. Even the strain on my right shoulder, which has been my constant companion for the last two weeks and has been slowly taking over my right side, seems to be responding well.
