Hello Dear Souls,

I hope this email update finds you well and at ease.

I am filled with gratitude for the past six weeks of my life and excited for the next 12, after which I’ll begin a new chapter of my life.

If you haven’t already heard my husband, Justin, and I will be moving to Florida in November. We will miss DC and our friends and family in this area, but we’re looking forward to a slower pace and life by the ocean.

To prepare for the move, I gave up my regularly scheduled classes in early June. This also allowed me to focus on the Conscious Yoga Academy 200-hour yoga teacher training that I co-lead with Elias Ananiadis and Vicky Woods on the Greek island of Karpathos late June into mid July. The training went amazingly well and that group of special people and I will be connected for the rest of our lives. Each of the 10 lovely souls has a unique gift to offer this earth and I am excited to see what the future holds for them. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from acro and partner yoga fun day.

After three and a half weeks on Karpathos, Justin and I embarked on a European honeymoon. We traveled to Athens and immersed ourselves in ancient Greece at the Acropolis and around the Plaka. Then we went to Paris for a week of EVERYTHING!: exploring cathedrals, museums, the Eiffel Tower, Versailles, and, of course, eating so much cheese!

Through all of this wonderful travel and adventure I continued to remind myself to pause and breath in each special moment. Moving from one thing to the next, we humans tend to always be in planning mode instead enjoying what we are currently doing. For example: one afternoon while Justin and I were at one of the most beautiful beaches in the Greek Islands, we started talking about what we were going to do in Paris!! After a moment, I laughed and looked at him and said “let’s be here first.” He smiled back, kissed me, and jumped in for a swim.

It is the nature of the mind to pull us away from the present moment, to tell us stories in attempts to make sense of the world around us and further to make us the most important part of the story. We meditate and practice yoga to help us remember our true self, our essential perfect state that we already exists in. That realization can only happen in present.

It’s been challenging for me to stay in the present moment. Recently I’ve struggled to remember I’m much more than my to-do list. That is why I’m excited to be offering a weekend to pause with you this September. I have designed a lovely weekend retreat at Casa Om Potomac. For two and a half days, we’ll be able to enjoy yoga, meditation, the beautiful outdoors, excellent food, and a pool. “Rest & Renew”: the title is 100% true for everyone. If you want to join me and the other folks coming September 20-22, you can! There’s a pre-registration form on my website, or you can reach out me with any questions or concerns. This will be my last large offering in the DC area for some time. I hope you’ll take some time for yourself and join me in a long pause.

I have a few other events in the works and a million stories from the past 6-weeks I want to tell, but since I am currently writing this newsletter from the most serene porch overlooking a lake in Rhode Island, I’m going to go be, and pay attention to the mother duck leading her young across the lake. I’m going to go sit in gratitude and remember: I am perfect just the way I am, even as things to do pile up and change constantly around me.

I hope you will join me for the fall retreat and for a class. I will be subbing throughout the next few months at all my favorite places, Past Tense, Vida, Fuse, and Yoga Heights. On the calendar now: Lunch Flow at Past Tense on Friday, August 16 at noon and Intermediate Flow at Yoga Heights on Georgia Ave on Saturday, August 24 at 10:15am.

Questions or thoughts? Something you would like to connect about before I move? I would love to hear from you. Please reach out.

Many blessings and much love,

Liz

Dear Souls!

I have been thinking a lot about feet this week, particularly my feet and all the little things they do and don’t do. Turns out having extremely hypermobile ankles doesn’t help you develop good foot proprioception (the ability to sense stimuli arising within the body regarding position, motion, and equilibrium). It also doesn’t allow for awareness in the ankle either. I didn’t realize all the little movement patterns I had picked along the years in order to compensate for not knowing where my ankle and foot are in space. I either hang out on the inside (medial) part of the foot or the outer (lateral) side of the foot when walking upstairs, doing squats, or even doing yoga asana! What is especially interesting for me is that I do not have an overall preference, it depends on the task I am trying to do.

Are you aware of your foot and ankle patterns? When standing, in mountain pose: do you roll out at your ankle and lift the inner arch up (called supination), roll out and have a hard time grounding down on your lateral edge (called pronation), or have a neutral ankle position which allows for finding the entire ball of your foot rooted to the earth with (ideally) even pressure throughout? Does it always tend to be only one of the above options?

You might be curious why this matters. There’s lots of reasons, knee and hip health being high on the list, but the reason I want to touch on here is: accessing your inner and outer thighs and legs muscles in yoga asana. Being able to press the ball of the big toe and the ball of the little toe down at the same time while in standing poses helps to activate those medial and lateral leg muscles that are essential for hip stability... which is essential for every standing pose. That is why yoga teachers cue to “ground down through the 3 [or 4] corners of your feet.” This cue is meant to encourage you to not only have a stable, well grounded foot, but to find and engage the muscles of your side body and help you to internally feel the muscle chains energetically feeding into one another. Engaging these side body lines of energy and the front and back body, ultimately to finding 360 degrees of muscle engagement and support. (Side note: If you heard the cue in my class it was the 3 corners of the feet since the heel bone is round-ish and is only one point.)

So what have I been working on? Amazingly it is the strengthening of the intrinsic muscles of the foot (the ones that originate (start) and insert (stop) in the foot ) that allow for greater control of the ball of the foot and help you access your extrinsic muscles of the foot and the lines of energies we were just discussing. (Extrinsic muscles are muscles that originate in the foot but insert above the ankle.)

One of the best ways I know to strengthen the little intrinsic muscles in the feet is by trying to dome the whole foot off the floor without actually using any of the leg muscles that would lift the foot off the floor. Don’t worry you will not be able to actually lift the foot. Another way is to lift a hand towel off the floor with your toes. Keep lifting it up and the dropping it and then pick it up again. After about 5-10 reps, if I am really gripping that towel the little toe side of my foot cramps so hard!

Next time you take to your mat, experiment with different pressures throughout the ball of the foot and test out if you can feel the activation of the sides of the legs . What do you notice? Which way feels most secure and active in your body? Remember, to have fun with the inquiry and that we have a yoga practice not a yoga perfect!

Hope to see you in class soon! ☺