Kitchen Table Medicine: The Naturopathic Management of Asthma
Recommends removing shoes to avoid bringing in pollen and pollutants. A blogger has testified to me before that this really does make a big difference.
How to Stay in Shape and Keep Your Muscle Tone While on Vacation
For athletes and dancers (classical ballet and others too), time off without a daily class brings the double-edged sword of relief and anxiety. Relief to have relaxing time, and anxiety about not staying in shape and keeping the muscle tone they've worked so hard for. So without turning time off into a working vacation, here are some suggestions for daily routines to help stay in shape.
If you're staying at home and have a spot that you usually exercise in, then you are set to practice. If you are a classical ballet student, the challenge is great - there is really nothing to replace the demands of a ballet class. However, you can customize a daily routine to challenge your muscles.
If you are intermediate or advanced, it is easy to get a ballet class DVD to workout with. However, many are instructional with breaks in between the exercises. There are some ballet workout DVDs which are pretty demanding, but if you don't want to customize a routine that works on your particular ongoing corrections from class, you will get a good workout. Also, you'll get warmed up enough to stretch safely.
If you choose to do a regular barre routine, make a simple barre workout that emphasizes your weaknesses. For example, if you have any balancing problems, put in a slow rise and slow lowering into a demi plie in every exercise. And repeat without using the barre. If you understand where the shift in balance is coming from, you can correct, repeat super-slow-motion movements.
You can also include core muscle exercises every day, to help with the balancing problem.
You could sign up for local Pilates classes - they are wonderful for the elongating type of exercises, core muscle strength and stretching too.
If you are traveling in hotels or in homes, and will have a restricted space, take a stretchy band. With the floor space required to sit, move into second position, or lie down and lift your legs to the front back and side, you can do slow leg raises with the band, and developpes with the band. This challenges your leg and core muscles.
If you are preparing for pointe work coming up in your next session of classes, use the stretchy band for foot strengthening. Sitting, legs stretched out in front, pointe your ankles but not your toes. Run the band behind your flexed toes, and stretch your toes long against the resistance of the band. You increase the resistance as you need, and work out all your foot and ankle muscles.
This is good for men in ballet too. Strengthening the feet means you will not be over working your calf muscles, which pinch-hit for the foot muscles when they are weak. This leads to strain and tension, which in turn decreases the ankle flexibility and the degree of point that you have.
Swimming is great for endurance - if you enjoy it, swim a lot.
Stay hydrated, and eat good whole food to keep those electrolytes up. Dehydration affects your muscles tone, your energy, your brain function and leads to retaining water. Real food provides minerals you can digest, avoid those sugary sports drinks with a couple of token minerals in them.
I hope this has given you some ideas as to how to enjoy your time off without feeling like it is a working vacation, and with no worry about staying in shape or how to keep your muscle tone.
Read more here about daily routines, corrections, The Perfect Pointe Book, The Ballet Bible, and ballet DVDs for working out and staying in shape.
If you're staying at home and have a spot that you usually exercise in, then you are set to practice. If you are a classical ballet student, the challenge is great - there is really nothing to replace the demands of a ballet class. However, you can customize a daily routine to challenge your muscles.
If you are intermediate or advanced, it is easy to get a ballet class DVD to workout with. However, many are instructional with breaks in between the exercises. There are some ballet workout DVDs which are pretty demanding, but if you don't want to customize a routine that works on your particular ongoing corrections from class, you will get a good workout. Also, you'll get warmed up enough to stretch safely.
If you choose to do a regular barre routine, make a simple barre workout that emphasizes your weaknesses. For example, if you have any balancing problems, put in a slow rise and slow lowering into a demi plie in every exercise. And repeat without using the barre. If you understand where the shift in balance is coming from, you can correct, repeat super-slow-motion movements.
You can also include core muscle exercises every day, to help with the balancing problem.
You could sign up for local Pilates classes - they are wonderful for the elongating type of exercises, core muscle strength and stretching too.
If you are traveling in hotels or in homes, and will have a restricted space, take a stretchy band. With the floor space required to sit, move into second position, or lie down and lift your legs to the front back and side, you can do slow leg raises with the band, and developpes with the band. This challenges your leg and core muscles.
If you are preparing for pointe work coming up in your next session of classes, use the stretchy band for foot strengthening. Sitting, legs stretched out in front, pointe your ankles but not your toes. Run the band behind your flexed toes, and stretch your toes long against the resistance of the band. You increase the resistance as you need, and work out all your foot and ankle muscles.
This is good for men in ballet too. Strengthening the feet means you will not be over working your calf muscles, which pinch-hit for the foot muscles when they are weak. This leads to strain and tension, which in turn decreases the ankle flexibility and the degree of point that you have.
Swimming is great for endurance - if you enjoy it, swim a lot.
Stay hydrated, and eat good whole food to keep those electrolytes up. Dehydration affects your muscles tone, your energy, your brain function and leads to retaining water. Real food provides minerals you can digest, avoid those sugary sports drinks with a couple of token minerals in them.
I hope this has given you some ideas as to how to enjoy your time off without feeling like it is a working vacation, and with no worry about staying in shape or how to keep your muscle tone.
Read more here about daily routines, corrections, The Perfect Pointe Book, The Ballet Bible, and ballet DVDs for working out and staying in shape.
How to silently remind your guests to remove their shoes
re-post
1. Cast your eyes downwards at the guest's feet for a few seconds.
2. Make a faint smile with gritted teeth.
3. Look down at the guest's feet again.
4. When the guest looks down, nod.
This is unlikely to work on first-time guests. This is only for reminding people who already know you don't want shoes in your house.
1. Cast your eyes downwards at the guest's feet for a few seconds.
2. Make a faint smile with gritted teeth.
3. Look down at the guest's feet again.
4. When the guest looks down, nod.
This is unlikely to work on first-time guests. This is only for reminding people who already know you don't want shoes in your house.
Healthy Eating Habits During The Stressful Time of Ballet Rehearsals
Ah... the final realization of all that work in ballet shoes and pointe shoes, or your other dance styles. The ballet recital, lights, costumes, the audience. Healthy eating habits matter even more during the stressful time of the final ballet rehearsals. An athlete's food choice is critical for your long classical ballet rehearsal hours. And aching limbs can bring on sleeping problems without the intake of proper nutrients.
The gruelling repetition of staging, lighting and full out classical ballet rehearsals can be enjoyed more if you are well fed and well hydrated. For one thing, those sneaky self-doubts about your readiness to perform, your shape, your hair, etc., etc., will have lot less power if you keep up your energy in a healthy way.
For example, and believe it or not, celery sticks with peanut butter is a way better snack than the average power bar, full of useless carbs, processed protein and a few lab-made vitamins. Celery is one of the best salty foods we have. When I say salt, I mean all those mineral salts that you lose in perspiration. If your peanut butter is real (no added high fructose corn syrup, and hydrogenated oils) it is full of vitamins, minerals, protein, and a healthy fat. That fat will give you energy to handle the stress and demands on your muscles.
A light and energizing lunch could be a can of wild caught salmon with a little real, but unsweetened mayonnaise, and dark leafy greens. The omega 3 oil in the salmon is food for your soft tissues and joints. It also is great brain support. The dark green leafy salads or vegetables are full of calcium, vitamin A and trace minerals that support your metabolism and all of the extra nervous activity that the excitement and demands of the situation brings forth.
Hydrating means sipping water all day long. Popular sports drinks are extremely acidic. They do not hydrate you like water does.
Using sea salt instead of table salt keeps up your electrolytes. There are 12 mineral salts to replace - not just the one or two included in sports drinks. Lack of minerals can lead to muscle cramps that keep you awake. Also good salt is necessary to prevent water retention.
Lack of good fats increases pain in strained and fatigued muscles.
Eating breakfast is vital. Eggs with the yolks soft provides essential fatty acids. This is not the place to count calories and get rid of that egg yolk.....if you cook the yolks hard you will damage the enzymes needed to digest them. Protein is also provided by this wonderful food. A flourless sprouted grain bread will give you some B Complex vitamins without bringing on the swollen stomach caused by wheat flour.
Sugar weakens muscles. Instead of carbs and sweets, eat fruit. Fruits contain vitamins and minerals and natural sugars.
One thing from your fridge that you can't eat but can use, is a soft ice pack. When you get home from a stressful time at the theater, eat your good athlete's food, and bring out the ice pack to wrap around sore muscles and joints.
Find out how to get the right pointe shoe sizing and how to prevent dance injuries.
The gruelling repetition of staging, lighting and full out classical ballet rehearsals can be enjoyed more if you are well fed and well hydrated. For one thing, those sneaky self-doubts about your readiness to perform, your shape, your hair, etc., etc., will have lot less power if you keep up your energy in a healthy way.
For example, and believe it or not, celery sticks with peanut butter is a way better snack than the average power bar, full of useless carbs, processed protein and a few lab-made vitamins. Celery is one of the best salty foods we have. When I say salt, I mean all those mineral salts that you lose in perspiration. If your peanut butter is real (no added high fructose corn syrup, and hydrogenated oils) it is full of vitamins, minerals, protein, and a healthy fat. That fat will give you energy to handle the stress and demands on your muscles.
A light and energizing lunch could be a can of wild caught salmon with a little real, but unsweetened mayonnaise, and dark leafy greens. The omega 3 oil in the salmon is food for your soft tissues and joints. It also is great brain support. The dark green leafy salads or vegetables are full of calcium, vitamin A and trace minerals that support your metabolism and all of the extra nervous activity that the excitement and demands of the situation brings forth.
Hydrating means sipping water all day long. Popular sports drinks are extremely acidic. They do not hydrate you like water does.
Using sea salt instead of table salt keeps up your electrolytes. There are 12 mineral salts to replace - not just the one or two included in sports drinks. Lack of minerals can lead to muscle cramps that keep you awake. Also good salt is necessary to prevent water retention.
Lack of good fats increases pain in strained and fatigued muscles.
Eating breakfast is vital. Eggs with the yolks soft provides essential fatty acids. This is not the place to count calories and get rid of that egg yolk.....if you cook the yolks hard you will damage the enzymes needed to digest them. Protein is also provided by this wonderful food. A flourless sprouted grain bread will give you some B Complex vitamins without bringing on the swollen stomach caused by wheat flour.
Sugar weakens muscles. Instead of carbs and sweets, eat fruit. Fruits contain vitamins and minerals and natural sugars.
One thing from your fridge that you can't eat but can use, is a soft ice pack. When you get home from a stressful time at the theater, eat your good athlete's food, and bring out the ice pack to wrap around sore muscles and joints.
Find out how to get the right pointe shoe sizing and how to prevent dance injuries.
The Loss of a Legend...
"What I would like to do is to go away, go away for a long time, without doing anything in particular, forget everything, and then come back to see if I still want to make dresses."
- Yves Saint Laurent's reply on a questionnaire that is part of an exhibition of his works at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Yves Saint Laurent, born Aug 1st, 1936. He left home at the age of 17 to work for the French designer Christian Dior. Following Dior's death in 1957, Yves, at the age of 21, was responsible for saving the Dior house from financial ruin. In 1983, he became the first living fashion designer to be honored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In 2001, he was awarded the rank of Commander of the Légion d'Honneur by French president Jacques Chirac.
YSL had been the first to put women in pants, the first to give them tuxedos, and the first to use black models for his catwalk shows. He was a pioneer and a legend.
Yves Saint Laurent retired in 2002 and became increasingly reclusive. Paying tribute to his mentors, including Christian Dior, Balenciaga, Schiaparelli and Chanel, he said that his decision was based on a disgust with an industry that had become ruled more by commercial gain than art. "I have nothing in common with this new world of fashion, which has been reduced to mere window-dressing," he said. "Elegance and beauty have been banished."
From then until his death he spent much of his time at his house in Marrakech, Morocco. He later created a foundation with his lover and business partner, Pierre Bergé in Paris to trace the history of the house of YSL, complete with 15,000 objects and 5,000 pieces of clothing.
He lost his battle with brain cancer on June 1, 2008 at his home in Paris.
The world of fashion was deeply changed because of YSL's genius and for that, he will live on forever.
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