Wow, wow and WOW!

I bought Furry Husband and I some tickets to the Ft. Collins Lincoln Center to see Tao - a Japanese drum troupe.

Wow.

Amazing, amazing, amazing.

The coordination, precision, athletic-ness, strength, art, grace was incredible.

There were drums - sometimes as big as a VW beetle - and someone would stand in front of this ginormus drum and wail on it.  The intricacy of the rhythms, the skill at creating soft drumming and then so loud you felt your rib cage rattle.... oh, it was just so fantastic.

I had goose bumps during most of the show.

There were 4 or 5 women in the troupe.  Most of the numbers had them in backless outfits and damn if they did not have the most muscular, incredible backs of all time.   There were several numbers where the men wore no shirts and they had zero body fat.  They all held low squats and lunges for long amounts of time - sometimes carrying large drums, other times leaping light as a feather out of the pose with so much explosive energy.

The complete mastery they had of their bodies was just beautiful and awe inspiring.  If you ever get a chance, go see these people.  They are amazing!

http://www.drum-tao.com/en/



If you watch the 2008 Australia Tour video clip, it shows an entire number so you can get a sense of what they do.  http://www.drum-tao.com/en/video_gallery/index.html

Tho' watching a video clip vs. being there live and in person with the energy and sound moving you is like night and day.

On no posts....

Hmmm - this winter has been sort of slow and boring for blog posts.  It's been cold and I go to work, come home, cook dinner... we eat... we play with dogs, feed horses, milk goats....go to bed, rinse and repeat.

I've been a bit of a weenie about riding in the cold we've had recently... go figure.  We can get up at 4:30 AM, bundle up and take the dogs for a 2 mile walk under the stars and yet, when I get home and it's cold and dark I have no desire to climb up on my little red mule. 

Debbie clinics have been cancelled due to snow and people unable to dig out trailers and I guess it assists in the "no motivation" piece of riding.  I'm looking forward to longer days and sunlight for me arse to hit the leather again!

Dog agility has also been postponed several times due to snow.  Hopefully this weekend I'll get a ride in with Rex AND an agility class with The Toe!  What a concept.

I've been continuing on with my clean eating habits... no grains, lots of veggies (who knew brussel sprouts were so friggin delicious roasted in olive oil and salt til they are all carmelized and scrumptious nuggets of yum?) and yummy animal protiens - fish, chicken, beef, pork... little sugar (1-2 squares of 85% dark chocolate a night along with a glass or 2 of red wine, some fruit here and there) and I've been working on my bodyweight exercises.  I feel stronger and healthier than ever...

As I continue with my bodyweight exercises things will only get stronger and better... it's fun and interesting to feel my body change as well as my moods/energy/mind getting stronger and happier.  Never thought I'd feel this good again thanks to Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson.   (http://www.marksdailyapple.com/ for all the free info you could want, free e-fitness book, free e-cookbook etc. etc. etc.)

Check out these awesome blogs:

Team Gorilla - I look at this site every day to keep my motivation strong.  Strong women working hard and getting stronger!  Amen sistah! 
http://wildgorillaman.blogspot.com/2012/02/wednesday-warmup-strong-is-new-strong.html

This woman is also very inspiring, check her out
http://www.nancyjohnsonchavez.com/

And this is a great site for fitness/nutrition geared for women tho' any man would get great info here as well:
http://www.stumptuous.com/no-weights-no-problem 

Chicken Tomatillo Stew

I don't post many recipies here, however, we made this for the first time last night and it was FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC!

We are supposed to get a storm blowing in today and this soup is perfect for a cold, wintery day stuck inside.... so warm and a lovely level of heat without being hot or spicy... warms you up all the way around!

2-3 poblano peppers
1-2 jalepenos
2-3 red or green peppers (optional)
1 cubanelle pepper  (dunno what this is and they didn't have this sort of pepper in our grocery store - we used an anaheim pepper and we threw in a serrano pepper too)
1-2 small yellow onions
2-3 garlic cloves
chop all
add
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp paprika
1 Tbl cumin

1 24oz jar of tomatillos

2lbs chix

4C chix broth

we put it all in a crock pot on low for 8 hrs... shredded the chix with 2 forks in the pot when we got home....

scoop into a bowl, add a little sour cream....AMAZING! 

Recipe says you can add or subtract as many veggies as you like.

Enjoy!

yo-yo-yo word....

No.  Not that sort o' word...not to yo' mutha...

WORD for the year.

Yesterday was my lunchtime yoga class.  I absolutely LOVE my instructor, most of the things she discusses before class really resonate with me for some reason.  They click and make sense in my little life.  Yoga is my brain candy... I like the peace it brings the hamster running on the wheel called "my brain".

 

Yesterday she talked about having a word for the year... said she asks people to think of a word specifically on Nov. 1 - something to do with alignment (some of the yoga concepts are over my head - can only take so much in) and it becomes this seed planted in the ground to grow in the coming year, right?  A visual about your word. 

 

I was not in that particular class... I didn't know about the word thing...and of course it is fine that you didn't have a word in November and she asked us to think about what a good word for the year might be.

 

My word flashed into my head like a giant neon sign.

 

Right around November 1 is when I wanted to become stronger and started investigating the body weight stuff... I have been thinking STRENGTH since November.  Took some pix o' myself November 2nd to track progress and body composition changes.  Co-inky-dink?  I think not. 

 

This may be too fru-fru for you vs science based  - maybe a little too Mulder and not enough Scully - and yet, I think things happen for a reason and there are no coincidences.   

 

When she was talking about all this and how right now is the "quickening" when your word is really wanting to burst forth and you have all this energy surrounding your word and what it means to you.  

 

I've had this renewed energy and increased motivation for my workouts....?   Furry Husband was saying the other day I seem a little "obsessed".  Heh.  Me?  I have had a lot of excitement about it - reading and researching it all. 

 

Very interesting.

 

My word, that I didn't have to think about and have been focusing on since November,  is STRENGTH.  And of course this can cover many other aspects of my life - not just physical strength but the strength to do what I think needs to be done vs. what others think (I think I easily cave to go with status quo), emotional strength (to conquer fears I have) etc.

 

Just thought it was cool. 

 

She said to think of your word often - when you are lagging or tired think of your word and it will help you move toward that word.  Of course it goes right along with setting goals, it's not like it's magic or some sort of yogini juju ...  sure is a neat way to think of it tho!  An idea, planted... growing and becoming something of substance in your world/mind/body.

 

Now, think of a word YOU want to focus on this year.   Let's move toward that idea, word, goal, concept in 2012...

 

AND speaking of strength... here is a YouTube link for some amazing "wow" factor.  This is my body weight role model, Al Kavadlo.  Check this man out... talk about some serious STRENGTH.   Dang.