If Flowers Were Friends...

Hands up who is addicted to Pinterest? Well we for two can understand :)

So many crafty ideas to Pin and try..... eventually. This week, whilst having a chilled out girls night in we decided to try out a Pin we had come across where by you take roses and slice the stems into four and then place them in different coloured food dye. Resulting in a bouquet of kaleidoscopic colour.

So we gathered the essentials. Food dye, check. Vases aka champagne glasses, check. Scissors, check. Roses....um oops!! A last minute dash to the shop and all we could get were the miniature version :(

After trying and failing dismally 7 times in a row we gave up on splitting the stems. Ok in they go whole, wonder if this will even work?

Over the next few hours we watched over our flower babies. We were like grade A nerds hovering over our prize winning science experiment. There were squeals of delight. "It's working!" "Oh my god they're opening!" "Oh wow look at the colour seeping up like veins." It was all very beautifully exciting.

We think this is one that kids are going to find fascinating <3

Ice, Ice Skating

Continuing on with our hobbyathon we recently hit our local Ice Arena in search of some good old fashioned skating fun.

But first how about some interesting and completely useless facts about ice skating.

Like for instance did you know that an old Dutch word for skate is "schenkel" which means "leg bone". And that the oldest pair of ice skates found date back to about 3000 B.C. They were discovered at the bottom of a lake in Switzerland and were made from the leg bones of large animals. Hence the Dutch term “schenkel”.

Ice skating has long been a means to get around in countries with long, cold winters, such as Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, and especially Holland. By the 18th century skating was not only a means of travel but also a well established sport. European colonists introduced it early into America and Canada.

In 1865, Jackson Haines, a famous American skater, developed the two plate all metal blade. The blade was attached directly to Haines' boots. The skater became famous for his new dance moves, jumps and spins.

The first artificial ice rink was built in 1876, at Chelsea, London, England and was named, wait for it, The Glaciarium!

How awesome would it be to say I'm off to The Glaciarium! Well for us sadly the Cockburn (pronounced Co-burn, I know ridiculous and amusingly funny in this situation) Ice Arena would have to do.

Ok so we arrived for our late afternoon session raring to go. As we donned our furry jackets and walked past the teenagers loitering in the carpark we could already hear the DJ's tunes, pumping out Skrillex.

After paying for our session and skate hire (of which we got a huge $5.00 discount from our shopper dockets on, yes we are savvy like that) we walked through the double doors and bam! COLD, COLD, COLD! It was frozenly freezing. Oh thank the lord we had worn multiple layer and had our furry coats.

Following my (Kat) skate fitting dilemma, in which I tried the 38, then changed to the 39 then proceeded to change back to the 38, we emu-walked it out onto the ice. Ice skates are very awkward to walk in.

We were a bit shaky at the start but found our form fairly quickly. Around and around we went to the DJ's mix which was very ummm, interesting. Cindy Lauper, The Eagles, Eminem and Good Charlotte to name a few. At one point we were even trying to skate backwards which we found is quite difficult.

Then we got a little too confident and decided we would try a move in which we cross arms and hold each others wrists and catapult each other around in a circle. A move which I'm sure has a very technical name like a few others I came across such as a "choctaw", "swizzle", "spread eagle" and a "death spiral". Well anyway it didn't go according to plan and we went arse over on the ice laughing. Which was quite painful and wet.

We skated for about an hour and a half, which actually felt like plenty of time. By this stage my feet felt like I'd been wearing my highest of heels out on the town all night. In hind sight I should have gone for the 39.

Introducing our new Hobbyathon Quick Review Guide.

Bikram Yoga - Some like it hot!

Well here we are officially kicking off the hobbyathon. What is a hobbyathon you ask? Check out our About Us page to find out more.

Now where were we? Oh yes, we have started with an increasingly popular form of yoga, yoga of the Bikram variety.

Bikram yoga is a system of yoga that an Indian guy called Bikram Choudhury adapted from the more traditional hatha yoga techniques. Bikram classes are 90 minutes long, consisting of a series of 2 breathing exercises and 26 ‘Asanas’ or postures, each performed twice.  Every class is exactly the same, so you always know what you’re getting. And perhaps the most important thing to note before you stumble into a Bikram class for the first time is that the room is heated to about 40 degrees and averages around 40% humidity. Yep, you read right, 40 degrees! It’s a tad warm in there.

They say that the heat is supposed to protect the muscles to allow for deeper stretching and also for improved blood circulation to deliver more oxygen to joints, muscles and organs. The high temps and humidity also increase heart rate which ups the cardio aspect. Also sweating is supposed to have a detoxifying and cleansing effect, right?

So, how did we go?

Skye
Bikram Yoga, well this was different. I always thought I was pretty flexible, oh how this was not the case. Standing there sweating from head to toe in a room that smelt like... well it smelt odd.

90 mins I had to do pose after pose after pose. It was quite intense and you really make your body stretch, stretching to places you never thought were possible. I had done Yoga in the past (mind you it was in my lounge room watching along with one of the instructors on TV. I’m a PRO!) Now that is completely different. Even though you pace yourself and drink plenty of water, I couldn’t help but try pushing myself so I got everything I could out of the experience and boy did I feel it in my back the following days after OUCH.  Though I felt so refreshed and in a way my body was thanking me for it.

Now, there were a few poses where I was like “who actually does this!”. The poses were so nuts and it’s all about concentration and control, willing yourself to maintain the position and just brrreeeeaaath. Sometimes I would struggle, good thing to know was that I wasn’t the only new person in the room haha.

Cooling down, lying on the floor, lights dimmed and everyone silent, starring at the ceiling noticing they had Buddha quotes in various spots. Now that’s pretty cool, pretty spiritual and pretty relevant to what just went down in that heated room.

Kat
Well I must confess that I am not a Bikram yoga newbie. But it has been sometime since my last class and I’d have to say that for me each class actually gets harder. For me knowing the poses and what I’m in for, coupled with the fact that I now have an idea of how hard I can push myself is a real mind challenge.

Honestly the actual poses themselves are not that difficult to do. You do have to be somewhat flexible, but you don’t have to make yourself resemble a human pretzel…much. In saying that the intensity that comes with holding poses is, well intense! Each pose prepares you for the next and now, after going quite a few times, I’m really starting to enjoy and understand the “high” of opening up a floodgate of freshly oxygenated blood when releasing out of poses.

Some of them hurt like absolute hell. Salabhasana, or Locust is my nemesis, one leg at a time is a breeze but both together and I feel like I’m glued to the floor. I’d have to say that Dandayamana-Dhanurasana, or Standing Bow is my favourite, this pose always reminds me of a ballerina or a dancer. And who wouldn’t love good old Savansana, which is the rest pose.

And what about the heat? Honestly I love the heat. I love the feeling of sweating it out and whether detoxifying or not, I really do feel quite refreshed and rejuvenated afterwards. Since doing Bikram yoga I find the non-hot yoga varieties have lost my interest. I just don’t get the satisfaction and feeling of accomplishment I do after surviving another 90 minutes in the hot torture chamber of hell.

What to bring
Firstly you will need a yoga mat, there are special Bikram mats you can buy or you can sometimes just hire one at the studio, but a standard yoga mat works just fine. You’ll also need a towel and water. I recommend getting salt and potassium tablets and adding those to your water. This helps with the dehydrating effects from sweating it out so much. These too are usually available at the studio.

What to Wear
Just wear whatever you would wear to exercise outside on a hot summers day; students typically wear running shorts, bike shorts, singlets or sports bras. Some students wear ¾ length legging type pants, but I would recommend the actual breathable ones made for sport, otherwise you will be stifling.  Something with a little bit of Spandex is good, that way it won’t get baggy or see-through when it’s wet. You may want to bring some dry clothes to change into after class as you will be drenched. Not so bad going home in summer but in winter it’s freezing, trust me.

What to Eat or Drink before Class
It’s a good idea to drink plenty of water the night before, and I’d recommend not eating right before your class. This is because having a lot of food in your belly might make you feel nauseous in the heat. But it’s also not a good idea to practice yoga “on empty”, low blood sugar might make you feel dizzy. A juice, a piece of fruit, power bar, or yogurt should give you what you need to get through the class.

Where to go
We attended the south of the river studio in Myaree. To find out more about Bikram here in Perth, locations, timetables, prices, etc. Click here.

If trying Bikram for the first time you’ll most definitely find a brightly lit, sweaty smelling, breathlessly hot room and be instructed by what you’ll first think is an eagled-eyed drill sergeant. Constantly conveying the moves your body should be making. Don’t worry you’ll get used to the “Bikram dialogue”. The instructors are actually quite amazing and really know their stuff. You’ll most probably find a room full of all sorts of bodies of all kinds of ages. You may find some postures easy and some near on impossible. You’ll feel absolute relief when you finally get to the end and final Savansana. Maybe you will feel amazing, maybe you will be racing to the door to get out. Oh and try not to freak out when at the start of class they tell you no matter what you can’t leave for 90 minutes. You may love or hate your Bikram experience, or fall somewhere in between. You may become a Bikram convert or you may look back and laugh at the time you almost fainted, came close to vomiting and got someone else’s sweat in your eye.

Namaste!