2025, animals, Business, Family, Gatherings, Travel, Uncategorized

As the World Turns…

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Having YA living here makes me ruminate on almost a daily basis about how much the world has changed. 

She’s in San Antonio now, at a conference.  For once she is a participant, not a staff and she is enjoying that juxtaposition.  One of the things that has changed significantly in the travel/meeting/conference world is the choice of activities.  I organized a group in San Antonio once and the activity options were golf, tennis and the San Antonio city tour (with lengthy stop at the Alamo).  Golf was the activity of choice on almost all trips except Hawaii, where the catamaran tour was always the big winner.  As the years went by, people got more adventurous and wanted more options.  Golf fell out of favor and “experiences” got more popular.  Cooking classes, art encounters, biking, kayaking, horseback riding, ATV adventures. Zipline infrastructure grew and grew as did the number of folks wanting to try it.

The activities that YA had to choose from included morning walks, morning jogs, the traditional city tour, Seaworld and…. puppy yoga!

I’d never even heard of yoga until I was in college – heard a talk about transcendental meditation and Ram Das and yoga.  That was it for probably over a decade.  Once onboard a ship with a client, I did a session of yoga with her and promptly pulled a muscle in my back that took weeks to feel better. 

Now there are multitudes of yoga types (Kundalini, Kharma, Buti, Tantra) but lots of stranger versions that I’ve seen.  Hot yoga is done in an overheated environment that encourages sweating.  Naked yoga – well, I don’t have to explain that.  Goat yoga.  And, of course, the popular puppy yoga.  YA signed up for puppy yoga on both of her allotted activity days.  She has sent quite a few photos and it doesn’t look like any yoga is getting done at all.  That’s my girl!

Have you ever tried yoga?   Do you have a favorite activity when you’re traveling?

33 thoughts on “As the World Turns…”

  1. OK, I looked it up and it does look kinda cute. But who knew this was coming?

    I’ve taken yoga classes a few times, and now do my just version of the Sun Salutation very morning, followed by some spinal twist type moves. I should add in a few more, I learned recently..

    When I travel, I do enjoy a tour of the place, preferably from a local, but I’ll go on the tour bus if nothing else. Then I’d want to eat at a restaurant favored by the locals.

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  2. You’ve finally gotten me curious enough to look up goat yoga (https://yogadura.com/what-is-goat-yoga/):
    “Once the yoga practice begins, the goats freely roam around the participants, sometimes even joining them on their mats. While the goats may climb on participants or nudge them playfully, their presence is meant to bring laughter and joy rather than distract from the yoga practice. The goats’ unpredictable behavior adds an element of surprise and excitement to the session, making it a truly unique and memorable experience.”

    I presume the puppy yoga is similar!

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  3. OT: Another musician has died this week – Sly Stone on June 9, at age 82 also (see Brian Wilson). Tho’ probably not as universally loved as the Beach Boys, Sly and the Family Stone is who I think of for the word funkadelic…

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  4. Never tried yoga. My wife tried it once, didn’t know it was Hot yoga . . . or the room was just plain too hot unintentionally. She never went back.

    I go on golf junkets mostly. But in our more active camping days, we prefered hikes in the parks or wherever we were. Also enjoy, and prefer, sampling the local cuisine, wine, and beer.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  5. 15 years ago friends who are dedicated yoga people bought me attendance at a new class for people with chronic pain. The teacher did not quite get it. There were about a dozen in the class. The first 3 exercises were ok, but after that they were not. The teacher said we had to push through our pain. She quickly got shouted down. All but 4 said they were not coming back. One of many encounters with people who don’t get chronic pain. I do believe yoga could be done right for people like me.
    I encounter the same thing in meditations, teachers who think they can talk me out of it. But there are 3-4 who know how to mentally/emotionally deal with it.
    Clyde

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    1. “Push through the pain” is right up there among my least favorite aphorisms. Another least favorite is “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

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  7. my physical flexibility and dexterity are similar to Frankenstein‘s. I have tried yoga and look over at the person next to me to see what it’s supposed to look like and it never feels like it is supposed to be. I should be more disciplined about doing stuff that’s good for me and I’m sure if I spent a half an hour or even five minutes stretching every day I would be happier, especially with my hand and my hip that I’ve been giving me trouble for more than a year when I go out to a new town I usually ask around to find out what is available on the options list for stuff of interest I tend to enjoy museums and walks and parks and hole in the wall restaurants as well as performances theater and music and I am really good at people watching

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  8. I find exercising with other people in a class setting really annoying. If I did goat or puppy yoga. I would probably end up playing with the animals and ignoring the teacher.

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      1. I just picked up YA from the airport and she confirms that she did about two yoga stretches and the whole rest of the time, both sessions, she played with puppies

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    2. Most exercise classes, I do not like, but I did enjoy yoga and water aerobics. In the next month or so, I should be ready to return to water aerobics, which I miss a lot. Right now I am back at the gym rebuilding my stamina on the seated cross trainer (for knees and hips) and the treadmill.

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      1. Years ago, before YA was born, there was one aerobics instructor at Bally‘s who was excellent. He basically started from scratch and built a routine up; by the time he was done, you were doing a whole long, almost dance routine. It was definitely exercise, but it was way more fun than most classes. Unfortunately after about a year and a half he moved onto other things.

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  9. No yoga. My mind goes blank without trying.
    While traveling, I’m down with others about people watching. Even drivers.
    I’ve decided to relieve irritation by quickly making up stories why these people are driving 80 mph in a 65.

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  10. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I did yoga for about 10 years until I had my knee replacement. Yoga and joint replacements are not very compatible. The reconstructed joints tend to dislocate with the kind of pressure put on the joints that is part of yoga. Although I was not any good at it, I did enjoy it very much. My body loved the stretching and the strength-building part of it. I also have to move to get the benefits of meditation, so yoga helped me clear my mind. The gym I use has a chair yoga class for us old people, and I think I will try attending that. I have never done puppy yoga, unless I did a routine at home and the dog was “helping.”

    When I travel I just love to walk and explore with the help of a map or a tour book. My favorite thing is to just see what happens in an area. The cities of Europe are especially good for this because they are so densely populated. There is something everywhere. I usually purchase some kind of a tour that orients me to the city. That is the fastest way to learn the city. I also enjoy most museums (although I have heard about an engineering museum in Germany that I think I will pass on). Talking to people around me is also enjoyable.

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  11. First Yoga Lesson

    “Be a lotus in the pond,” she said, “opening
    slowly, no single energy tugging
    against another but peacefully,
    all together.”

    I couldn’t even touch my toes.
    “Feel your quadriceps stretching?” she asked.
    Well, something was certainly stretching.

    Standing impressively upright, she
    raised one leg and placed it against
    the other, then lifted her arms and
    shook her hands like leaves. “Be a tree,” she said.

    I lay on the floor, exhausted.
    But to be a lotus in the pond
    opening slowly, and very slowly rising–
    that I could do.

    = Mary Oliver

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      1. I once went to a yoga session where there was a lot of breathing as part of the practice. It involved a lot of inhaling through your right nostril and exhaling through you left nostril. My research indicates this is called Chandra Bhedana Pranayama. I hated it. I really hated it.

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        1. I have been to those too. I think it is a delusion unless you physically close the nostril.

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  12. OT
    The power of Wes in Franklin, OH continues.
    Today at the trades meeting for building the new middle school by Conger Construction in Milford, OH.
    I told the story about the Franklin city manager playing my request for Beach Boys music to honor Brian Wilson. They did.FUN!
    BUT…!
    At the job meeting I was reminded that the mayor of Franklin is a big wig in Conger Construction!
    I have a good reputation with Conger that I will now use to benefit the store owners who have issues about steps up to their establishments.
    This is way cool that business owners can name drop “Wes” as part of getting solutions to safety issues.

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  13. I took yoga classes for about ten years. During the pandemic, we had classes via Zoom. Then my yoga instructor “retired,” right about the time I was laid off. I found a nice routine on YouTube and did it every day. Now that I’m back working full time, it’s been much harder to keep it up. I really miss it. Can’t imagine doing it with animals roaming around, it would make it hard to focus and maintain breath control. When we travel, we walk a lot, go to museums and theater.

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