(Video) Five Poses a Day with Romi: Yoga for Jet Lag

Five Poses a Day: Yoga for Jet lag

This sequence will help you feel relaxed and restored after long periods of sitting, traveling, and crossing time zones. It can be completed in fifteen to twenty minutes. Or, add a few of your favorite poses and take some extra breaths to create a longer practice.

Five Poses a Day with Romi: Yoga for Jet Lag from Romi on Vimeo.

(Video) Five Poses a Day with Romi: Yoga for Inner Balance

Five Poses A Day: Yoga for Inner Balance

This video was filmed in the wilderness in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. Utilize these postures to feel more present with yourself and create a feeling of inner balance and calm. This sequence can be completed in fifteen to twenty minutes. Or, add a few of your favorite poses or take some extra breaths in each posture to create a longer practice.

To stay in touch with us about Romi’s upcoming 2018 Yoga Safari in the Okavango Delta, email us at romicumes@gmail.com or call (805) 448-4111

Five Poses a Day with Romi: Yoga for Centering from Romi on Vimeo.

Five Poses a Day with Romi: Centering

Five Poses a Day, September Sequence

Happy Friday!

I have many clients and friends that want to start practicing yoga, meditating, or exercising more, but find the process daunting or unapproachable. Even though I have been practicing and teaching yoga for many years, I can relate and often find it challenging to simply get on the mat. One thing I find extremely helpful with this yoga/exercise quandary, is to simply commit to five postures. That’s right FIVE POSTURES or simple exercises. We can all make time to do five poses and by setting the intention to just do five, we usually end up wanting more and extending the practice. Doing five poses a day is not overwhelming and only takes fifteen to twenty five minutes, depending on how fast you work through the sequence and how many variations you add.

Today is a new moon and a new time to commit to taking care of your body, mind, and spirit. Here’s a sequence that can help you jump start your day and motivate your self-care practice.

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Pose 1: PLANK 10-20 breaths if done without variations. With variations, 5-10 breaths each

(Variation 1 and 2 Pictured below)

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plank-3

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Additional Pose/Rest: Child’s Pose or Wide Knee Child’s Pose

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POSE 2: Low Lunge with Rhomboid Squeeze

5-10 breaths holding lunge. 10-20 shoulder/rhomboid squeeze reps (pulse and squeeze shoulder blades together behind you, keeping hands active)

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Variation 1: Gentle twisting low lunge (left arm not visible in photo and can reach above head to activate psoas/hip flexor stretch)

side-bend-1Pose 3: Side Stretch with Hip Opener; keep feet and arms active (both sides, 5-15 breaths)

Variation 1: Side Stretch with Hip Opener and Neck Release

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Pose 4: Knee to Chest (both sides, 5-15 breaths)

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Pose 5: Spinal Twist (both sides, 5-15 breaths)

 

Have a beautiful day!

-Romi

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salt Farms and the Single Life

It was just another day for the Maras salt farmers, but for me, it was a solid hike at 10,300 feet. As I walked through a small Andean village to get to a trail head, beautiful scenery was met with the aberrant dichotomy of social distress. One moment I was basking in the surrounding landscape, speckled with corn fields, green mountaintops, and cob homes; the next, my gait slammed to a screeching halt as I encountered a woman wailing in Spanish, her husband and she engaging in an explosive argument. The therapist in me wanted to assist her, as it sounded like she was in danger. But for all I knew, she was the provoker, and what could I really do anyway? Enter a stranger’s house and pretend I was the tourist police? Probably not a good idea – in any country. I walked on and felt helpless as I heard her fusillade of rage and pain fade into the distance.

I continued my hike up to a vista that revealed much of the Sacred Valley, just below Maras, a Quechua salt farming site. The salt is harvested from squares plots that beautifully contour the side of the mountain. This “salinera” utilizes a sophisticated, ancient Incan aqueduct system. Each terraced square is fed by one saline stream coming directly out of the earth; and the salty stream continues down the mountain, lining the red diatomaceous earth with white streaks.

As I sat on a perched rock (pictured) to check out the salty mountain and the view of the valley, I soon became a spectacle to a male villager passing by. “De donde eres? Y donde está tu esposo?”, he asked. There you have it, two of the most important questions a campesino can ask a woman:

“Where are you from?”  And…
“Where is your husband?”

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“No lo tengo”, I answered jovially.

The salt farmer couldn’t comprehend why I didn’t have a husband, nor why I would intentionally hike alone. He continued to ask me questions with great consternation, as well as appeared perplexed by my answers. I didn’t have a husband and I was happy? How could this be? He scratched his adorable wrinkled face and continued down the jagged trail.

I love men to the ends of the earth and also love traveling alone through foreign countries. Having a husband is not my primary goal in life, as it was for most women in the 1950’s and still is for Andean subsistence farmers. Don’t get me wrong, the idea of having one life partner sounds wonderful – albeit a little unrealistic – and having someone take over my camera’s precarious self-timer situation would make it a double-win.

Traveling as a single, Caucasian lady is both an educational and a peculiar experience at times, especially when one is meandering through subsistence agriculture-based communities. One day I am resting in beautiful accommodations, reading about post-modern feminism and the shapeshifting relationship models of American culture. The next day I am conversing with an old Peruvian farmer, who asks me why I don’t have a husband while gripping the heavy farming tool slung over his shoulder. Life never ceases to have a trenchant sense of humor.

I have traveled with boyfriends and without, and neither experience is “better”. And, there is something especially sacred and vulnerably authentic about wandering the planet alone. These moments have taught me to really savor solitude and revel in the beauty that is community, lovership, and culture. Life is both perplexing and beautiful and we never know what tomorrow will bring. Enjoy the ride!

In appreciation of sacred dichotomy,

-Romi

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Yoga & Healing Retreat to Peru! Join us in the Sacred Valley of the Inca ~ May 2014

Yoga and Healing Retreat in the Peruvian Andes
With Romi Cumes M.A. & Lisa Veit
May 8-17, 2014

10 day, 9 night All-Inclusive Package
Email romicumes at gmail.com for complete information/itinerary
$3100 land cost only (excludes airfare). Register by Nov 1st for $200 off.

Expand, Transform, Prosper & Thrive!

Peru Final Flyer 2014- Web Only

Join Romi Cumes and Lisa Veit for a transformational retreat to Peru. This top-quality, ten day, nine night package beings and ends in the beautiful city of Cusco. Guests stay at the exquisite Willka T’ika Garden Retreat Center in the Sacred Valley of the Inca, and receive first-class guide service to sacred sites, villages, and ruines. Enjoy the rich scenery of Machu Picchu, Cusco and other sacred sites, as well as Willka T’ika’s spectacular gardens, accommodations, and organic cuisine. Additional overnight accommodations in Cusco and Machu Picchu are also included in this package.

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Romi Cumes M.A. is a Therapist, Bodyworker, Yoga Instructor, and Performance Artist with over fifteen years of experience. She supports people to embody their most authentic state of Being, so they may live in a more full and balanced way. Drawing from a background in somatic psychology, Romi integrates clinical training with intuitive capabilities to proactively work with trauma, physical distress, and psycho-spiritual blockages. She founded Transformative Healing Arts in 2004 and is currently in private practice in Santa Barbara, California. Romi has been traveling to Peru for the last twenty years, where her mother, Carol Cumes, founded the Willka T’ika guest lodge and the Willka T’ika Children’s Fund, a 501(c)3 that supports four Quechua schools in the high Andes.

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Lisa Veit is an internationally known Intuitive Life Coach, Speaker, Regression Therapist, Owner of “Be You Come Alive”, Mother, and Creator of The Art of Embodiment Meditation CD. Her life experiences triggered an epic spiritual inquiry within, and an insatiable study of the human potential. Lisa has explored in great depth the many facets of life, energy, and consciousness. She is committed to empowering people to discover their unique capacities, and to assist all of those that choose it, to come alive at their greatest capacity. She lectures nationally and currently lives with her family in Santa Barbara, California. For more info visit www.LisaVeit.com

To Register and receive detailed Itinerary
Contact: Romi Cumes MA, LMT
romicumes@gmail.com
(805) 448-4111