Tips on Crow Pose

This pose is the one that I have been most proud of in my yoga journey. When I first saw someone do this pose, my jaw dropped. I had no idea what they were doing, or how to do it. When I decided that it was time to incorporate the pose into my routine, finding the right how-to was imperative for me, as I am a poor college student and cannot afford proper yoga classes. 

Here are some of the Mental Tips that I needed to try this: 

1. This pose uses core, not arm strength. If you have some Betty Spaghetti arms like I do, arm balances look very difficult and unattainable. However, Crow pose is a lot of core strength, as opposed to arm strength. 

2. You are not that far off the ground. If you fall, it won't hurt. Just stay aware and if you feel that you are falling, position your body so that you don't fall on your nose. 

If you do feel like you're going to fall, hopefully someone is around with a camera and maybe you'll get a spot on Ridiculousness. 

3. Yes, you can actually balance like this; it isn't some voodoo magic. 



Here are some of the Physical Tips that I needed to try this:

1. Your feet will go higher off the ground with time and practice. At first, you might just get the toes off the ground. 

2. Use a yoga block or a stack of books to balance your head if you're having trouble balancing. I do not have a yoga block, so I had a stack of about three Stephen King books (hardback-the thick ones too, like the short story compilations) as a substitute for a yoga block. Just watch the books; sometimes they can slip. I'd go into the pose and balance my head for a couple weeks until I was ready to balance sans books. 

3. If you are worried about falling, practice this on days when you are totally on your game until you get better at it. My balance can be hit or miss sometimes, so I only worked on this pose if I knew my balance was doing well.  

4. I did not use Frog Pose to get into this one. I get into this pose by doing a forward fold, then bending my knees. With that bend, I put my knees as close as possible to my arm pits. This helps for my knees to not slip off the arms. 


Once I got this pose down, I found it was incredibly easy to master tripod pose, which is a precursor pose for a headstand. 

Taco Tuesday

Eating Clean while injured

My last post was about the joys of yoga. Ironically, I have injured myself from this practice (that doesn't mean that you will too, I just have some pre-existing issues, like the arthritis), and I have had to take two, going on three, months off of all exercise. It is worse than Madonna’s Super Bowl performance like three years ago. 

To keep myself feeling somewhat healthy during this time off, I have been trying new healthy recipes. Therefore, I am combining my intense love of Mexican food with my desire to eat healthy and keep tons of proteins in my body. The more proteins you keep in your body during your training, and/or during time of due to injury, the better prepared your muscles will be. This is obvious. However, if you are dealing with injury in any way too, remember this: your muscles are going into like a “sleep mode” because you’re not using them. You will lose definition, but once you’re healed and you reactivate them, you’ll gain it back quickly. Protein keeps your muscles prepared to, I guess, “awaken” again. However, if you’re completely fine and you just want some awesome tacos/burritos, that’s great too!

Anyways, I made this meal last night with the help of my good friend Aleathea. I hope you enjoy it too: 

Avocado Chicken Tacos - 

**A note before you begin to cook these with my instructions,
I am not a cook. I do not know cooking lingo. Sometimes, I make things and they turn out okay. Other times, the meals become punchlines for jokes. I've made some franken-cookies that should have never graced this earth. So, sorry for improper cooking vocabulary and overall knowledge.  If you want the real recipe from someone who really knows what they’re doing, I have a link attached at the bottom. 

**Disclaimer: Because people plagiarize and steal others' ideas on the internet all the time, I'm going to make it known that I did not make this recipe up on my own. I found it on Pinterest, which was linked from Vera's Sweet and Savory Kitchen Adventures. I edited a bit of it, but I didn't create it. I'm not that talented. Also, whoever Vera is, she's like really good at cooking. 

Necessary Items:

This amount makes two tacos for three people, which is more than enough.



Cilantro (the massive bunch that you can get at Kroger, because they are trying to get rid of their cilantro or something. I don’t know why they don’t have smaller options.)
Four Chicken Breasts
One Purple Onion
Three to four avocados (depending on how much avocado you like)
Mozzarella cheese, shredded (depending on how much cheese you like)
Salsa verde/Tomatillo salsa (you can substitute red salsa, I won’t judge you)
Small/Big whole wheat tortillas, soft (depending on if you want some burritos or tacos)

Step 1: 

Depending on whether your chicken breast is frozen or not, thaw it as need be. 

While you’re doing that, you’ll want to preheat your oven to about 400 Degrees. If you don't need to thaw it, slice it up into pieces; size doesn't matter. 

Step 2:

Take your purple onion and dice it. 
Last night, I did about half the onion and I wish I had added more, because onions are delicious. But, depending on you and your likes, add the onion as you see fit. It will get thoroughly cooked if raw onion is gross to you. 

Step 3:

Dice some of your cilantro as you see fit for your tastes.
I did waaaay over two tablespoons, and the original recipe said just two tablespoons. 

Step 4: 

Once your chicken is ready to be cooked, place it in a pan on the stove and set the temperature between Medium and High. If you haven't already, chop the chicken into chunks - size doesn't matter - before or after you start getting them cooking. 
For me, it didn’t matter. I had to cook them a bit and warm them up before I could cut into them. 

Step 5:

Place the chicken chunks in the pan. Pour the bowls of chopped onions and cilantro into the chicken pan. Add a tablespoon or more of olive oil. 
I love olive oil, so I always overuse it. 

Step 6:

Add salt and pepper to taste as you see fit. 
I stayed away from the salt last night (mostly because my roommates and I are out of it), and I just did a few shakes of pepper.

Step 7:

You will want to cook the chicken until it is done. No pink. 
This took me about fifteen minutes last night. 

Step 8:

While you are waiting on your chicken to cook, you can get out your tortillas. 

Step 9:

Once the chicken is cook, take each tortilla and place one to two spoonfulls of the chicken/cilantro/onion deliciousness in the middle of the tortilla. 

Step 10:

Sprinkles some mozzarella on it. Then, you will want to fold or roll the tortillas as best you can, they need to be tight (Aleathea did that part because I’m not adult enough to know how to fold a tortilla). 

Step 11:

Place them in some pans. Before putting them in the oven, rub some vegetable oil on the outside of the tortillas. Don’t slather them; just get a paper towel and rub some oil on them. 

Let them cook for 10- 15 minutes. 

Step 12:

I don’t recommend cutting the avocados until you’re almost ready to eat, because they get brown so easily. But once your ready, just cut them open and cut them however you want. Mine are always messy; they’re between a dice and a slice, but they’re also kinda mushed. 

Step 13:

Once your tacos/burritos are done, you can open them to put some fresh avocado on the inside. You can put the salsa on the taco/burrito now too.


Now you can enjoy the deliciousness that you have just prepared. #LiveEveryDayLikeItsTacoTuesday

Here is the link for the original recipe:
http://omgchocolatedesserts.com/chicken-avocado-burritos/