A Giveaway Winner and The Queen Gets Her Boogie On...

REJOICE !

The Sweet Hubby has randomly chosen a winner from the 28 comments on

my 300th Post Giveaway

and

that

winner

is ...

RITA VINDEDZIS !!!

Yay for Rita !

If you send me an email with your snail mail,

I will get your Rock My World Rocks and a few other little treats off to you asap.

Thank you all for your wonderful comments and compliments about my blog. I really filled my heart to know that so many people appreciate what I do here. Being a blogger really has enriched my life a great deal and the connections I have made with people are the real reason for that !

Thank you again and now on to the next 300 posts...

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So yesterday evening, I attended my first every Kripalu Yoga Dance class.

I absolutely loved it.

I have finally found the exercise that I can do and really enjoy.

The best thing about the class is that you can be at any fitness level, any physical shape and have as little coordination as I do and still get a wonderful work out.

The teacher, Chris, provided an atmosphere of safety and trust that let me just let go and dance my little heart out. I didn't worry about what was jiggling or how I looked. I was just getting into the rhythm and the movement and being in touch with my own body.

And man, did I sweat !

And laugh...

And even shed a tear at the very end, when we were doing our final delightful relaxation time.

Shed a tear because it just felt so to be in a place free of judgement, to be present in the moment, and to be free to be myself.

What a gift...

I tried to find a video showing the Yoga Dance style we did but there wasn't too much out there...makes sense I guess - part of keeping it safe, maybe ?

Anyway, you can check this one out to get a little idea of the flavor.

If you can find this kind of exercise near you, you should go for it !!!! So much fun !

Of course such a great experience had to inspire some art work in the old art journal.

Here's what developed this morning....

I had this magazine image (from Oprah mag.) that showed some of the beautiful feeling movement I experienced last night.

I copied the image on my ink jet printer, carefully cut it out and put it down on my page with gel medium.

It was actually on a two page spread. I also cut her beautiful hair off as I knew that I would want to add my own in with ink or paint or whatever later...

Then I painted some watered down gesso over the figure. I like to keep the details of the face and the hands visible through the gesso as I am not so great a drawing these in. The lines seen through the gesso help guide me a bit.

Adding in more paint, some ink pen work, some white Elmer Paint pen details, some flowers done with acrylics and turquoise hand made paper, and a whole lot of Kim to it, I ended up with this two page spread. (click to enlarge)

Here is a detail of the girl. She doesn't look anything like the initial figure I started with but the body and the turn of the head are the same.

At one point in our class last night, Chris had us dancing with scarves. The dress on my dancing lady reminds me of that.

When was the last time you really danced like no one was watching ?

It has been a really long time for me.

But now I can say...

"Well, as a matter of fact, just yesterday !"

And I may just do it again tomorrow !!!!

If you feel like giving some dancing like no one is watching a try, you could try it to this song called "Thank You For This Day" by Karen Drucker that I heard last night. It has such a great rhythm to it...

Then again, good old ABBA always works for me...

BTW - Leah at Creative Everyday is continuing her wonderful job motivating us to be creative in whatever way makes out heart sing in 2010. Her theme for this month - body ! Let's get moving, Creative Ones !