Do you remember your first yoga class? Do you ever remember trying a new pose or a sequence and laughing to yourself about what-on-earth it was that you were doing? I think we’ve all had these moments at one point or another. It’s that little thought of being silly or moving your body in a way you’ve never tried before. Yoga is FULL of poses and practices that may, at first, make you feel a little strange. But the beauty…
Find out more about Barbara and her upcoming Restorative Yoga workshop through our Q and A below! Hello Barbara! So, what is Restorative Yoga? There’s a quote from the renowned Restorative Yoga teacher, Judit Lasater that I like “We work very hard in our lives, and while we may sleep, we rarely take time to relax. Restorative yoga poses help us learn to rest deeply and completely.” And that, in a nutshell is was restorative yoga is: a slow, gentle…
Have you ever been in the park, or on the beach, or just in your kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil, and thought, “hmm, I’d like to do about 1 minute of yoga now.” Here are a few yoga poses that you can do almost anywhere, without any props or a mat: Arms Overhead, with Slight Back Bend This one is great for expanding the breath, and getting a wonderful stretch along the back, spine and torso. Remain with…
Have you ever wondered why your yoga teacher asks you to place your palms together in front of your heart? This gesture is one of many called a mudra. A mudra is a symbolic seal or gesture that we use in our physical practice to focus intention. Mudras can help to facilitate flow of movement, tune awareness, and relieve stress. One of the most common mudras in a yoga practice is Anjali Mudra. This is the positioning of the palms…
When it comes to balance in yoga, a big key is the drishti. You may have heard this word before in class, but it’s likely that you heard it while trying not to fall over, which is why we’ll be going a bit more in-depth in this post. Drishti is the Sanskrit word for “focused gaze”. It’s when you focus intently on one spot, finding peace and strength in your physical and mental awareness. It’s so small of a movement that…
Hip openers tend to be both very challenging, but also very loved in a yoga practice. Even when they feel somewhat uncomfortable, pretty much everyone who keeps up a continuous practice grows to love them. So what is it? What is that strange mixture of unease and wonderful release in hip openers? 1 – Releasing Stress – One of the main benefits of hip openers is stretching and strengthening muscles that are directly connected to our stress response. One muscle…
You know it well. For some of you, it’s your favourite part of a yoga class. It’s that super delicious time at the end of a practice when you lay on your back and drift into nothing-ness. Time for Savasana. The word Savasana is actually 2 Sanskrit words, Sava and Asana. Sava translates as “corpse” and Asana translates as “pose”. So, at the end of a class, when you’re ready to completely let go and do blissful nothing, you are in a “corpse pose”. The purpose…
I remember when I was a beginner at practicing yoga. It was about 10 years ago. I had been to a few classes over the course of a year and it was by no means consistent. I was interested in continuing, but there was something about it that felt daunting. How was I ever going to remember all those poses? How could I get to a point where I could count my breaths on my own? And what’s with all those…
Pitta Dosha Explained The Productive Perfectionist What is the Pitta Dosha? We’ve already explored what it means to be aware of our ayurvedic dosha type, why it’s important for us to remain balanced, and also taken a look at the Vata dosha type in detail. If you’ve taken the tests you might now be aware if you’re Vata, Pitta, or Kapha. If not, you can find out here. This week we’re exploring the Pitta dosha! Pitta Dosha Attributes Pitta dosha…
There are many times in yoga that you might find yourself upside-down. Whether it’s a forward fold, a handstand, head stand, or even downward dog, they all different ways of doing what’s called an inversion. A yoga inversion is basically any variation of a pose in which your upper body is either completely upside down or about 45 degrees upside down (like in downward dog). There are many things we all experience when doing inversions. It might feel like all…
