There are times when everyone hits a bit of a yoga slump, when your schedule starts to fill up and making time for your yoga practice takes a back seat. The immediate things (texts, emails, work engagements) overpower the important things (health, happiness, peace of mind) and you start to feel a little ‘off’ and don’t know why. When this happens, you might notice a quiet little voice in your head saying ‘slow down’ which you promptly ignore because oh-look-my-phone-beeped-must-answer-now….
When I first started practicing yoga, I avoided blocks. I was determined to do everything by myself, even if that meant sacrificing integrity in a certain pose, or even risking injury (Oh hey ego how are you?). Now that I’m a few years in, I’ve gotten over that (thankfully!) and happily reach for blocks at multiple points in my yoga practice. Here are just a handful of ways to use blocks in yoga: To give support to tight hips For…
As the work week goes on, it can be easy to go on autopilot and simply live by going through the motions. Sometimes all we need to snap out of that is a little yoga-inspired inspiration! So here are 5 of our favourite yoga quotes to beat the mid-week slump. We couldn’t agree more! See you on the mat 😉 So the next time crow pose seems too scary, that’s all the more reason to try. Ugh. Chair pose anyone???…
If you haven’t heard of ‘sitting disease’, it is a scientific term for the sedentary lifestyle a lot of us live nowadays. Long hours in front of computers, or jobs that require sitting for long periods can contribute to the hours you spend sitting down each day. I realised recently that I spend a lot of my time seated – sounds weird for a yoga teacher, right? But with a lot of admin / marketing work moving online, many of…
Get ready for a series of blog posts covering all of the different kinds of pranayama (basically – yogi breathing techniques) out there. Today we’re starting with Nadi Shodhana, also known as Alternate Nostril Breath. Sounds glamorous, no? Nadi Shodhana helps to calm the mind, keeping us focused on the present moment. Beyond that, it serves to cleanse the Nadis, which are the subtle energy channels of the body. When the Nadis are clear, we allow for a smooth, unobstructed flow…
I LOVE using props in my yoga practice. From using blocks to bring the ground up to you in a wide legged forward fold, to that bolster that feels so good under your legs in Savasana at the end of class, they have so much to offer. At a studio we’re spoiled for choice with blocks, bolsters, and blankets galore, but then our at home practice can start to feel like it’s missing something. If you don’t want to go…
‘I’m not flexible enough to do yoga’ is something I hear all the time (mostly from my dad), and honestly? That’s like saying ‘I’m too sick to go to the doctor’! It doesn’t matter how flexible you are when you step on to your yoga mat. What matters is that yoga can help you to build flexibility over time – especially in our pesky hamstrings. Maybe you’re a runner, maybe you have a job that requires a lot of sitting,…
What is Kundalini? First thing to understand is that there are several types of yoga. Some are completely physical, some are all about meditation. Kundalini is somewhere in the middle. But with an added emphasis on consciousness that activates energy centers throughout the body. To read more about Kundalini, check out an interview with YogaHub teacher Emer here, or check out AnnaB’s blog about it here. And what is a Mantra? A “mantra” is a sacred utterance, a numinous sound,…
At the core of Flow yoga classes is vinyasa – which you’ve probably heard your yoga teacher mention more than a few times. If you’ve never had the phrase explained to you, it can be a little confusing! But no worries, we’re here to clear it up for you 🙂 But what exactly does it mean to ‘take a vinyasa’? Very literally, vinyasa means: to place in a special way. In a vinyasa based flow class, that means linking movement…
We hear a lot about how we should have a morning yoga practice, and morning routines of people in the wellness space almost always include some downward dog time. And a morning yoga practice is wonderful, but for some of us, the snooze button is too tempting, and suddenly we have 10 minutes to get up, dressed and out the door – not too much time left for rolling out the yoga mat or making it to the studio. And that’s…
