Last week was a really difficult one for me – and when I have a bad week, I look for inspiration. I found it in a really honest and raw episode of Rachel Brathenâs âFrom the Heart: Conversations With Yoga Girlâ podcast. In the podcast, Rachel discusses how Yoga Teacher Training became a really emotional experience as they delved into each traineeâs relationship to themselves and how yoga has impacted that relationship. Rachel discusses how each trainee was working with…
I recently started running – and I absolutely love it. I already feel I can breathe more deeply after a run, and Iâm full of lots of feel-good endorphins, helping me to stay motivated and strong. I know Iâm a little late to the party – lots of yogis are runners and lots of runners are yogis. For good reason – there are many ways these two practices can be complementary. Here are my four highlights so far. Muscular endurance…
Many people keep coming back to yoga is for the physical benefits – you can get a whole lot healthier, fitter and more flexible in yoga. But for many many more, the mental impact of yoga is the best (and sometimes unexpected) benefit of yoga. If you are working on feeling calmer and happier and want to know how yoga can support you, practice yoga with these things in mind. Yoga is a place to explore your breath. The breath…
When I say I am a yoga teacher, a really common response is âWow, you must be really flexible.â At a wedding recently a girl I had just met went so far as to scream âYou do yoga, DO THE SPLITS ON THE DANCE FLOOR!â When I laughed that off she started chanting âDo the WORM, do the WORM!â. I can do neither so I didnât⊠much to her disappointment and everyone elseâs relief. The screaming girl at the wedding…
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 âoffâ and donât know why. When this happens, you might notice a quiet little voice in your head saying âslow downâ which you promptly ignore because oh-look-my-phone-beeped-must-answer-now….
Mindfulness is a tricky thing. Itâs such a complex and yet simple subject. At the heart of it, it couldnât be simpler – purposefully paying attention to the present moment. But we all have deeply ingrained thought patterns and in the busy world we live in, there are multiple demands on our minds at all times, so it can feel much more complex when we actively start a mindfulness practice. I really fell in love with yoga only after a…
‘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,…
With the recent snow storm, you might have found yourself cooped up indoors for a lot of last week, which can affect your mood and your body in lots of different ways. If youâre surfacing back into the world today and youâre back to your regular work-week, your muscles might be a little tight. Here are a few simple yoga poses you can do anywhere to get your body moving again and refresh your mood. Shoulder rolls – this is…
We all hear the teacher tell us to inhale, and to exhale, and we follow along. We then get to a standing posture, or a challenging posture – and what do we do? We stop breathing. Whether itâs holding our breath or going back to shallow breathing, we lose the rhythm of the breath that we had at the start of class. So whatâs all the fuss about? What differentiates yoga asana from most other forms of physical activity is…
Downward facing dog is one of the most common yoga poses, and it would be pretty rare to have a class without it, for many reasons. Itâs one of the best overall body stretches you can do, as well as strengthening key muscle groups, and helping to reduce stress and anxiety. So if youâve been doing yoga for more than 10 minutes of your life, more than likely youâve been told to ârelax back into downdog.â However, when I started…
