Yoga clothes in the workplace?

Would you wear your yoga clothes to work?

This article in the Chicago Tribune, "Workout Wear Goes to Work", highlights new workout clothes, particularly yoga wear, that women are wearing to the office.

I have to be honest. When I go to yoga I leave far too sweaty to go anywhere other than maybe a quick trip to the grocery store. I definitely will wear yoga inspired clothes to the office, such as my TranquiliT skirt dress with a cardigan or a cardishawl. However, I tend to wear black pants with a t-shirt or tank to yoga or the gym. Definitely NOT work appropriate!

My office is moving to a new space in the coming months that is complete with a large gym but while it might be tempting to workout and then head right to work, I just don't think that will ever be a realistic possibility for me. I am of the mind that if you work out and aren't sweating, you probably aren't working out hard enough!

Would you or do you wear workout or yoga clothes to the office?

{Image via lululemon athletica}

My Favorite Yoga Pose

My favorite yoga pose is actually several: any and all with the word "pigeon" in them. Yes, I am that girl who quickly yells out "pigeon!" when the teacher asks if there are any pose requests. I realize these poses are torture for some people but I honestly love them. I look forward to them all class and leave feeling unfulfilled if we don't get to them at some point. Hip openers help with releasing emotion and are a great way for runners to cross-train.

I love one-legged pigeon, double pigeon, king pigeon. I love the way they really get into my hips and allow me to feel more open, alive, calm, relaxed and limber. I love that they do so much for my body while requiring very little work. I love that all three feel like such different poses but also reminiscent of each other. I love sinking into them and staying there, just being, for several minutes at a time.

Tell me, what's your favorite yoga pose?

{Photo credit: Gaiam}

My Blissful Weekend

I had one of the best weekends I have had in a long while.  I feel relaxed and rejuvenated and like I might just be able to handle the end of the semester/year at work without a meltdown.  

The weekend included:

-A visit from my wonderful boyfriend.  We hadn't seen each other in nearly a month.  It was great to have him here for a few days.

-Two homemade dinners: spinach and mushroom quiche/sweet potatoes/salad and salmon/veggies/corn bread.  And rice krispie treats!

-Watching "Bridget Jones' Diary" while snuggling  (Can you tell that my movie pick won out?!)

-A walk through Georgetown

-Lush bath bombs.  I stocked up for winter!  I was sad to hear that they are discontinuing the Hot Milk bubble bar.  But I did get plenty of Creamy Candy and Ma Bar bubble bars, as well as some Butterball and Big Blue bath bombs.  

-Partner yoga workshop.  I felt so relaxed after it!  It's great that Jesse likes yoga as much as I do and that we are able to connect in that way.  I also picked up Kimberly Wilson's new yoga CD, Tranquility to Go.  Can't wait to try it out!

-Lots of episodes of "The Office".  I swear we could sit and watch it all day long and not get tired of it.

I'm such a lucky girl.  

{Photo credit: Linds:-)}

Yoga: A Change in Perspective

Sometimes, when we least expect it, we surprise ourselves.

I had a bad weekend.  It was the kind of weekend where Murphy's Law is in full effect and you want to hide in your bed until Monday morning.  You find yourself begging to go back to work just so your mind can be taken off of things.  In this case, I also had a giant lump in my chest, from being stressed out and upset, that felt like it might never go away.  

Even though I didn't want to leave the house, I forced myself to go to yoga yesterday.  I set an intention of just staying present and paying attention to my breath.  There were only a few students so we had a lot of room to move, experiment and play.  It was the most challenging class I have ever taken, partially because it was physically difficult and partially because every time we did hip work I wanted to break down into tears.  But I tried to remember my intention and stick with it.  And it paid off.

At the end of class, the teacher insisted we all at least try to do a few of the more challenging poses: Hanumanasana, Bird of Paradise, Crow and forearm stand.  Now I can do Crow (though it is admittedly difficult for me and I sometimes fall out), I can only do the prep work for Bird of Paradise, my split was a little wobbly and, other than Shoulder Stand, I have never ever come up into an inversion because they absolutely terrify me.  

You know what they say about how from rock bottom there is nowhere to go but up?  

Yep.  

So up I went.  I did that forearm stand in the middle of the room without falling over for the first time ever.  I'm still not sure I liked it very much or that I will ever be able to do it again but I know that in that moment I needed it.  My body craved a change in perspective, literal and figurative, and after I came out of the pose, the lump in my chest was gone.  Going into the class with no expectations allowed me to go further than I ever had before.

The teacher joked that we might not be able to walk tomorrow after what she put us through. She might be right but I am so glad.  I needed to use my body to work through the emotional stuff.  I left class feeling lighter, happier and more capable.

The healing power of yoga never ceases to amaze me.

{Image credit: Fit Sugar}

Regular Yoga Practice Can Lead to Decreased Obesity

The Skinny has a post about a recent study shows that a regular yoga practice can lead to a decrease in obesity, something that I have seen to be true in my own life.

The study, which was a follow-up to another study done a few years back, confirms claims that yogis are more mindful of what they are eating because they have better body awareness. This leads them to be more in tune to their body's hunger and saiety levels.

"In our earlier study, we found that middle-age people who practice yoga gained less weight over a 10-year period than those who did not. This was independent of physical activity and dietary patterns. We hypothesized that mindfulness – a skill learned either directly or indirectly through yoga – could affect eating behavior," said Dr. Alan Kristal, associate head of the Cancer Prevention Program in the Public Health Sciences Division at the Hutchinson Center. "These findings fit with our hypothesis that yoga increases mindfulness in eating and leads to less weight gain over time, independent of the physical activity aspect of yoga practice," he added.

Yet another good excuse to get your yoga on!

Is Yoga Enough?

Yesterday I came across an interesting article on the Yoga Journal website: Is Yoga Enough to Keep You Fit?

I try to do some form of cardio and strength training in addition to yoga. I find that I lose more weight, eat better and feel better when I practice yoga more than I do other forms of exercise but I have never given up everything else altogether. It could be the sometimes intense sun salutations. It could be the sense of mindfulness that extends off-the-mat. It could be reduced levels of stress.

I get so many things from my yoga practice but I get different (and important) things from other types of exercise. Would you give up other ways of staying fit and only do yoga?

Teaching Prenatal Yoga

Last summer, after the first level of general teacher training, I completed both prenatal and post-natal yoga teacher trainings at Tranquil Space in Washington, DC. And the truth is that I fell head-over-heels in love with prenatal yoga.

I learned so much about pregnancy and childbirth. I learned about the options available to pregnant women. I learned about their bodies and specific needs. I learned about home birthing and midwives and birth partners. I watched "The Business of Being Born", which, if you have any interest at all in the topic of how the birth industry has become just that--an industry--then it is a must-see. I read book after book after book on these topics. In fact, while I am not pregnant and I don't practice kundalini yoga, Gurmukh's Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful made me want to run right out and do both. I also observed two prenatal yoga clases, one at Tranquil Space and one at Flow Yoga. They were very different in their approach, though I appreciated both.

I was amazed by the physical strength and grace of pregnant women as they go through a yoga practice. Another pleasant surprise was the sense of community they created. After class, they would all gather around to discuss doctors, hospitals, baby toys, parenting classes, etc. They would have lunch together. In a city where you pass by a million strangers every day with no contact, these women were reaching out to each other to form a bond over a shared life milestone. It was beautiful.

I'm not sure why I was so drawn to prenatal yoga. It might have been that many of these women were discovering the power of yoga for the first time, or rediscovering the benefits of it to their bodies. It could be the sheer excitement that surrounded them as they expected to bring another life into the world. It could be that I have always had an interest in yoga for every body, no matter weight, shape, condition, age, etc.

Many of you know that I am considering doing the 200 hour Yoga Alliance certified training either this Spring or the next. I really hope that following that I can teach prenatal yoga. I feel like that is where I am being called, if that makes sense. In fact, I've been researching midwifery and being a doula for a few months now. Who knows? It could grow into something much bigger.

There is a good general article on the benefits of prenatal yoga called "Labor of Love" over at Yoga Journal.

{Photo credit: KimLowePhoto}

Meditation practice.

One thing I've had on my to-do list for quite some time that I haven't ever gotten around to doing is establishing a meditation practice. It feels good to move my body early in the morning and late at night with a short yoga practice, but it is a lot harder to get my mind to calm down. I've read that if you establish an early morning practice you will feel the effects all day.

Meditation is one of those things that I feel better after doing and that I know I could benefit from. I sometimes feel like I am making myself crazy from thinking and overanalyzing all the time. However, it is very hard to tame my "puppy mind" and just sit. I make mental lists, run over the day's events, think of the million things that seem much more productive that I could be doing, fidget, etc.

Do any of you have a regular meditation practice? How long do you sit? What time of day do you sit? Do you listen to CDs or do it in silence? Any advice for starting a practice?

"Cultivate the habit of taking time every day to sit so you can be in conscious contact with the inner garden of your soul."~Lucy MacDonald

{Photo credit: pareerica}

Om at home.

One thing I have wanted to incorporate into my life for  awhile now is a commitment to a regular home yoga practice.  When I did level 1 of the teacher training, I was practicing just before it began and just after it ended at home nearly every day for a few months.  Then grad school plus work left me with barely any time to breathe, let alone anything else.  But during that time, I realized exactly how much my body--and mind, actually--was craving a regular practice.  I would find myself doing yogic breathing during class or sitting in child's pose for awhile at night before bed.  

And now, as I consider the second level of teacher training--the 200 hour Yoga Alliance certification--I realize I need to deepen my practice before making that decision and build a home practice.  (I also want to try a few other styles of yoga before doing the teacher training.)

Do any of you have a home yoga practice?  What does it look like?  Do you just do it or do you use a DVD or CD or a book that has sequences?  Do you practice in the morning or at night?  Do you always practice in the same place?  Do you practice outside?  How long is your practice and how many times do you practice each week?

{Photo credit: angmccabephotography.com}

Revelry Review.

Yesterday I saw the new documentary, "Enlighten Up!".  

The basic premise is that the director picks an ordinary guy--Nick-- who doesn't practice yoga and has him commit to trying different kinds of yoga for an extended period of time.  She sets out to prove that yoga has some level of a transformative impact on its practitioners and to capture that on film.  Many important and interesting yogis appear here--Pattahbi Jois, BKS Iyengar, Dharma Mittra, Cyndi Lee, Ana Brett and Ravi Singh, Sharon Gannon and David Life, etc.  Nick takes classes in New York, Hawaii and India. 

Without giving anything away, I will say that I thought this was an interesting way of examining the multitude of ways that yoga is practiced today, what yoga is and is not, and, more importantly, why it is practiced.  

This was the kind of movie where I wished a discussion session for the audience was built in afterward.  I wanted to hear the other yogis in the audience talk about their experiences too.  

I wish the whole world would do yoga, but I know from my own experience and from others close to me that yoga tends to appear to us when we need it the most.  For example, I thought I was trying out yoga to lose weight but I can see now that I was drawn to the mat, and stayed there, for reasons much bigger than that.  In fact, if I only wanted to lose weight, I probably would've been better off spending those 1.25 hours on a treadmill.  I often say, and it's true, that I pay for not-exactly-cheap yoga classes because without them, I'd need to pay a much more expensive therapist.   Yoga has taught me to listen to my body, to slow down, to value and believe in myself, to get out of my head, to stay present, to choose happiness and to follow my heart.  I simply cannot put a price on all of that.  I am convinced that yoga saves me from myself time and time again.

So, for my fellow yogis and yoginis out there, why do you practice yoga?

{Photo credit: IMDB}

Partner Yoga.

Have any of you ever tried partner yoga?

I had been wanting to check it out for awhile, so back over Valentine's Day weekend Jesse and I took a workshop with Kevin at Tranquil Space. They are offering a few more of them in the coming months, which I would love to be able to attend.

There's something very special and unique about moving and breathing in synch with your partner. You can also use your breath and body weight to go deeper into certain poses. Plus the asanas are even more beautiful when done with two people. And it's not just for romantic partners--try it with a friend! We even learned how to use the poses in my post-natal yoga teacher training to involve both parents and the baby.

I highly encourage you to check it out. A few good books can be found here, here and here.

{Photo credit: FuzzyB}

Words to Grow By.

"I believe that those of us who practice yoga have been sent to yoga by our pain.  We embarked on this path because we had a hunch that there must be a better way.  We have grown tired of our perfectionism, our unhappy relationships with our bodies, our inability to love completely or be loved completely, our endless resentments and sorrows, our sense that we could become greater than we are but that we are somehow blocked.  Many of us have had considerable good fortune.  We were blessed with the nice smile, the right education, the right opportunities. We may have loving partners, good work, healthy families.  Yet we've found that arranging our externals in just the right way doesn't bring us the happiness we hoped it would.  The resting place always seems to be just over the next hill.  And we have grown tired.  We come to yoga in the grip of avidya (spiritual ignorance).  We come to yoga having forgotten where we come from and who we are.  On our mats, we find the truth.  We are of God and there are no problems.  We are the solution."  

~Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison, Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga  (Page 149)

{Photo credit: jengae}

Yoga Practice Playlist.

Here are some songs I like to listen to while partaking in my home yoga practice.  The exact songs and the tempo  varies according to the day, my mood and the length of my practice.

If you have any other suggestions, feel free to leave me a comment!  I'm always up for new tunes.

-Jem//Yellow

-Ben Harper//Happily Ever After In Your Eyes

-Cat Power//Sea of Love

-Bob Marley//Redemption Song

-Madonna//I'll Remember

-Amos Lee//Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight

-John Mayer//Heart of Life

-Deathcab for Cutie//Soul Meets Body

-Liz Phair//Extraordinary

-Matt Nathanson//Little Victories

-Michael Franti//I Know I'm Not Alone

-Jill Scott//Golden

-Juanes//Un Dia Normal

-Krishna Das//God is real/Hare Ram

-Moshav//Heart is Open

-Chantal Kreviazuk//Feels Like Home

-Coldplay//Clocks

-James Morrison//You Make It Real

-David Gray//The One I Love

-The Idan Raichel Project//Bo'ee (Come With Me)

-India Arie//Ready for Love

-Tracy Chapman//Talkin' About a Revolution

-Van Morrison//Days Like This

-Sarah McLachlan//Blackbird

-U2//One

-Sade//By Your Side

-Indigo Girls//Closer to Fine

-Israel Kamakawiwo'ole//Somewhere Over the Rainbow

-Dar Williams//Closer to Me

-Marta Gomez//Como un secreto

-Mary Chapin Carpenter//Almost Home

-Deva Premal//Om Namo Bhagavate

-The Postal Service//The District Sleeps Alone Tonight

-Eva Cassid//Fields of Gold

-Ben Folds//The Luckiest

-Jeffrey Gaines//In Your Eyes

-kd lang//Hallelujah

Amethyst Swarovski Crysal Studded DJ Headphones (!!) pic from Pricy-Spicy

Attitude of Gratitude.

Over the past two years, learning to be grateful--truly and deeply thankful and appreciative--has changed my world view.

I have always believed in saying thank you for everything and in the power of sending handwritten thank you cards. Beyond that, being grateful has taught me that more often than not, whatever you have, wherever you are in life and whatever surrounds you is simply enough. It is one way that I try to live my yoga.

Here is what I am grateful for today:

-The seemingly endless rain. I have been getting so much crossed off my to-do list while being forced indoors.

-Child's pose. Some days it feels like an old friend; on other days it feels like a safe haven from the crazy world.  It always feels like surrender.

-Peapod.com When you have no car, it's nice to have the groceries brought to you once in awhile.

-Indulging in manicures, or as I like to call them, $15 gifts from heaven.

-My newly organized closet. Spring/summer clothes moved to the front, heavy sweaters to the back and four bags to Goodwill.

-Free time. I am still working on knowing exactly what to do with it, but just the fact that it exists, now that it is nearing the end of the semester, is enough for me.

Yin Yoga Workshop.

I am one of the fortunate souls who gets to regularly practice her yoga at Tranquil Space in Washington, DC.  I stumbled upon it nearly two years ago, when I weighed 70 pounds more than I do now and as I was looking for a small step to lose some of that weight.  I did a web search for "yoga + Washington, DC" and was drawn to the photos of people laughing at themselves in the "newbie programs" section of the website.  I didn't see how I could benefit from the poses if I couldn't even touch my toes but if those people could do it, then maybe I could too.

I enrolled in a beginner's series that, without a doubt, changed my life.  I will forever be grateful to my first two Tranquil Space teachers--thank you for everything, Gina and Dibora!--for their support, encouragement and inspiration.  They pushed me to places I never thought I would have been able to go and started me on this journey with a practice that I will have for the rest of my life.  In fact, it was with Dibora's advice that I took level 1 of the teaching training and followed that with pre- and post-natal teacher training.  Tranquil Space now feels like home.

Tranquil Space is owned by Kimberly Wilson, who is a woman of many hats:  yoga teacher, entrepreneur, author, blogger, fashion designer (more on these wonderful clothes later!) and do-gooder.  I've taken a few workshops and classes with her and they never fail to be anything short of amazing.  When I saw that she was teaching a yin yoga/restorative workshop this afternoon--as I am in the midst of the stress of finals and paper writing for graduate school and a week after having done something awful to my back that limited my practice--I jumped at the chance.  Only figuratively, of course, since my back is still not up to 100% just yet.  Our yin practice was followed by a slow flow and a few restorative poses.  

Yin yoga is the complementary practice to the "yang" form of yoga.  In yin, seated asanas (postures) are held for several (sometimes many!) minutes.  These poses work the ligaments instead of the muscles.  Overall, I would liken it to giving yourself a massage from the inside.  It also works to quiet the mind.  I encourage you to give it a try if you can.  If you want to learn more about yin yoga, you could take a peak at this book or this one or even do this DVD.

I think I like yin yoga because, once I settle into it, it makes the day melt away and my mind slows down.  I am home now, feeling rested, calm and ready to take on this paper.

Thanks, Kimberly, for a great afternoon of yoga!

Photo credit: David Martinez for Yoga Journal