by Jasmine | Nov 8, 2012 | Yoga For Weight Loss
I’m not a big fan of running to lose weight…… always preferred to torch some calories with yoga DVDs for weight loss. When I tried running everything hurt, my legs, my lungs, my ribs. Kudos to all the runners out there…. it’s just not for me. It’s confusing to see so many yoga DVDs out there, especially if you are a yoga beginner. Most of the yoga DVDs are a 90 minutes long practice. I don’t know about you, but 90 minutes of yoga, even for me as a yoga teacher, seems a bit too long. So after attending many classes, lots of watching on YouTube and ordering a few dozen titles from Amazon, I found a few that have a sweaty, challenging workout but that is compact and ideally about 30-40 minutes.
ShapeShifter Yoga Program
To really combine the mind body spirit aspect of yoga and weight loss and get more explanation and want to read about yoga and the poses more in depth than there are two programs that I would recommend.
- Yoga Poses for Weight Loss with Shape Shifters
The first is Shape Shifters, which is a comprehensive yoga fitness program. There is a focus on overall flexibility, core-conditioning, body awareness and muscle-conditioning before you move on to master the more advanced part of the practice. There are some basic traditional stretches and yoga poses that all body types and sizes can do. There is no oooming, no talk of your crown-chakras so you won’t feel like you have to wear a turban and a loincloth to do this program. It’s all scientific based, practical and utilitarian in how they explain the benefits with no woo-woo.
Ideal for Couch Potatoes or Seasoned Athletes. If you don’t know squat about diet, wellness, fitness or strength-training then this is a suitable program. If you do have some prior experience and knowledge with these, then it will build upon and complement your prior training and experience.
Very Professionally Presented – You’ll feel like you are at a Yoga Journal Video shoot with the quality of the video and the voice. I’ve listened to other videos before and some of them sound all muffled and the lightening and angles make it harder to follow the sequence.
Wallet-Friendly – You could get a personal yoga session for more than the cost of this video and wouldn’t get nearly the amount of tips, instruction, alignment cues that this has. It’s a lot of yoga for the buck.
Yoga DVDs for Weight Loss or Flexibility
Of course, Sadie Nardini probably has the gutsiest workout. She infuses the poses with a life-affirming practice that often times feels like a Tony Robbins seminar….great if you want to transform not only your body but your limiting beliefs that are keeping you in a dead end job or bad relationship. I don’t think her workout are great for yoga beginners or if you are just unathletic in general. You’ll probaby feel overwhelmed. I was trained by her in NYC a few years ago and in her regular core strength vinyasa classes, the students would get so hot and sweaty after a 60 minute class that people would often ask her if it was “hot yoga’ and if she heated the room and her answer was , ” I don’t heat the room, the students heat the room”.
Another favorite of mine is Shiva Rea, Yoga for ABs DVDs. It’s a stunning production with very tribal-music. I love her poetic language and the way poses from one to the other. This is an awesome DVD if you have some yoga background but also not great for yoga beginners since she goes quickly from one pose to the next with not a lot of explanation anatomically of how to put your body in the pose and what the correct alignment is. This is a great 34 minute workout.
Beth Shaw’s Yoga Fit for Abs is a great one. She does a lot of traditional sun salutations but she also has you do them with a ball between your legs so that your entire core is squeezing and firing up like crazy. You need to buy the little yoga ball which is only $10 if you want to maximize your workout though.
by Jasmine | Nov 8, 2012 | Private Yoga Lessons
How to Choose a Private Yoga Teacher for Lessons
Are you yoga-curious but feel self-conscious about contorting yourself in front of a group of strangers while wearing spandex? I recently read an article about how beneficial private yoga lessons can be versus a group class and thought I should add my own thoughts.
At some local studios, ask if they have any teachers they would recommend for a private lesson. Be very specific about what your goals are. There is a huge range of styles and levels of yoga. Some of them range from extremely challenging and you will be testing your balance and strength in ungodly ways while your muscles are working overtime. Other styles are gentle and restorative and you can fall asleep in the poses.
Do you think you would benefit from private lessons from your own personal yoga instructor but now sure how to find one and to tell if they are any good?
Do you have specific physical concerns you want to address such as low back pain, frozen shoulder or tight hamstrings or are you just looking for overall flexibility?
Do you want the class to feel meditative and spiritual so you can take a deep inner journey as well or do you primarily want a physically challenging experience?
When you are hiring a teacher and wonder what they charge it really varies based on a number of factors.
Do you want a teacher to come to your house or do you want to practice in a studio? How far travel time will the teacher have to come to you. Will they have to drive in rush hour? Do they have to pay extra for parking if you live in an urban area? Is parking difficult and will they have to spend an extra 20 minutes searching for a spot?
Do you have adequate lighting to create a tranquil mood or will the teacher have to bring lighting?
Be Specific with You Goals with Your Private Yoga Instruction
Do you have an IPOD or CD player or will the teacher have to bring their music equipment?
Is the lesson just for you or will there be other people in the group? The more people the more the teacher will probably charge?
Are there any special needs or training that the teacher should have beyond just yoga certification such as CPR skills, prenatal yoga training or medical knowledge of how to deal with a torn rotator cuff?
How experienced or new is the yoga teacher? Are they a full time teacher or do they just teach one class a month?
Do some online research and see what kind of reviews and feedback the teacher has received.
Is it just one session or are you paying for a longer series?
Do you have a yoga mat, blocks, yoga blankets or will the teacher have to supply one?
When I am giving a quote for a private yoga class these are the questions in my mind before I give a quote. I also require payment upfront (to ensure commitment from the student)
Have you hired a private yoga instructor before? If you are a yoga teacher, how do you go about pricing for private lessons. How did it go? Post your answers on our Facebook page
by Jasmine | Nov 2, 2012 | Spirituality, Stuff I like, Yoga Health
Top Yoga Blogs
Top Posts of the Week in the YogaWorld
Yogadork.com satisfies two needs of mine… the need to keep on what is fresh in ooooming-land and juicy tidbits about high profile yoga figure and pop culture celebs and yoga……. kind of like Yogajournal meet People magazine. She also wrote a very introspective and heartfelt peace about the impact of Hurricane Sandy. This is a fun yoga-centric blog to follow.
When Jelly Donut & Daveed Diggs are the only dudes in a class of beautiful yoga girls, they rise to the occasion. Get it? Warning – this is NOT appropriate for work so if you are at your desk or in church then watch this later. Another warning – spontaneous gaffaws likely as a result of watching this video. For those of you that take your yoga seriously and are easily offended, don’t watch. (I guess now that I have put on these don’t watch warning, y’all just have to see it now, huh?)
Elephant Journal is another progressive but non-new-agey blog with a variety of topics. Erin explores how to connect with the ether of the universe without the teacher or other students bugging her. Savasana is such a previous time… it feels like graduation since you work so hard to do your practice, make sacrifices to just get to your mat and then you have the most lovely float-y feeling when you finally get to this part. As the teacher, I strongly encourage eye pillows or at least eye coverings and I also offer to spray aromatherapy on my students’s feet ( they let me know by just putting a hand on their belly). I actually have the polar opposite needs as Erin though…. I used to love it when the teacher came by (only in the beginning of Savasana) and adjusted my shoulders and put a drop of lavender oil on my feet. It’s pretty rare that teachers do this. I think when I was single and not dating in New York, I literally did not have physical human contact for days at a time and I just craved the innocent non-sexual touch of another person…. ok…. maybe I have overshared but that is why I have a different preference than Erin.
What are your favorite yoga blogs for the week?
Staying as impartial as I can on my blog ( my personal Facebook page is another thing…), it’s time to use your voice at the polling station. Can you imagine if everyone thought their vote didn’t count? If your vote doesn’t count, then whose does? You’re never too small too matter… just ask someone sleeping with a buzzing mosquito in the room. This is one of the most emotionally charged elections and we can make a commitment. You matter.
Anyone else want to send me suggestions for what yoga blog posts I should put in the next curated list?
by Jasmine | Oct 7, 2012 | Couples Yoga
On Saturday, Michael and I went to the TEDx event in Phoenixville, a suburb outside of Philadelphia. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design and puts on programs all over the country with live speakers that aim to spark deep self-inquiry, discussion and connections with your local community. They also have TED salons that bring people together to talk about ideas as well.
TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At TEDx Phoenixville,
Before the TEDx event, there were all kinds of events the night before meant to foster community and so you can get together with other participants and speakers. We went to an Art warehouse VIP event where we got to know one of the speaker from Saturday’s events and we also got to know a self-described “savant” who works with obscure and difficult to diagnose auto-immune and gastro-intestinal disorders and many of his patients consider him the “doctor of last resort.”
The day started out with the theme of ” Your Backyard”. One of the first speakers was a a guy that used to trade bonds and derivatives and now owns a 350 acre farm and he spoke about sustainability. Some of the other speakers spoke on topics such as motivating employees using techniques that online video gamers get to see. Another zippy young woman has just gotten back from Tanzania and she started a self-sustaining orphanage there and spoke about her connection to her community there. We saw a modern dance performance that was very performance-art-esque. We also heard from the gardening guy on NPR, Mike McGrath about gathering leaves, shredding them and using them to create better compost for your gardens. I never thought hearing about worms would be so interesting. We also got to hear from an urban historian who explores sewers and climbs bridges from Manhattan to Moscow.
When was the last time you heard about an idea worth spreading? What ideas do you have that you would like to spread? What’s stopping you from spreading them?
There were also some videos of other TED events from all over the country and one was from a woman who had just lost someone very close to her. She lives in New Orleans and was wondering how she could turn a neglected building into a socially meaningful place where people could reflect on what they wanted to accomplish before they die. She helped to create a part of the building as a huge chalkboard with the phrases, ” Before I die, I want to..” The phrases ended with things such as ” get my wife back”, to “make a difference” to “be tried for piracy”. At the TEDx event, there was a faux white picket fence where we could all write on there what we wanted to do before we die. I think I wrote up there, ” go cage-shark diving with great white sharks” and “swim in a lake of non-stinging jellyfish in Indonesia”.
The most impactful speaker of the day was the one that came to the stage in a wheelchair. He spoke about his experience with a debilitating and life-shortening disease called Frederich’s Ataxia and how instead of just wallowing in pity, he decided to get on his bike and start biking hundreds and then thousands of miles all over the country in order to raise awareness and build community. I saw lots of teary eyes by the end of his speech and he received a standing ovation.
What kinds of ideas in the area of technology, entertainment or design would you like to spread?
by Jasmine | Sep 20, 2012 | Beginner Yoga, Yoga Clothes, Yoga For Weight Loss, Yoga Health
Clothes to Wear in Yoga Class
Before new students come to a yoga class, I usually tell them what they should bring. Some of these might seem basic but will just throw them in the mix anyway.
What To Wear and Bring in Hot and Beginner Yoga Classes
Clothes to Stretch In – For women this means a fitted shirt. If you just wear a loose T-Shirt then when you do a forward fold, you will be giving us a show of your bra and tummy. If you are wearing a tank top be aware that you might do doing poses where you might end up giving a cleavage show. Check your tank top that it is fitted and also covers some cleavage, especially if you are folding over. You do a lot of bending, twisting, and sometimes hopping and jumping so you need clothes that cover your lady parts no matter which direction your body goes.
I generally would avoid shorts since many of the poses you will be wide legged and you either might be giving us a show or you run the risk of your pants splitting, which has happened to me more than once. Sweat pants, yoga pants or my newly favorite pajama-jeans are some of my favorite bottoms to wear to yoga.
For a hot yoga class, it is acceptable and encouraged to wear crop bra tops and shorts. Sometimes the guys don’t wear shirts for these… depends on the class though.
A yoga mat. I always tell my students to bring their own yoga mats. Most yoga studios will have extras on hand, sometimes for free, sometimes you pay extra. Often these are not washed or cleaned just before. Do you really want your bare skin and face on a mat that was just smeared with someone else’s sweaty body? . One studio I went to never washed their mats and they smelled like Snooki’s armpit. I like to go to The Clymb as a cost and time efficient way to find a mat online.
Water– Just plain water. You might get pretty hot during the class and the studio often will not have a water fountain there. Sometimes they have bottled water but then you have to pay more for it. For a hot or power yoga class this is a must. Please don’t bring your double mochac part-skim decaf in the room. If it spills, it will be all sticky…… yuck.
Bring Your Yoga Mat, Eye Pillows, Towels, Stretchy Pants to Yoga
Eye Pillow – This is one of the most heavenly ways to get more connected to the ether of the universe during shavasana (relaxation) Ideally one that is lavender – scented will turbo charge this. If you don’t have an eye pillow, then an eye- covering is a basic substitute. A simple thing that makes relaxation more profound. Not always easy to find these but if you do it will be worth the effort.
Towel (For hot or power yoga only) You’re going to sweat so planning on mopping yourself up a bit.
Depending on the class, you should inquire if you should bring blocks, a Mexican blanket and a strap and a towel..
In Restorative and Iyengar classes, they usually supply plenty of props such as blocks, blankets, chair, eye pillows and a dozen other things as well. When you are at your mat with all your props you feel like you have your own campground.
Wallets – it has been rare but it’s worth it for your peace of mind to have your wallet and keys in the room with you.
Avoid wearing hanging jewelry such a big dangling earrings and necklaces. When I invert then my necklace tends to choke me or whack me in the face.
Avoid dressing too sexy, which means clothes that are uber-tight and or see through. Generally it is mostly women in the class but if there are a bunch of dudes then you will feel self conscious doing a wide legged forward bend while wearing your see through camel-toe yoga pants with your crop bra top.
Avoid heavy perfumes and scented lotions. Just be neutral smelling. On the flip side, don’t come to class all stinky and subject us to your fumes.
Leave your cell phone in the car. Too easy to forget to turn it off and we don’t want to hear your snazzy cell phone ring when we are becoming one Shiva and Shakti.
Leave your shoes off or outside the room. In my thousands of yoga classes I have taken, I have never heard of anyone having their shoes stolen outside the room.
What are things that you always make sure to bring or leave at home during yoga? Post your answers on our Facebook page.
