How was your Halloween? Mine was low-key and lovely. We went to Georgetown Cupcake and got some Halloween flavors, which we enjoyed on the bench outside the store. GT Cupcake is our "thing" - we have extraspecial love for their cupcakes. My husband proposed with GT Cupcakes last summer, and they made a return at our wedding:
So they were the natural choice for Halloween sugary treats.
(Spooky cupcake pic, right?)
Today, I had the immense pleasure of going to an actual yoga class. It's been exactly two months - the last real class I went to was the day before my wedding (taught by my mentor and teacher trainer Chanel...and my sister, fiance and new aunt all came with me...an unforgettable class). Today's class was at the gym, and while I'm not a huge fan of gym yoga, it was everything I needed. My hips have been bothering me a ton lately, and #yogaeverydamnday is the only thing that helps.
(my husband still hasn't quite forgiven me for dragging him to Circus Yoga)
Since I don't belong to a studio here yet, I've been doing all my yoga at home. Doing yoga at home, or "cultivating a home practice" as my pretentious wonderful fellow yogis sometimes call it, is a funny thing. Yoga seems like the perfect candidate for an at-home workout (all you need is a mat), but it's really not easy to derive much benefit from om-ing at home. Before I did my yoga teacher training, I never had the patience to put myself through a practice at home. A few things have made me better at it, and I thought I'd share them with you.
Note: these tips are for peeps with some experience doing yoga. If you're brand new to it, I'd recommend going to a live class.
-Count your breaths. This might be the most important thing I learned in teacher training. Hold a pose on one side for three (or four, or whatever) slow breaths, and when you get to the other side, repeat for the same number of breaths. I used to count out the seconds in each pose - terrible idea. The minute you start counting the seconds in your yoga practice, it's over. It's one thing to hold a plank for 30 seconds at the gym, but that ish has no place in yoga.
-Go into the practice with a body part (or two) in mind. I used to get on my mat with no idea what I wanted to work on, and I'd do a Sun Salutation or two and call it a day. These days my body will tell me what it needs, but take a second to brainstorm before you start so you don't get writer's block on your mat (or whatever the yoga equivalent of writer's block is).
-Play some music. I have a yoga playlist, but it gets old, so I use Pandora a lot. A real yoga class is never silent, so practicing in total silence can be weird, not to mention boring. Music helps me stay focused.
-Forget about a time frame. For this one, you'll really get a lot of different advice. Some people will tell you to schedule it into your day, as if you were going to a real class, and commit to staying on your mat for the entire ___ minutes. If that works for you, do it. For me, I like to commit to only one thing - getting on my mat. In a real class, the teacher is keeping track of time. It's a very different experience when you're keeping track of it yourself. And if you get sick of it after 20 minutes and suffer through the remaining 40, you won't go back for more. I honestly don't know how long I usually spend doing yoga at home - I just do it until I'm over it.
Of course, YouTube has some great videos, and Yogaglo has been my BFF lately. Sometimes I'm not in the mood to do my own thing, and I'm glad for Yogaglo. Other times I stop the Yogaglo video because I'd rather be doing my own thing. Yoga is about going with the flow, literally, so don't put any pressure on it.
Hope this helps any yogis out there!
I'm off to go to dinner with my hubby and dad, who just arrived for the weekend!
xo
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