namasteph yoga blog

I would have never heard of these folks if it hadn’t been for Bookins, and it just goes to show you that there are yoga gems to be found outside the corporate offices of Gaiam. I am very selective about my yoga DVDs, and I find that most of the mainstream ones offered just don’t cut it. I have a bunch of Gaiam’s yoga video offerings from back when they were called Living Arts, and I barely use them. They just don’t feel like a real class to me, and I don’t get any spiritual benefit from them either.

So I was pleased as punch to pop in Maria Theresia & Roberto’s Yoga Therapy DVD and find that it was a yoga DVD I might actually use. In their 60s, M.T. (as Maria Theresia is called) and Roberto aren’t glamorous, impossible-to-emulate yoga superstars. (Don’t get me wrong, they are in great shape!) Their video has a wonderful homey touch and you can tell they are passionate about what they do.

The style of yoga presented is their own: It is primarily a take-off of the Bikram series, with their own poses and transitions added in. (They also removed the two hardest and most dangerous Bikram poses, the toe stand and the fixed firm, which I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do in this lifetime.) The class starts with a standing series, with a short break in savasana, and then continues with a floor series.

Read the rest of “Maria Theresia & Roberto’s Yoga Therapy” »

I had an opportunity to take a 2 1/2 hour Naam Yoga class at Golden Bridge this weekend with founder Joseph Michael Levry aka Gurunam. Naam Yoga combines Kundalini Yoga with sound healing, mudras, and concepts from the Kabbalah. I had no idea what I was going into but left the class feeling really happy and good. If you like singing or chanting along with your yoga, you’ll like Naam Yoga. Alas, he only teaches in NYC and not LA.

Yoga books and DVDs, as you may know, can add up. I found this great website called Bookins where you can trade books and DVDs and just pay the cost of shipping when you receive a product. I’ve used this to get a number of used yoga books, including books on Bikram, Sivananda, and Iyengar. I’ve got a yoga DVD on the way.

The system works via a point system. You earn points that you can use to receive your free book or DVD. You get 15 points just for signing up, and you earn additional points by giving books away. (You can also earn some points when people sign up for your referral link, of course.) Then, you just pay a flat rate of $4.49 for shipping when you receive your book or DVD.

What’s great about this service is that you do not have to pay to ship your books to others. The person receiving the book pays for the shipment. When someone requests a book you have listed for trade, you simply print out the postage and slap it on the package. Drop it in a mailbox and, boom, you’ve earned some points for future books and DVDs.

I’ve already sent one book out and received 9 points for the trade. It was very easy to do. You can also add your BookCrossing label to the book if you want to track it that way as well.

If I have one gripe about this service is that it seems that people are a bit slow to request your books. (Or maybe my books are just not in demand.) But this could also be that the service is new and just needs a few more people on it. Because of this, I have to be a bit judicious with the points I have. I have a tendency to want to buy every interesting yoga book that’s posted on the site - after all, for less than $5, it’s a steal!

They do have a promotional offer where you can purchase shipping credits in advance - 11 for the price of 10, with 20 points added to your account. This is a smart way to get some points and get one shipment for free.

If you do a search on yoga, you’ll find a decent selection of diverse yoga books available. I even found some Shiva Rea DVDs listed for trade.

I don’t have any yoga books yet on my trade list, but when I have one available, I’ll post it here. And hopefully you can post your used yoga books as well!

As I seem to be guided to do about once per year, I have updated this blog with a new design. I decided, with my criticism of Yoga Journal for its focus on skinny white women, I did not want to have a site design that had yet another skinny white woman on it. (Even though it was pretty innocuous, and I happen to be a somewhat skinny white woman.)

I’m gearing up to start a positive movement towards more egalitarian yoga images, images that don’t encourage more body image focus, so the site needed to reflect that.

I also happen to like the colors. I seem to use variations of these colors on many of my websites, but they feel so bright and yet soothing to me personally. Well, enjoy.

I’ve just started learning the Bikram series at home. Living in Los Angeles, I’d actually love to experience the bombastic personality Bikram in person (his school is a short drive away), but I can’t. Hot yoga is counterindicated for my chronic fatigue syndrome.

(CFS sufferers have a tendency towards orthostatic hypotension, which means we have thin blood and/or low blood pressure that can cause dizziness or even fainting when standing up quickly. Working out in an overheated room causes the blood to thin…thus, it stands to reason, if you already have a problem with low blood pressure or low blood volume, working out in high heat is probably a bad idea.)

But I’m curious about the different yoga styles and wanted to see what all the fuss was about Bikram. So I got his beginning yoga book and learned about his series (a separate review of the book will be posted later). Bikram created a specific sequence of 26 postures (plus two breathing exercises) that he claims works out the entire body in a way no other yoga series does. I wanted to find out if there was truth to the hype.

Read the rest of “Thoughts on the Bikram Series” »

Yesterday I got my first yoga blocks - cork blocks from Hugger Mugger. I don’t know why I didn’t have blocks before…I certainly could have used them…and these cork blocks are fantastic. They are a bit soft to the touch but very, very sturdy, and apparently eco-friendly. They are a bit heavy, so not something to get for travel, but they are by far better than the foam or wooden blocks I’ve tried at studios. Thumbs up!

I finished my yoga teacher training on Sunday and I just taught my first official yoga class this evening. It was great! I had lots of fun. It was a good way to get started - two students in a small theater space, both at a beginning level. I am hoping the class will build to a group of 5-6 regulars (it’s a small space). The students were wonderful and made it easy for me to teach.

I found it was very rewarding to work with people who could not do yoga easily. Both students want to lose weight and get more healthy, and I’m excited to be working with them. To me, this is much more gratifying than working with people who can already do the splits. My first real students have confirmed they will be coming to class weekly, and I hope more will join soon. Hurrah!

OK…first off, I take absolutely NO RESPONSIBILITY for your use of the following method. DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

As I’ve stated in an earlier blog post on Bikram, I just can’t see how I’d enjoy an overheated room while doing yoga. I’ve been taking some classes in 90 degree weather recently and I found myself staying towards the back where the a/c was. The heat just makes me feel a bit sick, actually.

But then I thought, hmm, if Bikram uses heat to loosen up the muscles, perhaps I could use applied heat to various locations to do the same thing. Notably, my tight hamstrings.

Read the rest of “Hamstrings + Heating Pad = Success!” »

I’ve just finished the fourth week of my Karuna Yoga Teacher Training. I would have been writing more about it here but it’s been kicking my ass (in a good way). I am very pleased with the training and happy that I decided to do this instead of Shiva Rea’s 200-hour program. (And heck, I can always take more modules from Shiva later.)

I’m getting a lot of the foundational stuff that I feel I did not get from Shiva’s first module…learning how to take people into and out of basic poses, which is really the most useful thing you’ll need to know as a starting teacher. We’ve also been learning a lot of yoga philosophy and history (which is frankly making my brain hurt), but it has been good to get this depth of knowledge as a backdrop to everything we’re learning.

Read the rest of “Karuna Teacher Training Log” »

Graham Norton is this incredibly funny talk show host from the UK. He had a yoga instructor on his show, with hilarity ensuing…