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Not That Person
Last month, my BFF Nicla and I went to Costa Rica for my 52nd birthday and there was one particularly interesting leg of the journey. We went on an amazing horseback ride through the rainforest and across the black sandy beach (side note: if you haven’t been to Costa Rica, go.). It was pouring rain–as…
Read MoreMy Handstand Teacher
A very famous yoga instructor taught me how to straddle press to handstand. That may or may not surprise you, but this will: She was never my teacher. Not online, not offline, not ever, anywhere, any time. But then again, she was. You see, this woman and I used to take all the same classes…
Read MoreYou Will Never Achieve Your Potential
We all need goals in life. We all need purpose. Without them, we are corks in an ocean, letting life happen instead of living life on purpose. You can have any kind of goals: relationship goals, financial goals, health goals, yoga goals… But if you set goals to achieve your potential in one or more…
Read MoreThis Shirt Will Change Your Life
I had a tough year. Without going into gory details, let’s just say I lost myself, my hope, and my faith. I hit a wall. Really hard. And it knocked me down and knocked me out. I knew that wasn’t me. I am not the kind of person who gets knocked down without getting back…
Read MoreLevel Up Your Yoga FAST!
A few months ago, my Hard Reset blog post racked up thousands of views, easily surpassing any of my previous YOGAthletica blog posts to become my most popular one to date. Since then, I have received a lot of questions about fasting and intermittent fasting for weight loss. You can find out all about that…
Read MoreAnxiety Relief
It shouldn’t come as news to you that asana practice is a fabulous tool for quelling anxiety. Deep breathing and meditation, movement and mindfulness all work together to calm your nervous system and tame your brain. But sometimes even the best of us succumb to stress and anxiety. Whether it comes in the form of…
Read MoreMaking an Exit
So, you know how to make a grand entrance, but do you know how to make an exit? One of the big “missing pieces” of so many people’s yoga practice is the lack of follow through. The not waiting until the fat lady sings. The premature evacuation of a pose. Keep in mind that a…
Read MoreHow I Hurt My Shoulders. Every. Single. Day. (And It’s Not From Yoga…)
Ladies (particularly my yoga friends), I have a question for you, because I CANNOT be the only one! Sports bras… Is there something wrong with me or does it hurt your shoulders every time you try to pull off your sports bra? No joke. I’ll be the first to admit that I do not have…
Read MoreThe Insecurity Blanket
For years before I was a freestanding handstander in the middle of the room, well…I wasn’t. I was utterly stuck to the wall, petrified to practice my handstands in the middle of the room. Funny thing is that this love affair with Paul (The Wall), was fairly loveless, indeed. Before I finally ventured to the…
Read MoreUnintended Side Effects
My mind has been going nonstop lately. Yeah, I know, not very yogic. But sort of human, you have to admit. A couple weeks ago, I went to visit my sister in Israel. For those of you who don’t know Danni (The Dodo does!), she runs The Tiny Pet Rescue out of her home. Her…
Read MoreOm, My Goodness
I was a skeptic. When I went to Sri Dharma Mittra’s Life of a Yogi Teacher Training, we were taught a Mantra for Purification that we chanted daily. It didn’t resonate. Though I stumbled through the mantra, I didn’t know what it meant, I didn’t understand the words, I simply couldn’t connect. Fast forward a…
Read MoreHard Reset
I tried intermittent fasting. It worked. And then it didn’t. And then it did. It wasn’t quite that simple. But it worked. Here’s what happened: First, I got a Lumen metabolism hacker and it taught me how to balance my carbs, fats and proteins for my personal activity level, at any and every point of…
Read MoreYOGAthletecture
There’s something very magical–mystical, even–about the yoga asana practice. People seem to float on air, they twist themselves into inhuman shapes, they stretch themselves like rubber bands. It can really seem like a practice that is reserved for an elite group of aliens from the Planet Pretzel, and inaccessible to most. But…it’s not. More than…
Read MoreDecompression = Relief!
We all know what a terrific tool yoga is for decompression. The practice allows us to relieve stress and anxiety to reattain mental equilibrium. But… When you practice advanced asana, sometimes yoga can actually cause compression. On a physical level, that is. Despite my strongest efforts to be incredibly mindful with my alignments, I have…
Read MoreOld Dog. New Tricks.
It’s not true what they say. Who the heck are they anyway? You can teach an old dog new tricks. As long as the dog is willing to learn. At 50 years old, the one thing I hear the most about people and relationships is that–by this age–people only become more and more entrenched in…
Read MoreLet. That. $#!&. Go!
Once upon a time, I had a dream job with an abusive boss. Actually, twice upon a time I had that, but let’s focus on just the once. A situation occurred where my boss quite inappropriately publicly shamed me and someone who is very close to me took it upon herself to tell him off.…
Read MoreWhat view?
Ah, life. It’s complicated. Especially these days of uncertainty and instability. Pandemic (epidemic?). Inflation. Political turmoil. Social justice challenges. Climate change. Violence. Oh…sorry. I meant to say it’s complicated. Not it sucks. These are days of growth and change. Of infinite possibility. Of new opportunities. Of miraculous medical breakthroughs. Of change. Of awareness. Of taking…
Read MoreWho Has Time For Yoga????
Life. Enough said. But I will say more, because that would make for a very short blog post. Life is a lot. And it’s even more these days. Everyone is on 24/7. Working, texting, social media-ing, living, doing things… And yoga people–teachers and students alike–are constantly telling me that they don’t have time to practice…
Read MoreThe 5000(+)-Year-Old Game of Telephone
Remember Telephone? The game where one person whispers a phrase into the ear of the person next to them, and that person whispers to the next person, and so on and so on until the message reaches the end of the circle…usually bearing little to no resemblance to the original? Now imagine that game being…
Read MoreAwakened
I went for a walk today and was thinking: our local park really isn’t that nice. And as I walked by the park, here’s what I saw: Peewees playing soccer. One in full princess attire. People playing tennis. Some competitive. Some could hardly keep it in the court. Men playing basketball. Their dogs lazily watching…
Read MoreThat Insta-smile!
Okay…okay! I’ll admit it. Despite what you see on Instagram, I am not always happy. There. I said it. And in times like these–with the people of Ukraine suffering in the most dire and frightening of circumstances–all I want to do is cry. But instead I smile. Because that’s what you do on social media.…
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