Yoga

Karen, my yoga instructor, doesn’t claim to offer answers. Actually, she’s more of an “ask a question” type of instructor, consistently encouraging each of us to look within for wisdom.

The first exposure to yoga is crucial. Most of us identify and define subjects so quickly — we build an entire framework for our understanding of a subject sometimes within our first couple of encounters.

Actress, film producer, director, human rights activist, environmentalist, organic farmer *and* UNICEF ambassador Trudie Styler will be appearing on The Martha Stewart Show tomorrow, January 8.

It’s Martha’s 2010 Yoga Show, and Trudie will be joining her to discuss all of the wonderful benefits of yoga practice, talk about her new Warrior Yoga DVD, and lead the audience through a routine. Best of all, she’ll be showing off our new Medallions Yoga Mat! Here are more details:

To celebrate the release of her new book Yoga for Pain Relief, Kelly McGonigal, PhD, is getting the message out about how yoga can help you improve your health and happiness. Below, she shares some of the most exciting findings on the benefits of yoga from the growing field of mind-body research. I wanted to share these developments with you so perhaps you can use them to persuade the people in your life who are on the fence about yoga and meditation to give it a try.

Yoga Tune Up® Teacher Training graduates

We are closing our decade, and it’s time to take a look back at 2009 and the amazing year of growth in our U.S. yoga community. One thing is for certain: Despite the economy and the recession, there was constant growth and expansion in the yoga world!

The holidays can be a time of fun and family. But for many, it can also be a time of added stress — good and bad! One of my favorite ways to stretch tight muscles and relieve stress is yoga. Speaking as a type-A, high-energy person, yoga is the perfect antidote to this stress-filled, anxiety-ridden, wound-up-tight-as-a-drum world we live in. For me, yoga is like personal therapy!

Holidays are a time for family, friends and — let’s not kid ourselves — food. I love to go away for a few days and eat things I normally don’t in amounts that would shock a Sumo wrestler. Hence, it may be the season to be jolly, but it’s also a time when it’s all too easy to pack on the pounds along with the cheer.

Throughout the years, I have worked with many athletes, marathoners, golfers, basketball players and professional dancers. The magic bullet in training consciously is a synergy of fluid biomechanics, coupled with a mind and spirit that are all on the same page. In other words, it is very difficult to fuel your passion for athletics if one of these elements is holding you back — be it pain from an injury, a lack of belief in yourself, or using your sport as a form of punishment.

You may know you want to seek enlightenment, but how exactly do you define it and know what you’re looking for? One astute attendee at the Vancouver Yoga Conference, where Colleen and I were answering questions about the Gaiam Yoga Club, asked us for our insight. “That’s the question we’re asking every day,” says Colleen. “What is enlightenment? What does it feel like? How do I get there?” Get our answer in this video that’s not what you might expect.

I have been teaching yoga for 17 years, and one of the most frequent complaints I hear from students and yogaphobes alike is that they don’t have enough time for practice, so they avoid it altogether.

Avoiding a regular practice of stretching will never get you the healing benefits that come with the work. Even if you only do one pose a day, you will make a huge difference in your body, brain and well-being.