Loved this from the lovely ladies over at THE Hot and Healthy Blog 🙂

THE Hot and Healthy's Blog

We have a saying in yoga: “No excuses, best results.”  Not even wrist surgery can stop GR from hand standing.  

It’s not what you do that causes injury, it’s how you do it.  If your activities are hurting you, you are doing something wrong- Doesn’t take much to figure that one out!  Reevaluate your alignment and make it work.  The only thing stopping you from achieving any of your goals is the bullshit excuses you tell yourself. 

For healthy handstanding check out Brock or Krista Cahill’s class at www.yogisanonymous.com.

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“Rock Your Vinyasa” Yoga Music Playlist (listen to it on Spotify)

 

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If you are like me you are always in search of your next favorite song for yoga class! When I build a yoga playlist it’s a sparkling collection of songs that I handpicked from a sea of less worthy songs. Each one individualy is a gleaming jewel of sorts.

Of course, one woman’s musical treasure is another persons noise pollution. Listen and see what you think of my yoga music playlist here on Spotify.

“Rock Your Vinyasa” Yoga Music Playlist

Adam Plack & Johnny (White Ant) Soames – Initiation (Change)
Euphoria – Devil May Care
Radiohead – Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
The National – Conversation 16
TV On The Radio – Blues From Down Here
Nightmares On Wax – Still? Yes!
Noiseshaper featuring Juggla – All a Them a Do
Nickodemus – Mystery of Life feat. Andrea Monteiro
Phoenix – Rome
Vivian Girls – Where Do You Run To
Best Coast – Make You Mine
Simon Resoul – Entre – Featuring Kormac
Eva Be – Into My Blues (feat. Pegah Ferydoni)
Frou Frou – Shh
The Temper Trap – Fader
Animal Collective – Fireworks
The Shins – Pink Bullets
The National – Watching You Well
The Antlers – Kettering
Lissie – Everywhere I Go
Music for Deep Meditation – Shavasana Sound Bath Therapy – Deep Healing Through the Power of Sound (Feat. Ann Malone)

 

I love this guys yoga blog! Check out this cool hip opener! I have never seen it before, and that is saying alot considering I have been doing yoga for 10 years now!

Numerous variations of the staff pose can be found in our advanced training syllabus.  These amazing stretches open both the outer hips and inner thighs and make poses like eka pada sirsasana, (foot behind the head) infinitely easier to accomplish.  The extreme external rotation of the leg found in this pose will also create the requisite flexibility to flip the legs into lotus without using using your hands.  If you want to do this in postures like padma sirsasana, (lotus headstand), these variations will help you get there.

As far as I can tell, the variation shown below seems to be practiced primarily by Yoga 23 practitioners in the Ukraine.

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Inspirational Quote (and One-Handed Handstand Photo) – On Being Unique by Osho

 

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“Nobody is superior, nobody is inferior, but nobody is equal either. People are simply unique, incomparable.You are you, I am I. I have to contribute my potential to life; you have to contribute your potential to life. I have to discover my own being; you have to discover your own being.”
— Osho

 

The Top 5 Best Songs for Savasana

You may have gathered from my last post just how seriously I take my Savasana….and if you did not..well, I do! 

So, with that in mind I put together a short playlist of the best 5 songs you will ever hear in Savasana. Period.

Listen to these songs and try not to get blissed out…

I dare you!

It really is impossible!

So there you have it! Enjoy! Feel free to drop me a line when you reach new heights of enlightenment, or just levitate over to my neck of the woods and tell me in person!

The Top 5 Best Songs For Savasana (click here to listen via Spotify)

1. Waters of Life / Sacral Jonathan Goldman

2. Storm of Prayers Craig Kohland & Shaman’s Dream

3. Puja Krishna Das & Baird Hersey & Prana

4. Om Prana Rara Avis

5. Gopala‘s Dream Jai Uttal

5 Tips For Having the Best Savasana Ever!

Savasana: savasana is being without was, being without will be. It is being without anyone who is.”   
 Light on Life, B.K.S. Iyengar

How to make your next savasana the best five minutes of your life…

You know that excited feeling you get before your first “real date” with you new snookums? Well, I get that feeling when I’m about to take Savasana. Yep, I’m weird. Or maybe, I’m enlightened. Let’s hope it’s the latter.

Either way here are my top five tips for dropping into bliss and having the bestest savasana ever.

1. Don’t know what to do with your feet? No need to stress, this isn’t dancing with the stars and I’m not going to try to teach you the fox trot!

Relax….ahhhhh…

Alright, now just take your feet about as wide as the mat and let them roll out naturally. Here is a tip: Your toes will point out to the sides.

2. Lift your buns and lengthen your tailbone away from your lower back and towards your heels. This is not JUST for those sporting a badonkadonk, but J. Lo if you’re reading this, listen up, because this one is for you girl!

This amazing little adjustment will eliminate any “crunchy” feeling in the lower back. The term “crunchy” is only cute when it’s used to describe peanut butter,…(and even then it’s questionable), try to keep your savasana “crunch-free!”

3. Pickup your shoulders and move them down away from your ears. Use the “stickiness” of your sticky mat to hold your shoulders down. Much like a fly caught on some sticky fly paper your shoulders will be stuck down there away from your ears and no longer able to bother you. Brilliant! (Don’t get your panties in a bunch over the flypaper analogy, no flys were hurt in the making of this blog post and bunched panties do not a comfortable savasana make.)

 4. Place your hands with your palms facing up about 5-8 inches from your body. The only exception to this rule is if you are right next to someone. Touchingthem. Touching. sweaty. hand. touchingyou. What you’ve just encountered here is the recipe for a potentially awkward savasana. You could bravely leave your hand there. Or for a less awkward savasana and more relaxing experience place your hands on your chest, belly or pretty much anywhere you won’t meet with someone else’s clammy fingers.

5. Relax the skin between your eyebrows. Most of us have jam-packed lives that have us running around  feeling like red bull fueled spider monkeys, but it’s time to make sweet savasana! Power down the noggin’ and smooth the eyebrow wrinkle. THE BIG BOSS wrinkle that looks like the number 11 between your two eyebrows. Imagine the teacher has her thumbs on each of your eyebrows and is pulling them away from one another gently. Aaaahhhh. Feels better already, right?

Now drift away to your happy place. It’s okay if  your “happy place” consists of Johhny Depp bringing you cupcakes for lunch while your boss keeps you cool by fanning you with a palm frond. I won’t judge you. Nobody will. That’s why savasana is so freakin’ awesome! Not to mention I’ve rested better in those five blissful minutes than a full eight hours on my fancy-pants-egyptian cotton sheets!!!

Enjoy.enjoy.pure.bliss.savasana…..

If you enjoyed this article please share the love below 🙂 Thanks!

“Sweaty Vinyasa” Music For Yoga

 I took a bit of a break from posting my yoga music playlists because of some issues I was having with itunes. Thanks to Spotify however I am back!!!Here it is! Click below to listen to the songs via Facebook/Spotify.

“Sweaty Vinyasa” Music For Yoga”

The Buddha Bar  Blue Tribe

Overcome (Accapella Mix) Tricky

Come Home Little Dragon

Keep It Rollin Y LUV

This world  Selah Sue

Raggamuffin  Selah Sue

Dreams of Fish and Waterfalls  Oliver Tank

Desperately Faithless Blue Metheny

Enigmatic Encounter  ATB & Enigma

Lonely Boy  The Black Keys

There’s Something Wrong Brad Sucks

Akwaba  Tya

True Affection The Blow

Timshel (Zoo Session) Mumford & Sons

Om Prana Rara Avis