Feelgood Style

Yoga Journal is pleased to offer a scholarship program for those that need assistance attending this winter yoga conference in San Francisco. This scholarship program is intended for yoga teachers, with limited income, who currently teach (and volunteer) yoga to underserved populations within their community.

Yoga Journal shares how practicing yoga changes lives daily. These upcoming “Share Your Yoga” conference scholarships are intended to support the participation of yoga instructors that earn a low-income that is active in contributing their unique teaching abilities to those that can not afford it. Below are the application instructions. Read the rest of this entry »

Sweat drips from my nose, rolls down my chin and runs off my chest- landing on the floor with pride. The air is thick. Mirrors, fogged over. Essential oils soak into my pores, filling my body with peace. I rest my wet forehead on my mat as I breathe through pigeon, opening up my hips farther and deeper. As I listen to the mellow music, tears begin to run down my face. Sweat and tears cover my cheeks, melding into each other, creating one beautiful masterpiece of raw spirituality. Just as confusion begins to flood my mind, not sure as to why I’m crying, the teacher explains we hold emotion in our hips and it may surface in this stretch. After she says that, we move on to a new pose and my crying fades. I’m at one with my body; my mind is nowhere but the present. This is serenity. Read the rest of this entry »

The Sea Spa at Santa Monica’s Casa Del Mar encourages a regimen of wellness for the everyday traveler.

These hoteliers have given it some considerable thought and arrived at their  modern philosophy that, even though you’re a traveler, even though you’re away from home, you needn’t sacrifice your sense of well being nor suffer a disruption in your wellness regime.

“The owners of the hotel have me here as a liaison to help people remember how to take care of themselves,” Amber McMahon, Casa Del Mar’s Wellness Director, informs me.  She adds that the Sea Spa fully integrates the mind, body, spirit approach to wellness and services catering to all of these wellness needs are offered in their spa menu. Read the rest of this entry »

Each year it seems more creative entrepreneurial types are coming up with new, irresistable ways to create gorgeous, durable bags with minimal impact on the environment. My latest discovery is OLovesM, a no-waste company that uses materials otherwise destined to take up landfill space.

Their material of choice? Yoga mats. Read the rest of this entry »

Clary Sage Organics has been having blast this year! We loved their Spring offers and now for Summer the CSO team encourages us to: “Delight in spa and health treatments such as chair massage, rolfing, reflexology and more while shopping the wonderful assortment of organic clothing and taking part in our raffle.”

If you are interested in these special treats, please read on for details… Read the rest of this entry »

Have style, will travel: I ♥ Lumi Yoga Bags 

I used to have a yoga bag that I was pretty proud of. It was shaped like a hot dog, with a drawstring opening and a comfy shoulder strap and it made me look like a hunter with a bouquet of arrows on my back. The problem was, I couldn’t find a darn thing in it. Everything sunk to the bottom- my sweatband, my wallet, my cherished tube of Kiehl’s lip balm that has an eternal lifespan and still hasn’t run out despite the fact I swiped it from a hotel room four years hence.

And then there was Lumi. Lumi stands for “Love you, mean it”, and let me tell you, they really mean it. These courageously affordable bags are designed to help you carry things in style- including your better self. Each handmade bag comes with a cell phone pocket (but only if you promise to keep it on silent), a section for your water bottle and a homemade eye pillow coordinated with each bag.

Lumi’s are green-made in Paris from leftover swaths of fabric from the creator’s interior-decorating dad. (Are you feeling the love yet, or what?) Plus, toting your Lumi bag is a charitable act. 5 euros from every sale goes to benefit the Ãdhãra-Shakti collective: a grassroots organization that helps serious yoga students participate in yoga retreats at the divine YogAriege, even if they are seriously broke.

Don’t live in France? Pas de problème! Chantal, the multitasking wunderkind behind the Lumi bags, will send you one by mail. The bags are 29 euros within Europe, and 37 dollars to the United States. Want something special? Ask for a custom order! Lumi loves you back. 

Photo credit: All photos used by permission by Chantal Tacoronte-Perez.

 Traveler, painter, and a mean hand with a sewing machine, Chantal began practicing Yoga in Miami and went on to study Iyengar yoga with Vladimir Ferrerio Gonzalez while she lived in Havana as the Hampshire College Cuba Program Coordinator. She is currently teaching yoga at the Centre de Yoga du Marais in Paris, while continuing her studies under Rod Stryker in the Tantric Hatha lineage to complete her Para Yoga certification.

Here, Chantal talks with us about the difference between Miami and Parisian mindsets, the eternal debate over audible sighs, and how to get your hubby to come to a yoga class. 

How did you come to teach yoga? What else might you be doing if you weren’t a yoga teacher?

I  worked at the front desk of Prana Yoga in Miami off and on between college and traveling/working in Cuba. I had just come back from Cuba and my cousin was leading the teacher training at Prana Yoga. I had always wanted to do it, and it just seemed like the next step.

If I weren’t teaching yoga, I would be teaching something else. Probably painting or working with disabled children and teens. I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher, but “yoga teacher” was not always the image I conjured up as I played “teacher” with my imaginary students. My make-believe took place in the form of detention with forms and grades, not straps, blankets or blocks.

Did you always follow a vegetarian diet, or did you go veggie when you discovered yoga?

When I was younger, my mom didn’t eat any red meat or anything with bones in it except for fish, which I never liked.  I learned first about veganism, then vegetarianism while I was in college learning about the planet and how much waste goes into the whole “raising of animals for human consumption” thing. It just seemed that it was more logical to eat closer to the earth. Read the rest of this entry »

My moon, my man’s a changeable land...

Former actor and survival instructor, creative writer and a recovering Type A, Mark Gerow is the founder of Lunarythms Yoga™, a combination of polarity-therapy, Ayurveda, Yin and Hatha Yoga that tailors asanas to complement specific chakras associated with the position of the moon. He likes McDonald’s French Fries, drinks one cup of coffee a day and does not relate to black and white photographs of women in leotards.

When I describe the idea behind Lunarythms, people look at me like I’m a crystal wielding nutcase. But every time I take your class, the pace feels just right. What led you to organize your practice around the lunar cycles?

My background in the metaphysical began with Polarity Therapy training.  My partner at the time had grown up with a mother who was into astrology and I would hear them speak to each other through astrology references– usually about a person’s personality or a general analogy about a situation.  I began to notice the effects and rituals that go along with the new and full moons (setting intentions, conserving or putting forth energy), and one day it dawned on me that if most everything in this world is changing to include the moon’s cycles and our own human cycles, that our yoga practice could reflect these ever changing tides of life. Read the rest of this entry »

 It’s 7 am. Do you know where your yogi is?

 I’m a relative newcomer to the practice of yoga. I started with Bikram about a year ago and navigated my way through several different traditions until I discovered ashtanga. In my ongoing search for the “right” practice, I’ve tried a lot of different classes and a lot of different teachers. There was the Iyengar instructor who poked me in the back when I did something incorrectly, and the anusara teacher who never showed up. The Bikram-aholic who clapped with enthusiasm when a student vomitted. (“You’re purging!!”) Currently, I’m studying under two different teachers in Paris. One is a veritable gumby of a fellow who performs meta massages with his didjeredoo. The other, a lighthearted yogi who loves to sing in English. His CD’s always skip.

The other day after a particularly good class, a friend of mine asked me about the teacher. “Do you think he…drinks?” I had to laugh because I’d been wondering the same thing every Sunday. What, exactly, did our limber guru do with himself after each class? Did he have a life outside of the studio? I was determined to find out.  Read the rest of this entry »

Certified yoga instructor Isabella Samovsky of Solay Wellness in Skokie, Illinois solves some confusion over the appropriate eco mat for the right yoga practice.

The cotton mats her company offers are mostly for hatha yoga exercises, yet also good for therapy, meditation and floor classes that don’t require too much flow. Isabella says a cotton mat can be used by itself and is perfect for the shavasana (also known as corpse or savasana) pose. It rolls up nicely for storage and travel. It’s also a good size for mom and baby together. Read the rest of this entry »