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About Kara-Leah Grant
Kara-Leah is an internationally-renowned writer, teacher and retreat leader. Millions of people have been impacted by the articles, books and videos she has published over the last ten years. Her passion is liberation in this lifetime through an every day path of dissolving layers of tension into greater and greater freedom and joy. You can find out more about her, including when her next retreats are, on her website. Kara-Leah is the visionary and creator of The Yoga Lunchbox.
David says
The fat chicks are laughing, moving, dancing and having a hilarious time with their mates doing Zumba. Unlike some of their more obsessive skinny mates burdened with yoga mats, gurus, traditions, dogma and mirrors.
Lindsey says
This fat chick is in the middle of the room doing yoga every Saturday morning, and in the park doing yoga every Wednesday night! And I’m in agreement – I want to see women like me represented in the media. That’s why I’m so glad to have Anna featured in the August issue of Diabetes Forecast – people of all shapes and sizes DO exercise, but feeling excluded can keep some off the mat. Let’s make yoga more inclusive!
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Lindsey,
Does that mean you’ll take some photos and send them into us? Would love to see them!
Lindsey says
Sure will! And I’ll link to Anna’s story when it goes live.
Premratna says
You’ve already had at least three non-size 10s writing articles, including myself! Just saying 🙂
Oh and I found some old clothes recently. I couldn’t quite squeeze into my 1995 size-16 skirt. Now some of my pants are size 12. And I fit size 10 Lulu lemon… go figure!
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Premratna,
True – we’re probably more representative at YLB than say Yoga Journal. Yeah… sizings have been changing haven’t they? Getting bigger or something? Interesting indeed!
Lu Cox says
Great article Kara-Leah. After being introduced at the gym once as the yoga teacher, I had a lady say to me “oh you’re so normal”. Was kinda nice to know that she went away feeling comforted in the thought that not all yoga teachers are stick figures and can be a regular size 14. 🙂
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Lu,
It just shows how insidious all of these ideas and beliefs around body image, size, weight & yoga are… So much to explore in all of this.
jude mahood says
This is not really a comment on yoga and weight but just a few links to some interesting blogs about the “health at every size” movement and other related topics that are gaining momentum in the nutrition world (at long last!):
http://foodisnottheenemy.com/blog/
http://www.ifnotdieting.com
http://www.diabetesandmindfuleating.com/
http://www.lindabacon.org/haesbook/
Jude
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Jude,
Awesome – thanks for the links. There seems to be a strong idea that it’s unhealthy to be bigger, or wrong, or bad… and none of that is necessarily true – although sometimes it might be. What is an ideal weight and who determines such a thing?
Jenifer says
In our studio!
Our studio has such massive diversity in terms of body types and sizes, and our ethnicity profile is diversifying, too. I love having such variety in class.
I also wrote a blog post for my friend Nadine about Side Plank featuring the uber-gorgeous Melanie: http://yogawithnadine.com/2012/05/11/what-every-yogi-should-know-about-plank-pose/
I’m actually working on a post about this as well. 🙂
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Jenifer,
It’s the like attracts like thing… if the studio is more diverse, it attracts more diversity because people feel comfortable when they walk in. If it’s all homogenous and someone who’s not like that walks in – it’s more challenging. Which may be why there are still so few men practicing yoga – because there are few men practicing yoga… they walk into a room full of women and the subconscious message is “this is a women’s thing”.
Now the trick is getting that diversity into the yoga media as well!
Jenifer says
That may be true. 🙂
I actually taught an all-male class yesterday. It wasn’t planned that way — that’s just who came to class! It’s pretty cool when that happens. 🙂
Kara-Leah Grant says
That is cool… more men doing yoga please!!! They’d benefit, we’d benefit, the world would benefit!
T says
This is so exciting! Can’t wait to participate.
Do you only want yoga teachers or are students okay too (I’ve just started teacher training)?
Thank you!
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey T,
Students too – please send in your photos! It’s been awesome to have the photos come in and I’ve loved publishing them on the website. We need more!