By guest author Lucinda Staniland You’d think an afternoon spent on Youtube watching Yoga video parodies would make for a good time. But it didn't. In fact, it was draining. And my quest to find ‘The Ten Best Yoga Video Parodies’ quickly became ‘The Ten Best Yoga Video Parodies (That Don’t Suck)’ and finally left me quietly fuming on ‘Why Funny Yoga Videos Actually Aren't Funny At All’. As I trawled through the Internet's bountiful supply of Yoga spoofs and parodies, I began to finding them … [Read more...]
The Yoga Clothes Challenge: Can We Have Both Style and Ease?
by Janelle Hope, Flip Your Dog Want to win a $100 voucher to Flip Your Dog? See the end of this article. If only I could live in yoga gear that doubles as all day wear, then I could practice, walk, run, workout anywhere, anytime while getting all of life’s other things done. Oh yes please! Since having my children (aged five and two) jeans are a thing of the past. Anything with a forgiving waistband - allowing me room to belly breathe, repeatedly get up and down from the floor with the … [Read more...]
How to put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation
by guest author Lucinda Staniland Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone. As if life were a progressive and cunning crime with no witness to the tiny hidden transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely, even you, at times, have felt the grand array; the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding out your solo voice. Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation. - David Whyte - Community … [Read more...]
How to embrace uncertainty and channel agency
by Lucinda Staniland Let me start by telling you a story. Once upon a time, I thought that one day I would grow up, get everything sorted out, be thin and nice and beautiful, understand how the world worked, and finally be a complete human being. One day, I thought, one day it will happen. I started yoga at seventeen and was going through tough times - so far my hypothesis had not proved true. I was a teenager, but I was more confused than ever, and life only seemed to have gotten … [Read more...]
Are you a real yogi if you’re not consciously consuming?
by Lucinda Staniland You've just finished your Thursday night yoga class. You’re feeling blissed out and relaxed after a good long savasanna, and now you’re heading homewards. On your way you stop in at the supermarket to grab a few crucial things. Wandering through the brightly lit aisles you have some decisions to make: do you buy the dishwashing liquid that contains surfactants, stability and dispensing aids, fragrances and colors, mildness additives, preservatives and antibacterial agents, … [Read more...]
Taking yoga off the mat
by guest author Lucinda Staniland A friend asked me the other day: “How did you get involved in all of this?” "All of this” being an all-encompassing voluntary role with the youth climate action movement, plus involvement with other social and environmental justice groups including - but not limited to - Gecko and 350 Aotearoa. I told her, feeling like a complete cliché, that I'd done this yoga-based course called Embodying Your Purpose. It's part of an initiative called Off The Mat, Into The … [Read more...]