Baby Steps...

"If one advances confidently in the direction of one's dreams, and endeavors to live the life which one has imagined, one will meet with success unexpected in common hours" - Henry David Thoreau

A few months ago I had been finishing up a cycle of p90x (truly hardcore, try at your own peril). One thing that stood out in the p90 curriculum was the Yoga. I had done Yoga on and off for the past few years, but never fully embracing the Yogi lifestyle. Every time I would leave it and then comeback to it whenever something in my body structure seemed out of whack. I always thought of it as more of a maintenance workout, something to be pulled out of the medicine cabinet as needed. 

A weird occurrence would happen every now and then. I would stick the latest Yoga DVD in for a night of "maintenance" and then in the middle of the practice I would enter a weird "zone". The only way to describe it was like I was truly at peace. Kind of like the world disappeared and all I was left with was this moment. Trippy, I know. I mean it didn't happen every time, but often enough for me to notice.

Flash forward to present day. I was at Barnes and Nobles on one of my weekly browsing sessions. I happened to stop by the health section looking for my next diet of the week (more on that later). I happened upon the Yoga section and being that I was just thinking about it started to randomly pick up some Yoga books. Some I had seen before, others were new to me. One caught my eye. I guess the blurb on it from Deepak Chopra helped. I thumbed through the book. It was titled "Slim, Calm, Sexy Yoga" and was by a Yogi named Tara Stiles. Thumbing through the book I realized they had a website. Wow, it was located in New York City and I happened to be off the next day. 

Jump...

It is called Strala Yoga. It's on Broadway in the "NoHo" area of New York, and I wasn't feeling particularly "bendy" this day. But here I was, ready for whatever may be. The first person I meet is Tara Stiles. I was hoping she would talk me out of it and save me the frustration. Wrong, she was welcoming and very encouraging. She squelched a bunch of my concerns regarding the practice with a "we'll deal with it when it comes up." She was like a sage disguised as typical New Yorker, go figure.

 As for the class. One word. Awesome! It was a lot more accessible then I thought it was gonna be and just challenging enough to keep me engaged. I find that doing Yoga from a DVD gets mentally repetitive and after a while becomes routine. I also realized that actually going someplace to do Yoga has the element of "I am here to do this" that prevents me from waffling on it, if I were trying to do it at home. The classes run 10 dollars a class. Another 2 bucks if you want to rent a mat. For those of you where even that is too much, they offer free classes throughout the week as well. How could you go wrong?

I currently manage to make it there once a week. I know, I know but it does make a difference.  I also have incorporated a lot of moves into a mini routine I perform when I first get up in the morning. It kind of helps me get the day going on the right foot while centering me. 

As for Tara Stiles, I find out later that she is somewhat of a youtube celebrity and has a number of routines online if you want to check em out. Type in tarastiles in the search field on youtube and you can find a number of her videos there. Their website it stralayoga.com and Tara along with her talented roster of teachers is definitely worth a look see.