Trying your hand
at a Downward Dog or Warrior Two can be quite intimidating for the
everyday girl, thanks to some stereotypes it has picked up. “Yoga isn’t
for me, I’m not a vegan/ Hippy/ flexible enough/ the yoga type.” It’s
time to ditch the excuses, and roll out that mat because yoga comes to
you minus the expensive memberships, or models with the flexibility of a
pretzel eyeing you up. And you certainly don’t need to worry about not
being able to find a studio near you. In this day and age, everything is
available online, and yoga is no exception.
I’m a self-taught
yogi through YouTube videos, because I can’t afford the high price gym
memberships or classes. Enter Tara Stiles, CEO and founder of Strala
Yoga in New York City, who has been guiding me through Yoga for the last
3 years with her softly spoken American Accent via YouTube. Travelling
the world with her yoga programs as her popularity boomed, the model
turned yogi is even endorsed by Deepak Chopra himself.
YouTube allows you
to have a one on one class with your instructor on the go, at your own
pace, and even better for my bargain hunting soul sisters, it’s FREE!!
Tara and I are pretty much on a first name basis these days.
There are hundreds
of videos online of yoga tutorials for anything at anytime. Yoga for
tight hips, Yoga for flexibility, Yoga for Holiday meal digestion, Yoga
for when you shop up a storm on USAPRO Activewear and send yourself
broke so you need to eat eggs on toast for a week… Wait, what?
Just remember that
it isn’t about how beautiful the pose looks, or how far you can bend you
leg behind your head. It’s about making the poses accessible to your
level of fitness and progressing each time. Practice makes perfect
after all.
Yoga has not only
become my go to for stretching, but also calming my mind and helping me
to relax when anxiety and real world stresses get me down. That’s right,
I’m a real girl like you, who has real world problems, and sometimes
you just need to Savasana them out. Am I sounding hippy-ish now?
Meh, Nameste
Credits:
Photographer Neil Woodwards
Credits:
Photographer Neil Woodwards
Model and Author: Lisa Anderson
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