Grateful for an incredible retreat this past weekend in Ojai with my Purple yogis. So wonderful to experience a new place, loving community, and an inordinate amount of yoga (haha…just kidding…sort of). I can get a little complacent with my day-to-day routine, I forget what good it does me to step out of the ordinary and into a change of scenery, meet new people, and have an extraordinary weekend. Read More →
This comes up a lot at the studio. Incidentally, the best way to clean a yoga mat is also the cheapest way!
For just about any kind of mat, good ol’ plain white vinegar will do the trick. It cuts through the dirt and that oh so unpleasant film that builds up on your mat. Read More →
I’m pretty sure if Ira Glass and I knew each other, we’d be good friends.
I love this quote. I first discovered it back when I first started teaching yoga, and even though this is about creative work, it really resonated with me. I really felt my novice status. I knew I wasn’t as good a teacher as my teachers with all their experience and wisdom. But I knew I would get there. I knew I had to put in the work. There were no short cuts, I had to earn my experience and wisdom. I actually like that there are no short cuts in life. Doing the work, the learning is the best part! The time between here and there needs to be experienced. And when you get “there” you can look back at “here” with gratification. Sometimes, the more time between “there” and “here” the more rewarding the experience is. Not to say that I’ve arrived! I’m still learning, still becoming the yoga teacher I want to be. Read More →
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Yoga is an oft-recommended form of exercise. A recurring question then, asked of those who teach yoga is: What is so good about practicing yoga? My doctor says I should do it, but why? Yoga is more than mere physical activity. Yoga is a holistic practice that helps us maintain a healthy body and mind in a myriad of ways. It is good for the muscles, brain, bones, organs, and everything in between that holds it all together.
When people come to speak to me, whatever they say, I am struck by a kind of incandescence in them, the “I” whose predicate can be “love” or “fear” or “want,” and whose object can be “someone” or “nothing” and it won’t really matter, because the loveliness is just in that presence, shaped around “I” like a flame on a wick, emanating itself in grief and guilt and joy and whatever else.
—Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
Music and yoga go together like… Hall & Oates, like Kool & the Gang, like… Me & Bobby McGee. Music helps set the tone, and the pace. Music can deepen your yoga practice and take it to new heights. Lucky for me I can meld two of my passions.
I think A LOT about what songs are good to practice yoga to. Many of my favorite songs in general are not great for yoga, but these ones are! This is not a playlist, these are just a few of the songs that have made their way onto a number of my playlists. My students have heard these 10 songs over and over again. Often someone will ask me after class…. “what was that song?” Here are some of the most frequently asked about songs, and maybe you’ll discover one here that you’ve always wanted to know what it is but never asked!
I’m Paula. I teach yoga and write about holistic health – mind, body, and soul in harmony.
I am passionate about helping people be well!
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