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YogaHub.TV goes LIVE – Daily!

segovia — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 19:50:16 +0000

What a difference it makes to do yoga daily. Wow! We’ve been holding daily yoga sessions here at YogaHub HQ for the entire team from Monday to Friday – and it’s been fantastic.

A few weeks back during Thanksgiving, we had a visitor from out of town who was practicing with us daily. She felt so sad when it was time for her to leave us that we started to stream our daily sessions live over the web for her directly through iChat.

Well, word went out that we had started to make these daily yoga sessions available to her and some of our off-site team members requested that we make it available to them also.

Hence the birth of YogaHub.TV – LIVE! We made this stream private by first as an invitation-only for close friends and YH team members, but…

Today we opened our new channel live for the world to see at a special dedicated link: Blue Moon Yoga Session.

Our goal for 2010 is to begin making this and other yoga streams available throughout the week for everyone.

So please join us at www.YogaHub.TV/live from Monday to Friday, with a start time between 9:15 and 9:30 am PST.

Tags: daily yoga, yoga session, blue moon, daily yoga sessions, yoga everyday, yogahub.tv, live yoga session, yoga online

Daily Yoga at YogaHub HQ

segovia — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:35:26 +0000

I find it strange that, when I start telling people that we are now providing a daily yoga class to our team here at YH-HQ, most of their eyes light up because they are so envious that their employer or work place doesn’t offer something similar. Then they proceed to share with me about some other friend or colleague of theirs who also has a health benefit or corporate fitness program.

Yes, it all sounds wonderful but, as the saying goes, “talk is cheap!” – and I wonder just how many people, if given the same opportunity, would actually commit and stick to a workout, yoga or exercise routine with any regularity, be it daily or even just once or twice a week.

Sure, we all get excited and of course everyone votes to have better health care, especially when it comes to a complimentary daily yoga class. But why is it that after just one week of starting, over 80% to 90% of us fall off this train, get derailed and return right back to our usual daily habits (which tend not to include enough movement or exercise)?

This is the same phenomenon the entire world suffers from come January 1st. We make a commitment – usually to ourselves – that we’re going to “get in shape,” “work out twice week,” or just “start walking for 30 minutes a day.”

So what separates those who CAN from those who CAN’T? Is it something in our DNA? Why is it that some people can religiously wake up at the crack of dawn and get to the gym five days a week, while the rest of us are plagued by the constant and seemingly addictive “snooze button?”

So where do you stand? Do you find sticking to a workout or yoga schedule almost as difficult as trying to fight gravity? Or are you one of those blessed few who can commit to and follow through with some kind of regularity when it comes to your personal health program or fitness routine?

If you’re in the latter group, please share your secrets by commenting below. And if you’re in the former group, perhaps you’ve got some additional insights or light to shed on this strange pattern.

Tags: daily yoga, workout, commitment, new year resolution

Thanksgiving Reflections

segovia — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:35:00 +0000

With the Holiday season in full swing, we’re starting to receive more out-of-town guests. Some stay for a day or two, others a week or more.

What I’ve found interesting about our last visitor is that she chose to integrate fully with our daily lifestyle and routines. Things that I do every day and sometimes take for granted, like a 30-minute morning walk, or a daily yoga session, and even just things like dancing salsa in the kitchen.

It got me thinking and reflecting just how fortunate I am to be able to enjoy so many gifts – the amazing sunny Los Angeles weather, the ability to work from home, the freedom to set my own schedule…even having all my own limbs intact and, of course, enjoying the comfort of my good health.

I just hope that our traveling visitors return to their homes, having been inspired by our daily routines, and find a way to improve their own daily routines.

Which brings me to another point: I’d like to know what your daily routine is. I’m interested in seeing what others are doing so that I can be inspired to make subtle changes in my own life for the better.

So chime in with as few or as many words as you like by leaving a comment below.

Here’s my average day:

7:15 – Wake up
7:45 – 30-minute Walk
8:45 – Starbucks
9:00 – Check email/daily tasks
9:30 – Energy Yoga
10:00 – Team Rhythm Meetings
11:00 – Conference Calls
12:00 – Productive Work
2:30 – Lunch
3:00 – More productive work
7:00 – End Work Day
8:30 – Dinner
11:30 – Neti Pot
12:00 – Sleep

Tags: daily routine, visitor, thanksgiving, daily life, health lifestyle, holiday season

Yoga iPhone App Review

segovia — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:14:55 +0000

Stretch Your Body Not Your Budget
As previously mentioned, I’ve been doing a lot more yoga with my iPhone lately so I’ve decided to do a review of one of my favorite iPhone yoga apps.

“Yoga Trainer” by NexStudios has a great app that you can load onto your iPhone or iPod touch for only $0.99 – or you could try their ‘Lite’ version for free.

The only major difference between the two is that the Lite version has advertising. Aside from that, they both pack over 70+ poses and nine pre-defined yoga sequences, in addition to their quick introduction to yoga.

On first appearances, this app seems relatively simple, but once you look under the hood and begin to put it to use, you’ll find it extremely customizable as it allows an unlimited number of possible custom yoga sessions.

You’re provided with some templates to get you started, but I usually find it more fun to make my own sequences.

From the home screen of the app, you can choose from a list of courses:

Introduction to Yoga
Advanced Poses
Daily Warm-up Yoga
Daily Yoga Session
Full Course
Meditation Course
Pranayama Course
Pre-Natal Course
Sun Salute Series
Yoga for Abs

Once you choose your class, a slide show will start immediately and there’s a small timer in the corner of each card that counts down the length for each pose. At the start of each new pose, a male voice announces both the English and Sanskrit name for the pose. There is a small five-second intermediary timer between each slide that allows you to make pose adjustments.

Aside from the brief audible title of the pose and a small chime between poses, there is no other auditory sound, which means if you’re unfamiliar with how to do the pose, you’ll need to pause it and flip the pose card over to read the back for a detailed step-by-step written instruction.

While this may seem a little cumbersome and perhaps even edging on annoying to a new yoga student, I actually found it quite useful not to have someone constantly talking throughout the entire pose.

There is also no background ambiance soundtrack or music (which would be a nice feature). However, you can load up anything you like in the iPod and play it in the background while the Yoga Trainer app is running, which means you can essentially create your own soundtrack.

A few other noteworthy features include:

Making your own notes on each pose
Being able to adjust the times for length of each pose
Shaking to shuffle random poses
Basic searching for poses

Creating a custom sequence is by far the most useful feature of this app. It’s a very efficient and easy process as you can simply give it a name, browse or search through all 70+ poses and quickly add as many as you like. Once you’ve added all the asanas that you want, you can quickly reorder them using the same standard sorting feature found in other native iPhone apps.

It’s also useful to be able to hear the correct pronunciations of each pose in Sanskrit, which is great for those who love learning these tongue-twisters. I always find it interesting to learn the correct Sanskrit names for the poses and often it takes me a long time and many classes before I’m able to remember which names are for what poses. This function is especially helpful if you aren’t attending live classes or your instructor doesn’t choose to use the Sanskrit names.

Either way, I’ve found that the search function of this app works well as a flash card system. All 70+ poses are categorized into various sections (e.g. beginners, advanced, core, arm balancers, etc.) You can simply browse through each category, read the English name and attempt to remember the correct name and pronunciation of the Sanskrit name, which is what I do. Then you just need to tap the pose to see if you’re correct.

This could also be a very handy feature for newly practicing yoga teachers who need to brush up on their skills before their next class.

As mentioned above, you can customize the time and length of each pose, which is very helpful. However, it’s a global setting so you can’t have one time for a child’s pose at 60 seconds in workout session #1 and a different time (say three minutes) for a second workout session. I found that out when I was trying to create my own Yin Yoga sequence.

My work-around was to simply buy the Yoga Trainer Pro app and keep the Lite version on my phone so that I could keep most of my custom yoga sessions in the Pro version. But in the Lite version, I’ve changed the time for each of the poses to last three to six minutes, which I use for all my Yin yoga sessions.

In conclusion, I give this app a rating of 4 out of 5 stars. I’ve seen a few revisions to the app over the past six months and will upgrade my rating to 5 full stars when they post full voice guided instructions, and possibly even a full motion video (although I’m not sure it’s necessary for some of the more basic poses.)

A few other features that would be nice to have are:

1) To be able to see the time and length of each sequence from the main screen since there is currently no way of determining the length without having to go through the entire process and time yourself, or skip through each slide and total up all the minutes.

2) Advanced search that would not only search the basic English titles but also give the ability to search the Sanskrit versions, the full pose descriptions, and your own custom notes. It would also be great to have an icon displayed on the face of each pose card to indicate which slides have custom notes.

There are dozens of other yoga iPhone apps available, but in my opinion this one ranks in the top five. Stay tuned for future reviews of other apps.

Tags: iPhone, iPod touch, iTouch, Apple, yoga iPhone, yoga apps, yoga trainer, Yoga Trainer Pro app

Ujjayi Breathing – “The Ocean Breath”

segovia — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:34:46 +0000

I attended a very exciting class this morning. Instead of immediately getting into the poses, our instructor had us take about 10 minutes to lie down in Shavasana and focus on our Ujjayi breathing, which is also known as “the ocean breath” or commonly referred to as “cobra breathing.”

The instructor was very descriptive in her explanations and had us breathing deeply in ‘sooooooooos’ and ‘haaaaaaaas.’

She had us breathe in through the nose and focus on the sound ‘sooo.’ Then she had us breathe out through the mouth while we practiced making the audible sound of ‘haaaa.’ Then we switched over to breathing both in and out through the nose, while remaining steadily focused on the ‘haaaa’ sound – even during the exhalation through the nose.

We practiced this breathing for what seemed like forever, until it was almost a natural experience and didn’t require any thought. And when we stopped thinking about the breathing, it became effortless.

It was then – and only then – that we began to move through the poses for the class. As we moved through our poses, our instructor continued to give subtle reminders for us to stay intently focused on our Ujjayi breathing.

When we finally finished our class with Shavasana, our instructor said “Okay, you can now disengage your Ujjayi breath and relax into stillness.”

Wow, what a great way to practice! I’ve always worked at staying focused on my breathing, making sure to remind myself not to hold it during longer extended poses. But this intense breathing warm-up really shifted the whole perspective of breathing for me and my mind truly focused 100% (okay, maybe 93%) on my breathing throughout the class.

So whether you’re a teacher who can work this into your next class or a yoga practitioner, I highly recommend that you try to take the time to show up 10 to 15 minutes before class and go into deep Ujjayi breathing. I think you’ll be as blown away as I was to find what a difference it makes to your whole yoga practice.

Tags: Shavasana, cobra breathing, Ujjayi breathing, breathing warm-up, yoga practitioner, yoga practice, breath technique

Dizzy Spells

segovia — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:00:02 +0000

When I first began my yoga journey nearly eight years ago, I was introduced to a form of hot yoga – a modified version of Bikram in a 100° room. At that time, I found that during most of my yoga classes I would become dizzy, occasionally to the point of having a near blackout.

I just assumed this was a normal part of yoga. Then, after stopping for a few years, I convinced myself that it was just “a hot yoga thing.”

But I don’t find this to be the case either, because nearly every time I attend a yoga class, whether it’s in a heated room or not, at one point or another I find myself losing my balance. The world goes fuzzy and I really have to try to stabilize and ground myself in order not to collapse on my mat.

I consider myself healthy – I eat well and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Most people would look at me and say that I appear fit. So I’m curious to find out why I keep getting these dizzy spells during yoga.

Today, I managed to narrow the problem down a little further. I find that in nearly all occurrences, or at least 90% of the time, I get dizzy during the transition between ‘Uttanasana’ (forward fold) and ‘Samasthiti’ (standing prayer pose).

Once I realized this, I got to thinking that perhaps the standing prayer pose has more purpose than I first thought it had. The instructor often has us do this pose after we’ve done a ground/mat routine or a sequence of Vinyasa sun salutations or forward folds.

Perhaps this is by design, as it’s a way to ground ourselves before we continue with our practice. Part of me wonders, though, if this dizzying reaction isn’t a result of the fact that when I attend class, the pace of the class makes me practice my yoga faster than when I practice yoga on my own. Even when following along with a video, a studio class generally seems to have a faster tempo to it (unless of course it’s a Yin yoga class).

Am I alone in this? Or does anyone else experience this sense of dizziness?

If you know of any other explanations for this somewhat strange occurrence, I’d really appreciate it if you could share them with me.

Namaste.

Tags: dizziness, hot yoga, Bikram, vinyasa, sun salutations, yoga class

Yoga Music on the Go

segovia — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:12:43 +0000

A few days ago, I wrote about a new online music service called Last.fm. I’ve since created some great play lists and have over 500 tracks that I love to listen to.

By the way, I found out that if you want to pay an extra $3 a month (as opposed to having just the free option), you can actually choose to listen to your custom play lists.

But sometimes I want to take my music with me. I’m not always in front of my computer when I practice yoga or go into meditation. So when I found out that Last.fm has an iPhone app (also free) that is available in the app store from Apple, I was quick to download and begin testing it.

It’s great – now I can plug in my headphones and listen to any of my play lists whenever I feel like it and wherever I am.

Oh, and I just found another similar online service that also has an iPhone app. It’s called “Pandora Radio” and it’s quite good, although I like the features of Last.fm more.

I encourage you to check them both out.

Tags: Last.fm, pandora radio, yoga music download, iphone, online service

Yoga Music – How and Where to Find It

segovia — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:00:23 +0000

I often wonder how instructors and studios find all their yoga music. I haven’t set foot into a record/cd store in over seven years, so it’s not like I ever walk up to the “Eclectic Music” section, put on some headphones and start listening to some music samples.

Recently, however, I was turned on to an online music service called Last.fm, which is a great way to find any type of music. What I was particularly interested in looking for was music to practice my yoga with, as well as some soft and slow music that I could keep on a low volume in the background while I was meditating.Well, Last.fm is exactly what I’ve been looking for. The service gives you two options: you can either sign up for a free account on their website and listen to the music directly in your web browser or you can download a small application that will run on your Mac or PC.

What’s great is that you can just type in any group or band and it will not only play music that’s performed by that group but, more importantly, it will also give you similar music from other groups.

But what if you don’t know the name of a group or artist to start your search? No problem, Last.fm also gives you the option to type in keywords that search their database of tags (key phrases). For example, if you type in the word “yoga”, you will get 10+ hours or more of amazing music that will work perfectly for any yoga workout. (Okay, occasionally there’s a strange techno song that seems out of place, but for the most part it does the trick.)

What’s even better is that if you hear a song you love, you can click on the little heart icon and it will add that track to a special “My Loved Tracks” list, and you can choose to listen to only those tracks whenever you want to.

Check it out and I guarantee you’ll be glad you did. Music is beautiful and being turned on to new music can bring a fresh level of energy and an added dimension to your life.

Tags: last.fm, yoga music, finding music, listening, playlists

Podcasts: A Portable Yoga Alternative

segovia — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 14:48:31 +0000

I’ve been doing a lot more traveling in the past few months and find myself often out of my natural settings. At first, I told myself a variety of different excuses as to why it was inconvenient to keep up my regular yoga practice. Things like; “it’s too cold to go outside,” “I’m too busy to find a local studio,” “I don’t have my mat with me” and probably the most absurd “there’s not enough floor space in my present surroundings.” Come on, please!

As if you need any more space than that of your yoga mat. So after escaping, avoiding and denying my body and mind, I’ve finally started looking for new reasons to go beyond my usual yoga practice routine and try new ways of doing yoga.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll share with you a few of my insights and findings as I look to the alternatives of your friendly neighborhood studio, where “everybody knows your name.”

Some of you may know I’m a total techie and when it comes to gadgets and gizmos, I’m usually an early adopter, constantly striving for the cutting edge.

So two weeks ago when Apple released their new 2.2 iPhone software with ‘Over the Air Updates‘ I was so excited to be able to begin streaming or downloading podcasts directly to my phone without having to tether my iPhone back to my Mac just to update and download the latest podcast materials.

After some careful exploration of yoga podcasts, I found several that were perfect to get me back into my yoga routine (more on these next week).

At first I was a little skeptical as to how I was going to pull off the logistics of doing a full yoga practice off my iPhone (or iPod), but it actually turned out quite well.

I simply placed my iPhone on the couch at a slight angle against a pillow during the standing poses and directly in front of me during sitting poses. I happen to have the first generation iPhone, which is a little on the quiet side, but if you have a new G3 iPhone, the speaker volume is almost twice as loud. My surroundings were quiet so it worked perfectly for me even without any earphones.

Once you find a few sessions you enjoy, keep them on your iPhone or iPod and after 2-3 workouts you won’t need the visual anymore and you can switch to using earbuds (headphones) and just attach your iPod to your waist or your arm and you can simply follow the guided experience.

So, whether you’re going to be traveling or you just want to supplement your regular yoga practice, head on over to the iTunes directory and load up yoga video podcasts. You don’t need an iPhone, you can use anything from an iTouch, iPod, Apple’s Shuffle, any third party MP3 player, or you could even just use your laptop if necessary.

Tags: yoga practice while traveling, yoga DVD, yoga with iPhone, yoga podcast, alternative yoga exercise