Pin now, and tell us - what are YOU really thinking during yoga class?!Wearing: kale t-shirt, lululemon pants. — Pin now, and tell us - what are YOU really thinking during yoga class?!
Wearing: kale t-shirt, lululemon pants.

Confessions of a Yoga Student: What we're really thinking during class

August 5, 2015

Taking a break from our Confessions of a Yoga Teacher series, we're exploring yoga student confessions today with Lauren. She's behind this guest post spilling the beans on what she's really thinking during yoga class. We also asked the YBCers over on the Yoga Forum for their confessions and included them below. Hope you'll share yours!! xo Candace

Don’t get me wrong, I definitely have priorities when it comes to yoga – lots of them actually. My first priority is not to die (especially when it comes to hot yoga, woof), my second priority is to not embarrass myself entirely (I’m smart enough to know I’ll probably embarrass myself a little bit and I’m totally okay with that) and the third could be a tie between remembering to avoid lululemons leggings (which are not downward dog friendly #pantyshow) and to quiet the mind.

Pin now, read later! Confessions: Why I love crowded yoga classesWearing: alala bra, liquido leggings (similar) — Pin now, read later! Confessions: Why I love crowded yoga classes
Wearing: alala bra, liquido leggings (similar)

Confessions of a Yoga Student: I love crowded yoga classes

July 10, 2015

One of these days I’m going to sit down a write a behind the scenes post just to fill you in on what’s going on here at YBC. Things are ca-razy, as you might’ve guessed from recent instagram posts like this, this, and this. I am definitely feeling stressed but also really excited about the incredible opportunities and projects we have going on.

One of them - and this is just an idea, not set in stone yet - is the possibility to open up a yoga studio. I’m working with a commercial real estate agent to check out the surrounding areas and see if there’s a space I like, and as I explore this idea, I've been asking people what makes or breaks a studio in their opinion. And the responses blew my mind.

Confessions of a Yoga Teacher: Teaching while injured

June 19, 2015

At the end of April, I went into New York for the Yoga Journal conference, and as I was walking back to my hotel, arms filled with swag from a PR meet and greet, and high off an awesome workshop with Kathryn Budig, I stepped off the curb on 5th Ave during rush hour and rolled my ankle. My foot was still on the curb and my ankle was on the road, if you need a good visual. I continued to try to cross the street but I couldn't put any weight on my foot and I had to hobble back to the curb. In tears, I sat down and tried to figure out what to do next. A lovely little woman saw the whole thing happen and helped me get a cab (she literally stood on the curb for a solid fifteen to twenty minutes waiting for a free cab). I was in such pain and I was panicking. Not only did this injury mean I couldn't finish out my weekend in New York, but I had three retreats lined up beginning in just over a week. Oh, and the retreats were in Europe and traveling on my own while injured? Yeah, it was safe to say I was sort of losing it.

Confessions of a Yoga Teacher: The space between

January 28, 2015

The Spring 2015 yoga retreats are starting to fill up! Grab a friend and reserve your spot now!

For some people, the joy of a pose emerges when the traditional, full expression of the pose is realized. The best part for these people is when they're 100% perpendicular to the ground in handstand, or when they're in the textbook perfect split.

For a while, I was the same. It didn't matter how I got there, just get me in the pose, you know? Hurry up and get there!

Morning pranayama practice at our Costa Rica retreat

Confessions of a Yoga Teacher: I did it

January 5, 2015

Before my retreat in November, it had been something like eight years since I had been back to Costa Rica. The last time I was there the roads were a disaster. I mean pot holes everywhere. And not just pot holes, but, like, POT. HOLES. Cell phone service was pretty much nonexistent, and you could forget about wifi. Despite the infrastructure issues and spotty cell service, the country always had a special place in my heart due to having participated in a foreign exchange program there when I was sixteen. The family I lived with and the friends I made there had such an impact on me and to this day I am in touch with them. The country feels like my second home, and I had desperately wanted to book a retreat there but I was scared.

Confessions of a Yoga Teacher: Believing in yourself as a teacher

December 3, 2014

Confessions of a yoga teacher is a series about my experiences as an instructor. Sometimes the posts are funny, sometimes they're more serious. The idea is to spark conversation about teaching yoga within the yoga community here in the comments below or on the YBC Yoga Forum. Please feel free to share your experiences!

A few weeks ago I attended the Yoga Journal Conference in Miami, where I took a class by Eric Paskel, an unorthodox yoga instructor who taught a class called Yoga Rocks: The Doors, a loud, in your face, kick your asana kind of class. The sequencing was pretty basic, the music was pretty great (if you like The Doors), and the attitude of the teacher was refreshing (he may or may not have asked us to go from warrior 2 to reverse warrior 2 with the middle finger raised at all the fears and self doubts we had). It was a class filled with laughs and dance moves, and yeah, it was a little cheesy at parts, but it was also inspiring.