NOON ON SATURDAYS AT JUICE BOX

This was a light yoga week:

• Monday: take Bikram
• Tuesday: take Bikram; teach Warm & Mellow
• Wednesday: take Bikram; teach Warm & Mellow
• Thursday: practice the yoga of going to the Cheesecake Factory with Jim and Katelynn rather than taking class 
• Friday: take Bikram
• Saturday: take Beginning Vinyasa; take Bikram (Note: never stop taking beginner classes no matter how long you've practiced. Revisiting foundational stuff is imperative.)
• Sunday: take Bikram

See? Light.

Let’s ramp it the hell up, Dear Reader.

Let’s add teaching a regular vinyasa-style class at noon on Saturdays. Let’s do it at Juice Box Yoga, the place I call my yoga home. While ever a Bikram Method Studio, Juice Box is expanding its offerings and adding a class called Yoga Motion at noon on Saturdays. I’m teaching it. It will be a blast. Totally, like, come. It’s not advanced. It’s foundational with advancement options for people already familiar with the practice. It’s different from Bikram, but it’s vinyasa designed for yogis that practice primarily—or even only until this point—Bikram yoga. It’s complimentary to a Bikram practice rather than conflicting. 

I’ll embarrass myself now and show you this photo of me in Fallen Angel (Devaduuta Panna Asana) if you promise to overlook the show of despair on my mug. Actually, my face states clearly: Take the damn picture already!

On here—and everywhere else aside from at my drug job—I talk about yoga constantly. But do you know my yoga history? I shall inform you. Below: my Juice Box bio. My tiny yoga tale—

I took my first power yoga class in July of 2004, and in no time my yoga practice became a significant part of my identity. I’m a yoga junkie. I subscribe to the yoga pubs, write yoga articles, go to yoga workshops, and it takes a significant schedule conflict for me to turn down a new yoga experience, whether that be a festival, a different type of class, or a new studio. But it was four years into my power practice before I tried Bikram yoga.

In January of 2009, my yoga practice had plateaued and I was desperate for a dose of whatever would return me to growth on my mat. So I gave hot a shot. It wasn’t long before I was a goner. I developed an affinity for sweat, my yoga clothes got tinier, and the Reno Bikram yoga community became My People.

While I’ve come to call myself a Bikram yogini, I didn't lose touch with my yoga roots in vinyasa yoga. I enjoy practicing both styles because the differences in method require a greater awareness in each class. I love the disciplined, type-A style of Bikram, and I love the variability and playfulness of vinyasa yoga. Doing one enriches the other and both together help me be me a well-rounded yogi. Thus, in 2014 when I again found myself in a place where I needed to spur progress in my practice, I enrolled in a training program to teach vinyasa-style yoga. I did my training through the Satya Flow: asana + Authenticity training program in Reno, Nevada, and have my Yoga Alliance-RYT 200 certification (200-Hour Registered Yoga Teacher).

My mat is where I feel at home. It’s where I accept vulnerability and where I feel the most successful and protected. It’s where I have learned to respect and appreciate my body. As a yoga teacher I want to help cultivate that in my students.

I am honored to have the privilege of teaching Yoga Motion and Warm & Mellow at Juice Box. Yoga is my favorite thing to talk about and I’m excited to take what I’ve learned over my time on the mat and offer this wonderful, juicy community another way to broaden our perspective on yoga and enhance our practices. 

I mean it. I'm excited. I love yoga. I love what it's given me. I love that I have the chance to share that. So come to my new class. We will have fun, I promise. That's a priority.

Other non-yoga-related updates:

• The drug job is a little bit kicking my ass right now. Super busy. Stressing me out.

• Jim pulled a classic and surprised me with a dozen red roses for V-day. Since I'm a space case these days I forget I have them and relive the surprise every time I walk into our bathroom. Red! Gorgeous! Awww. And while they're lovely, my favorite part of of the gift is that he wrote the note on a 3x5 index card. I wouldn't change a shred of this man for anything.

• My hair color is the very definition of bitchin'. (Hannah, you doll of a stylist, thank you for being way above average.) My length, however, leaves length to be desired. Shoulder length is just awkward. Grow, little abused hairs, grow!

• The other morning from the stove where I was cooking something in an iron skillet (maybe an egg? dunno), I said to doing-dishes-Jim, "Did you know that cooking in an iron skillet imparts a certain amount of iron into your food?" He replied, "Did you know that sounds stupid?" Me: "Did you know that I know more food science than you?" And from his place on the couch in the family room where he was engrossed in Minecrafting, Ben piped in, "Did you know that 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance?"

And now: off to further destroy my body by eating more cheddar cheese and cheap Hersey's chocolate. Tanya says that Chocolate Season is over on the 17th, so I'd best eat up. Good news (Cameron and Maroon): Cheese season never ends.