In personal on
26 August 2010 with 1 comment
Credit for this lovely image goes to HizKnits who I am pretty sure I passed by right after he took this. The neon itself is courtesy of Levi’s extra awesome (re)branding stunt slash community outreach print shop on Valencia Street.
After leaving tonight’s Green For All party at the shop I wandered home in the San Francisco chill, stumbled into Modern Times, then into the entry of Dog Eared Books where stared at the flyers taped to the glass.
The thoughts in my head went something like this: “Wow people are doing some amazing stuff out there in the world… Maybe I should take that workshop… Oohh a street food festival… I’ve always wanted to try the Opera… a sketching class… why haven’t I started that craft collective yet…?”
And that’s when it hit me: More creation, less consumption.
I’m not talking about growing my own food, although that sounds charming. And I don’t even mean buying less stuff, although I also try to keep that in check. Instead I mean keeping my cultural balance in check. It is all well and good to read, watch and listen, but I must make, do & create. The latter in much higher percentages. Sometimes I am most own worst enemy, I’ve got a list a mile long of projects that I want to accomplish but procrastinate reading blogs about other people accomplishing their projects.
Thus my new mantra: More creation, less consumption.
(New catchphrase, sure, but not entirely novel of an intention… After all, Brendan and I are on our third month of challenging each other.)
In personal on
19 August 2010 with no comments
A friend and colleague is headed off on a leave of absence adventure… I thought we’d send him off with some sweet love.
Delicious gluten-free cornmeal cookies intended to top scoops of homemade basil ice cream. Yum.
In san francisco, yoga on
19 August 2010 tagged gratitude with 1 comment
After a summer of exploring yoga classes in LA, NYC & Tahoe it is fantastic to be home, back in my routine at Urban Flow with Rusty and family.
Haven’t visited yet? Here’s a little visual taste to inspire:
Urban Flow Yoga: How This Came To Be from Urban Flow Yoga on Vimeo.
Intrigued? For the rest of August, there are free lunchtime classes from 12-1 Tues-Friday & every other Sunday Rusty is offering FREE Intro to Yoga classes from 1:30-2:45. Next one is Sunday August 29th. Hope to see you there.
(Props to Daniel Jarvis at Document Document for beautifully capturing the essence of the community.)
In personal on
29 July 2010 with 1 comment
And on the 7th day, I went to Brooklyn. Greenhouse Holistic on Grand to be exact. I ventured to the hipster enclave of Williamsburg in order to practice with Stephanie Sandleben, another Wanderlust teacher I was signed up for.
The space itself was small, enough for 25-30 people who are ready to be intimate on their mats. And nothing extraordinary about it, except for the fantastically architectural floor-to-ceiling room divider that integrated a reception desk, storage & changing room. Frankly the room divider is so cool it merits a dedicated blog post, if only I had been bold enough to take a ton of pictures.
I didn’t have any crazy breakthroughs like the day before, but it was a totally solid, enjoyable class. Stephanie has a teaching style that combines a good mix of posture alignment vinyasa flow. She advertises as such and she delivered as promised. Practicing with Stephanie was a pleasure, she was easily understood (& heard), led us through interesting sequences and offered a nice amount of adjustments.
By coincidence I am scheduled to end my Wanderlust festival with Stephanie this Sunday afternoon, just like I completed my NYC urban retreat in her class.
Ever grateful…
In personal on
28 July 2010 with 2 comments
Maybe you’ve heard… a great yoga migration is about to take place. Friday night I am joining the spandexed masses and driving up to Lake Tahoe to partake in the Wanderlust Yoga & Music Festival.
With something like 40 different teachers to chose from, how do you pick? I decided to use my NYC yoga studio tour to scope out two of the options. First up, Elena Brower, yoga superstar seen famously last month beginning to teach a 10,000 person yoga class in Central Park and then cancelled by thunderstorms.
Elena teaches at her studio, Virayoga, a bit farther south on Broadway from Om & Jivamukti. First off, the studio is one of those NYC spaces you would never in a million years discover unless someone tipped you off. There is no signage, just a small listing on the building’s directory. And yet, of course, the lunchtime class was PACKED, not unlike Dana’s class at Laughing Lotus. (It is worth noting as well that Elena’s class had the most men I’d seen in a class yet in New York.) And the space,was gorgeous, everything from the steel front door to the massively high red walls. The place just felt sexy. It was a challenge not to fantasize about living in a loft so striking.
Beyond her reputation, I was drawn to taking Elena’s class after watching clips of her talking about her yoga practice online. There was something really compelling about her voice and it was just deep enough that I thought I’d be able to easily hear her. Unfortunately it didn’t really pan out that way. Between the many many bodies and the high walls, I had a hard time catching all of Elena’s words. And words there were many. It is hard for me to give a real assessment because Elena’s class was also my first time practicing Anusara Yoga, so I’m not sure what was her and what was the style, but the class was full of inspiring thoughts & quotes. Only a few of which I could actually follow.
I try not to focus on it, but my hearing (or lack there of) can really get me confused in a yoga class. For the most part I was able to follow the poses that Elena led us through, it was just the talking in between that got hazy. I was especially confused at one point when I heard something along the lines of “… well, just introduce yourself at the end, or not.” Huh? And then later she sat on the floor while we all were in a pose reading names off a roster and looking around for people to acknowledge their presence. I was truly baffled. Roll call in a yoga class was totally new to me.
Hearing problems aside, I had an incredible practice that day. Having never taken an alignment oriented class before I enjoyed the challenge focusing inward, holding and adjusting my poses. It was in one of these moments that I had a total Chaturanga breakthrough.
It was as if I had never done the pose before. Holding in plank, Elena instructed us to bring our hearts forward and then go down into Chaturanga. I floated forward a bit, began bending my elbows and realized this felt totally different, and more right than ever before. I did it a second time and felt even stronger. Holy crap! All this time I think my hands have been too far forward. It was one of those truly transformative moments on the mat. And for sure it was the only thing I wanted to talk about for days following.
One final note… After class, blissed out, I went to thank Elena for class and she asked for my name. “Kate.”, I said. And at this point she threw her hands in the air and exclaimed back, “Kate!” and shook my hand. I explained that I was visiting from SF. that I’d be in Tahoe and looked forward to seeing her there and we parted ways. The whole interaction was maybe 2 minutes. It wasn’t until I walked out that I remembered the half-sentence about “introduce yourself at the end…” and then it hit me that maybe she had been talking to me.
