I don’t want to appear well. I used to. I used to be good at it. Meet the expectations of society and family. Wear the right clothes. Speak properly. Sound smart. Appear humble. Do good things. My teeth looked good. My hair looked right. People “looked up to me” But that was veneer. That was
Yoga with young people can be freeing and wondrous. When allowed to set their own guidelines they tend to choose kindness over cruelty, and joy over judgment. Anything become possible, even headstands!
When I got a report that one of my teen yoga students had started an extreme starvation diet because she hated her body I knew it was time to jump into the deep end of the pool of body positivity with this group. I pulled out some Jessamyn Stanley videos. This beautiful, curvy woman
I can remember the folds of my mother’s skin as I bathed her before she died. I felt like I could feel the passage of time and love and birth and life in the texture of the skin. I could feel what she gave, shared, exuded over that span. I could remember the younger robust
Our very own Emily Dryzga is a finalist in a local contest “The Face.” It’s a casting call for a lingerie photo shoot for Curvaceous Lingerie, a shop in Old Town for all body sizes. They were asked to share one piece of advice to women about learning to love themselves. All of their answers
For many of us being in front of a camera – much less doing yoga! – conjures feelings of dread and even disdain. We don’t feel the camera flatters us. We are afraid to see our bodies. We are afraid of judgment. Last weekend several Just B Yoga students took a brave leap to be
I am five foot tall and about 125 pounds and I teach yoga to heavy and round people. I see myself as a heavy and round person. I don’t know if I ever won’t. Positive body image and balance are a daily practice. When I step up to Warrrior 1 on my yoga mat, I
A student recently asked me how she could get her arms into Eagle. I started by looking at her try to approach it. Her elbows barely cross one another and her forearms are nowhere near touching. I then focused on the back of her shoulders and told her she was very tight back there. She
So, this is an update to the original post. After a lot of conversation and consideration I have changed the name of the class to Yoga 2eXceL. The name was becoming too distracting and I think we still get our point across that yoga isn’t about size or body image. It’s about exploring and expressing
Yoga is definitely good at bringing out body-image issues. There’s nothing like a magazine cover photo of someone with their body folded in half or twisted in an apparent knot to make us turn our gazes away from our own bodies. I can’t wear that. I can’t put my foot there. My belly will be
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