Purple Room Yoga Blog

When it comes to practicing yoga, the difference between Flexibility and Mobility may seem like semantics, but in practice, the difference matters. According to Google, Flexibility is defined as "the quality of bending easily without breaking." This can mean many things when we practice yoga, but is often associated with poses that involve extreme stretching and require certain anatomical allowances, like being in a full split while touching the back foot to your head. When practicing yoga, Flexibility involves stretching the muscles to be able to get deeper and deeper into a pose. This is fine if you do so mindfully and by listening to your body. Some people are naturally flexible, often because they have joint and ligament laxity, where their joints naturally have significant movement just on their own. Other people work toward their flexibility by stretching frequently. Flexibility can be useful, but if you don't have the strength to support the flexibility, you can e...

Many yogis have a complicated relationship with using yoga props (blocks, blankets, straps, bolsters...). Some yogis have realized the benefit of props and use them freely and judiciously (yay!), but some people feel like the props are a crutch, or using them means we are weak, "not good enough" or "less than" in some way. In this blog post, I am mostly writing to anyone who finds themselves in the latter category. I am here to tell you that all of those feelings are based on stories in your head that aren't true. The main purpose of props is to support us during our practice so that we can experience the poses without unnecessary struggle or strain (props aren't judging you and neither is anyone else in your yoga class, in case you were wondering...). If certain muscles are tighter, or weaker, we may lack the range of motion or stability that allows us to create poses in our body that look like the teacher. First and foremost, looking like anyone else in th...

 As a type A recovering perfectionist, "rest" wasn't always in my vocabulary. If I wasn't moving or doing something "productive," I was asleep. In my 20s I used to have every moment of my day scheduled and I was always on the go. I was living in New York City at the time and bought roller blades so that I could get around the city faster. I was dancing, practicing yoga, and teaching swimming, so clearly wasn't active enough... I always felt a stigma around resting or quitting something, being seen as lazy or not good enough in some way. Someone who quit did so because they weren't "good enough" to continue, and someone who rested was "lazy." Neither of these things are actually true, but these were my deeply held beliefs for much of my teen years and early adult life. Why Quit and Rest aren't actually bad words One cannot "do all the things" unless rest happens. Rest can mean sleep, but it can also mean non-doing. I ...

 *This post is for people with a healthy spine. If you have severe disc degeneration/herniations, stenosis, spinal fusions, or anything else that affects safe mobility in your spine, please consult your doctor before attempting any of the following poses.* Despite the above disclaimer, backward bending is a wonderful thing to do for health and mobility. Gravity naturally pulls us into a forward bend, causing rounded shoulders and a forward head. Many hours  working at a computer or looking at our phones only encourages that rounded position. Long term, this alignment will cause pain, discomfort, and dysfunction in the neck and back (upper and lower), as well as potentially cause headaches. The problem with being in a constantly forward position is all of the posterior muscles of the neck and upper back are in a constant state of elongation, without getting the relief of coming back to neutral; even though the muscles may feel tight, they actually need to be engaged/contracted,...

The balance between Strength and Ease is a favorite yoga topic of mine. It's that middle place where you find Yoga, or Union. Trying, but not too hard, and also relaxing, but not too much, is what the yoga practice is all about, both physically and spiritually. You are finding stability, but without the struggle or strain. When you are practicing asanas (the poses), you want to use enough effort in the poses to maintain your stability and balance, but not so much effort that your muscles become hard and immobile. Something rigid will get knocked down easily, but something too soft will have no structure or integrity.  You want to use your muscles to create stability, but with a concurrent sense of relaxation so you still have the ability to adapt to shifts of weight. Imagine Tree pose (or any 1-legged balance pose). The standing leg needs to use enough strength to support the body weight, or you will fall down, but if you make your muscles too hard, you will also fall over. Balance...

Back in the mid '90s when I began my yoga journey, I was sharing my new interest with my dad. I was talking to him about meditation and my experience with it. He claimed he had tried it once and didn't really like it. As a brilliant thinker, he said he didn't like the idea of getting rid of his thoughts, he liked the thoughts running about in his head. He liked his ideas and how his mind worked.  This is a common misconception that people have about meditation. The goal is not to get rid of the thoughts, although sometimes that happens; the goal is to notice what is happening in the present moment, without attachment. What does that mean? Sometimes in the course of the day our mind wanders and we go down this rabbit hole of thoughts, where one leads to another, and so on. Other times we are actively thinking, trying to figure out a solution to a problem, putting another item on our to-do list, rehashing an earlier conversation, worrying about a future one, etc. These types ...

In the yoga asana practice we often talk about a category of stretching poses called "Hip Openers." They don't refer to the area where you "put your hands on your hips," but target the groups of muscles surrounding the hip joints.  The Hips include the Gluteal muscles (Gluteus maximus, Gluteus medius, and Gluteus minimus), the Piriformis and deeper hip muscles, and the Hip Flexors (psoas, tensor fascia latae, and rectus femoris). The top of the IT band can also sometimes be considered part of the Hips. Hip muscles (depending on which they are) Extend the hips (bring the thigh behind the pelvis), Flex the hips (bring the thigh in front of the pelvis), Rotate the thigh, and Abduct the thigh (move the thigh away from your midline). See if you can notice the opposite of these actions in the photos below; we stretch by moving the muscle in the opposite direction of its action. For example, muscle that flex the hip will stretch when put into extension. Common Hip Open...