Purple Room Yoga Blog

When teaching yoga, it is common to instruct students to "Listen to your body," but what does that actually mean and why does it matter? It doesn't mean listening with your ears, but instead listening with your "kinesthetic sense" in order to stretch and strengthen without pushing our body to injury. At all times during the day, we receive numerous signals and messages traveling back and forth between our body and brain. We are not overtly aware of these signals, as they are happening on a subconscious level. We feel them in our body rather than knowing what's happening in our mind. These messages and signals are geared toward keeping us safe and letting us know about our surroundings. When we practice yoga, there are many messages running through our head, the key is to figure out what they mean and whether to listen to them or not. "Listening to your body" means noticing what is happening physically and adjusting our practice accordingly. We use ...

Why is cultivating one legged balance important as we age? The number one reason to work on this type of balance is to prevent falls and potential injury which will keep us out of our lives. Preventing falling is not just important for elderly adults, but is important for everyone. Falls can lead to injury and sometimes broken bones; if we want to stay active and engaged in our life as we age, we need to avoid falls. Cultivating balance won't 100% guarantee that we will never fall, but it improves our chances. What is Balance? Balance is our ability to adapt to instability and unevenness in order to remain upright. We adapt to uneven surfaces under our feet, to changes in heights when taking stairs, to small shifts of weight within our bodies as we move. The better our adaptability to these changes, the easier it is for us to remain upright as we move through the world. Balance is supported by vision, strength, flexibility, and calm. Here's how: Vision: Seeing what is in front...

For many people the word "exercise" brings to mind sweat, going to the gym, lifting heavy things, running, or other things that require strong exertion and may cause misery. What if I told you that exercise can be enjoyable, maybe even fun and doesn't have to suck? When I talk about "exercise," I like to think about movement. How can you move your body today? There are so many ways to move: walking, running, swimming, biking, playing, dancing, rowing, skiing, hiking, spinning, climbing, flowing, lifting, stretching, and probably many others. What matters most is that you enjoy the movement. Maybe you are dancing with your kids or grandkids (or by yourself) in your living room. Or maybe you are grooving in the car as you sing at the top of your lungs to your favorite song (I might be guilty of this one...). Maybe you are walking the long way to work or are taking the stairs to your appointment. There are so many ways to put movement into your day that don't i...

As a 50 year old woman, I have had a lifelong struggle to love and accept my body.  As a child, my weight fluctuated through growth spurts, as any child's body does. One summer at camp when I was about 7, a counselor would frequently poke my belly and say I was the Pillsbury Dough Girl. She was referring to the fact that I giggled when she did it because it tickled, but I felt humiliated; I would shrink away from her, I didn't understand why she would say this about me. She thought it was cute, but I was devastated.  In high school, I was an athlete and a dancer, and during swim season I got leaner and stronger and would eat whatever I wanted; I was always hungry after practice. However I continued to eat the same way during the rest of the year when I wasn't as active, so my weight increased outside of swim season. As a 16 year old, my mother told me "Janine, you would be so beautiful if you lost 15lbs." I am 50 years old, and I still remember those words. These ...

In this post I aim to discuss the Hamstrings, specifically where they are, what they do, how to stretch and strengthen them, and why they always feel so tight! I also want to do some troubleshooting for when you find your hamstrings are getting in the way of you feeling your best. Here we go... Where, What, and How Your Hamstrings are made up of 3 muscles, Semimembranosus, Semitendinosus, and Biceps Femoris (see graphic). They run from your sit bones (Ischial tuberosities) to behind your tibia (shin bone). The Hamstring's main action is the bend the knee (knee flexion), with a secondary function of moving the thigh backward (hip extension). If you put your hand on the back of your thigh while you bend your knee, you will feel them contract.  To strengthen a muscle, in this case the Hamstrings, you want to encourage their active movement, with or without resistance. Squeezing the heel toward the buttocks with create strength in the hamstrings. You can also use resistance bands, ankl...

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...