Why Yoga?

“As you take your first few breaths of today’s practice, imagine connecting your mind and your body using the power of your breath.”

This is one of the first cues I provide yoga class participants and my yoga therapy clients in every session.  Practicing yoga is more than stretching your hard worked muscles.  It’s more than adding flexibility to your workout regimen and adding strength by holding crane pose.  Yoga is a tool that allows us to practice listening to our body.  When we let everything else around us go and tune into our body, listening to it when it says “that’s enough” or “I need this pose,” we get better at employing those skills in other parts of our life.  

As athletes, we put out body through a lot of stress on a daily basis.  Knowing when our body is telling you it needs to rest is vital in preventing injury.  As athletes, it is also important to know how to identify your body’s hunger cues and cravings as our cravings tell us a lot about the nutrients we are depleted in.  When you step onto your yoga mat you are committing to practicing listening to your body.  You are then equipping yourself with the tools to practice listening to your body off the mat as well.  

As I guide my participants through class, I give very few verbal cues about alignment.  Of course I provide a few cues so that my clients don’t get injured.  But instead of focusing on how each pose should look, I focus on reminding my clients that every body is different and every pose looks different on each person.  Part of listening to our body is doing each pose in a way that it feels beneficial to you vs. focusing on making it look a certain way.  Poses may look different on the same person from day to day depending on what you may have done.  One day you might do yoga after a hard workout whereas another day you might practice after sitting at your desk all day.  Your bodies needs will differ in these vastly different scenarios.  Poses may even look and feel different from one side of your body to the other.  Practice honoring these differences vs. forcing your body to perform the poses perfectly or how they appear in magazines and notice how the benefits unfold, literally and figuratively. 

I hated my first yoga class.  It was a very slow moving class that made me more anxious.  Yoga is thought of as a way to decrease our stress, and slow down our mind.  This first experience had quite the opposite effect.  Fortunately, there are numerous types of yoga from yin yoga, to power yoga, Vinyasa, Asthanga, Baptiste and restorative to name a few.  You may have to try a few before you find what resonates best with you.  Give a few different types a chance before deciding yoga isn’t for you.

What is the difference between yoga and yoga therapy, many people ask me.  Unlike yoga, yoga therapy is usually one on one.  It is designed to target a specific body part and provide adjunctive therapy to help bring strength and blood flow and assist with healing or to aid in shifting a certain mindset. Physical therapists refer clients to me for yoga therapy to assist with the therapy of back pain or hip recovery.  I also do a lot of work with my own nutrition clients on restoring a healthy body image through yoga therapy.  

How we show up to practice yoga parallels how we show up for many aspects of our life from our job, our relationships, our workouts, and choosing what and how much to eat.  The more we practice yoga, the greater our ability becomes to approach all of these areas of our life with moderation and compassion for ourselves.  

To view more about my yoga therapy services go to, click here.

I also offer weekly zoom yoga classes and a variety of yoga recordings with my Nutrition for Optimal Performance membership.

Access my yoga therapy recordings for sciatic pain, plantar fasciitis pain, body image and more at my Youtube channel here.