❄️ #yogaphotography Q: Which do you prefer? @reneechoiphotography suggested shooting without the mat, so I put on my gloves and packed in the snow to lesson the angle of the wrists. This is one of my favorite tricks for #armbalances in the sand, but it gets slippery in the snow! So you can see less back extension in the #hollowback for safety’s sake. ⛄️ I don’t recommend #snowga for that reason, but I do hope you can safely take in some of the beauty today. As @glennondoyle says, be beauty-ful. 
🤔 Does anyone else feel their #memory has been compromised during #pandemiclife? Asking for a friend 😉 
💕 Valentine's Day is for my friends. After decades of tragic NYC dating and whiplash coupling/uncoupling, I became adept at facing the subtle, insidious social trauma that is V-Day. 💗 Yah, I said it - it sucks to be single on V-Day, trudging through the slush, wedging yourself into a subway among the balloon bouquets in the morning and the sloppy drunks at night - just to experience the cognitive dissonance of being content but told that you shouldn't be because you're single. ❤️ Now that I am with my sweetheart, we have every day to celebrate, and he couldn't care less about Hallmark Day. So with his support, I am celebrating my way: Teaching a love-filled vinyasa class at 11a, then before my 6p Restorative class online (shameless plug - link is on our schedule link), I will be social distance-celebrating with some girlfriends. 💐 I can't see you all today, but you know who you are. Every friend whose shoulder I cried on, every sympathetic married friend offering encouragement and inspiration, every single-by-choice maverick that showed me how to celebrate life with success and travel and a glass of wine...#thankyougirl 🎉 This day is for you. I love you. You are the loves of my life! 📷 @reneechoiphotography 
🎊 Happy New Year to all those celebrating this weekend. #yearoftheox 
How to grow...Get messy. Creativity is said to dwell in the Svādhiṣṭhāna – the chakra of the hips. Who hasn’t felt a little freer after dancing, or more open after a hip-py yoga series? Developmentally, this can get a little messy. When you’re a kid, you wouldn’t write one letter or paint one picture if you were chastised the first time you did it. Creativity takes resilience – you’ve got to fall down, get a bad review or rejection letter, and get up & do it again. Similarly, the first time you do anything in yoga, it’s gonna feel like a bag of bricks! That’s why we stick with a peak pose for quite a while – giving you the chance to get messy, learn and refine. TBH, this week I made a few messy mistakes, and through grace I was forgiven, and we were all able to move on. I so admire the teachers in our community who are wise enough to understand that everyone makes mistakes – and that when we gracefully leave space for messy changes, we create resilience in our relationships, too. Two will be leading our new small group coaching course, Grow Your Yoga Business. Sonja and Britt are not shout-my-worth-from-the-rooftops kind of people, so I’m going to do it for them: They’re awesome. I hired Sonja back in the day at a large studio when I was managing private lessons, and she brought scores of students with her. She eventually took over the program, and grew it to what was easily the largest, most successful private yoga business in New York City (so, yah, probably the world). Britt is a shining light who seamlessly moved her successful yoga classes, cacao experiences, and wellness coaching online. Her coaching work in our courses and on her own terms is thoughtful, supportive and empowering for group experiences and more. What’s more, these two teachers haven’t been afraid to pivot to respond to our current needs, and to continue to elevate the profession by truly teaching yoga for all – in part by addressing our need to teach inclusively in yoga if we’re to overcome the systemically racist, not-so-body-positive shadows of the culture. Need an intro? @brittanysimone & I will be chatting it up next Monday @ 5:30 at @premayogainstitute Insta. 
⭐️ New Class, who dis? Attn: #teameqxplus: About a year ago, @eqxplus invited to be their Basics Yoga Teacher, which is a huge honor. The Eq+ students are no joke, so in true @Equinox fashion, these classes build to challenging! We turned it up to about a 7 here in a Classic Yoga Flow - ready now for all Equinox members, @soulcycle bike owners, & all ya’ll with the app! 👩🏽🤝👨🏻with supporting teacher hotties @amagsano & @pyogalab #classicyogaflow 
Welcome back #teameqxplus! @Variis - One of my favorite places to teach virtually - is now @eqxplus. Are you an Equinox member or on the app? My classes there are designed to intro you to all things yoga - stretch, breath, balance, strength, ritual, restore, and meditation in movement. Please stop by after your next @soulcycle or @equinox class! #equinoxplus 
🇺🇸 Almost there, America! Cases are down, 🪡 Vaccines are going in, 🥾 And all we have to do is kick the boredom away, 😷 Keep going & wear a mask. 🧘🏽♀️ Join me for some socially-distanced #vinyasa tonight @ 6p - #TeamPrema is el fuego these days & we will support your process! (In other words, nobody cares if you’re rusty. It’s 🥶 🙃 DM me) 📷 @reneechoiphotography 
"...I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. " - Joan Didion This week I had a Zoom reunion with my grad school cohort from American Conservatory Theater. I did the normal reunion crap I think most people do – put on makeup for about the third time in quarantine, got my camera angles right, and almost didn’t show up at the last minute. My fears were, in no order: That I wouldn’t like my former self - reflected in their treatment of me That they would ask me about the dreams or goals that have not materialized in this life Luckily what I found instead was a pretty fricking cool group of people who were warm, grounded, hilarious, and kind. No one was interested in comparing. No one really rattled off their resume, but people shared – shared about their kids, their work, their art. We had some teachers in the Zoom room too, and the reunion evolved into a moment to deeply thank these teachers and repeat the lessons from decades ago – lessons that we have repeated as teachers ourselves, and lived as human beings. I wish I’d had the magical wherewithal to inform my former self that life is not a competition, and that when comparison is removed from the recipe of friendship, the experience is so rich, and so sweet. But this is a lesson that had to be learned in real time. Things had to fall away. I had to stew in my introspection in order to find this sweetness of meeting others without foisting on them the obligation to tell me who I am. I had to learn to be myself. Continue reading for 6 Tips for Your Introspective Days - sign up for the 📰 newsletter in my links. 📷: #TwelfthNight with @theactingcompany @jonathan_uffelman & John Kinsherf 🎭