Thanks to everyone who rolled out their red yoga mats, put on their finest black stretchy pants, and cast a vote for the 2010 YOGAR nominees! Unlike the actual Oscar telecast, I’ll keep these announcements short and sweet.
Best Asana
Salamba Sirsasana (Supported Headstand): Yes, the ego pose pulled off a huge upset and took home the coveted Best Asana award. She wowed the crowds last night when she walked down the red yoga mat wearing a sexy-rexy fuschia racer back tank with a peek-a-boo open-front yoke design from Mondetta Performance Gear (MPG). The fashion police gave her a huge thumbs up for the bold color and just the right amount of cleav.
Best Supporting Asana
Vrksasana (Tree Pose): Last year was all about balance and vrksasana helped so many people spread their branches and blossom in their yoga practices, that she was selected hands-up as Best Supporting asana.
Best Director
Everyone was a winner in this category! Clara, Freia, Deirdre, Kreg, Jan, and Judi, thanks again for the amazing work you did this past year. We all have the ability to hand out affirmation each and every day, so remember to award the teachers in your life with a smile and thanks for the work they do.
Best Seva
I really want to thank those of you that commented and clued me in to the great work that is being done by Seane Corn and Off the Mat Into the World. I’m excited to learn even more about this organization and I plan to write about their work this year to thank and support them in their efforts. Take your yoga off the mat this year and into the world!
It was our inaugural year for the YOGAR awards and based on the response, and amount of fun I had with them, they’ll be back again next year!
Very early this morning (5:30 a.m. PT) a handful of talented (and lucky) people will get an extremely cool call from their publicist, letting them know they have been nominated for an Oscar. I’m sure for most of them, it will be a dream come true. As vapid and socially insignificant as award shows are, I can’t deny my guilty pleasure and love of the Oscars. Every year I go see all the nominated movies and throw an Oscar-night party for my friends and family, with food and drink themed around the nominated movies.
This is what they call Red Carpet Season in Hollywood, and I thought I would bring a little of that red yoga-mat glamour to the Daily Downward Dog and put out my very own nominations for Best Asana, Best Supporting Asana, Best Director, and Best Seva Artist for the coveted YOGARS!
After a great deal of self-reflection and careful review of my past year of cool yoga experiences, the Daily Downward Dog is pleased to announce the 2010 YOGAR nominees.
Best Asana
Eka Pada Rajakapotasana (Pigeon Pose): Pigeon proved itself again and again in 2010, with awesome hip-opening performances.
Salamba Sirsasana (Supported Headstand): Always a risky asana to take on, this ego-pose could just pull off an upset in the best asana category.
Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog): Last year the downward dog ran away with the votes and took home the YOGAR. This year the heels touched the ground, making the dog a huge contender and the critics’ choice to take home a repeat win.
Best Supporting Asana
Vrksasana (Tree Pose): It takes a lot of tree poses to gain your balance. If it weren’t for tree pose, we may never have achieved garudasana (eagle) or utthita hasta padangusthasana (extended hand-to-big-toe pose).
Balasana (Child’s Pose): Who hasn’t gone to child’s pose for support during a difficult class? You know this asana always has your back, providing a safe haven to relax and catch your breath.
Savasana: Giving tree and child’s poses a run for their money, the always formidable savasana gave a year of truly awe-inspiring and restorative performances.
Best Director
The Best Director YOGAR goes to the yoga instructor who pulled it all together to lead an incredible yoga class experience.
Deirdre Sargent: Yoga instructor extraordinaire (Yoga Lounge and LifeSource Yoga), great music, innovative classes, responsible for providing my first yoga meditation instruction in 2010 and challenging me in a supportive way to get into my first tripod headstand.
Kreg Weiss: The cofounder of MyYogaOnline, who also happens to lead some kick-ass classes like Deep Energy Flow and Cycling Energy.
Clara Roberts-Oss: My go-to video gal on MyYogaOnline. Clara has incredible flows and verbal cues all wrapped up with a great message and voice. I’m especially fond of the Moving Meditation Vinyasa Flow and Swimming in the Stream classes.
BTW, all the nominees are winners in my book. I think the best award any yoga instructor can get is a kind word expressing how much you enjoyed their class or letting them know they have helped you on your yoga journey.
Best Seva
Okay, help me out here; I’d like to get some nominations for the person or organization that is truly practicing seva. If you are not familiar with seva, it is the spiritual practice of selfless service and the desire to uplift and assist people, giving help and compassion to others with no thought of what is to gain or what is to be lost by doing so. The practice of seva becomes a path to self-realization, which is the essence of yoga.
Cast Your Vote TODAY!
The red yoga mats have been unrolled, and I’m opening up the YOGARS for additional nominations and votes, so please leave a comment below and nominate or vote for your favorite asana, supporting asana, director, and seva artist. The results will be announced on Monday, February 28.
All this YOGAR talk has got my creative head spinning, and now I’m thinking I really could take this a yoga mat farther and nominate in the categories of Best Playlist (musical score), Best Costumes (yoga gear), Best Picture (style of yoga), Lighting, Choreography, and a Lifetime Achievement Award. Hmmm, stay posted…
Now, through my practice of yoga, I’ve picked up a new one from one of my instructors…Bliss Out. Every time I hear him say it I get a huge smile on my face. The phrase is multi-purpose and is offered as support when we are in a difficult pose or to encourage our total relaxation in savasana.
According to the Free Dictionary, “bliss out” is a slang term that means to go into a state of ecstasy.
The folks over at Urban Dictionary must have been doing savasana when they came up with the following definition of “bliss out”: to relax, daydream, or temporarily lose consciousness merely from contentment and not moving.
To me it means extreme happiness and spiritual joy and perfectly describes how I feel when I get a yoga high.
What are some of your favorite mottos or phrases to help you get through difficult poses or to describe the happiness you feel?
Today’s yoga theme song (actually, this could work year round) is “Let Love Rule” by the incredibly hot and musically gifted Lenny Kravitz. I got inspired for this theme song at the end of a yoga workout given by Eoin Finn on MyYogaOnline.com. Eoin led me through a class called Daily Dose of Bliss. Eoin, with a class name like that, you had me at hello!
I totally love Eoin’s job title—Blissologist—and his life mission: “To stay in touch with that deep vibration of love so that I can be a conduit for it in all I do in life. I want to inspire people to be continuously lit up by this mysterious but powerful force.”
In addition to turning me on to a really cool variation of pigeon pose*, the 45-minute class was the perfect yoga workout for me. It loosened and lightened my body, released toxins, and, I have to admit, I felt pretty damn blissful when it was over. At the end of class, during savasana, Eoin asked us to remember the radiant place we created through the practice and to ask ourselves how we could share it with others. He urged us as we practice yoga to light someone else’s fire and to let love rule! Enter today’s theme song…
I hope Lenny, Eoin, and I have lit your fire today! I know I’m feeling a lot of love in the room. This song is definitely going on my yoga songs playlist.
*Pigeon pose variation: Below is a screen grab of the video to give you an idea of what this variation of pigeon pose looks like. While in pigeon pose, with your right leg behind you and left leg bent, take your right arm and thread it under your left arm and feel that delicious stretch in your left hip and then repeat on the other side. You gotta gotta let pigeon pose rock!
I was doing yoga with my sister last week, which was super cool. My sister lives out of town, so we’ve never had the chance to practice yoga together before, and it was special to share our practice together.
We were doing Trudie Styler’s Warrior Yoga DVD, with the sounds of the waves coming in from the outside, and it was a little slice of heaven. I kept calling out to my sister, “This is my favorite pose,” and I realized, I have a lot of favorite poses! If yoga poses had fan clubs, here’s the ones I would join and the reasons why. (BTW, these are in no particular order).
Warrior 2(Virabhadrasana II) — I just feel so fierce when I stand in Warrior II. I especially like to flow into it from warrior or another pose, like triangle.
Mountain (Tadasana)— When the instructor gets the class into this pose with lots of direction, it sometimes seems kind of silly, like how much more direction can we get on standing. But I’ve come to realize the power of this pose and how great it feels to have my heart opened and pressed forward. Standing tall and with my head held high, I feel like anything is possible. I wish I would have started doing this pose as a child; I’d have much better posture.
Child(Balasana)— I’ve been a long-time fan of this pose. It’s one of my go-to poses for stretching the back and relieving back pain. I just recently discovered it is also a great hip opener, so now I have even more reasons to join the child pose fan club. I love it when an instructor assists me in this pose by pushing my lower back down—it is an incredible stretch.
Pigeon(Eka Pada Rajakapotasana) — Actually, I have a love-hate relationship with Pigeon. The stretch it provides to the hips is wonderful, but when the yoga instructor keeps us in pigeon for a long time, I tend to lose my focus and my breath. It hurts so good. I’ve got a ton of angst and stress built up in my hips, so the hip-opening effects of this pigeon pose always bring me back.
Tree(Vrksasana) — If I’m having a good balance day, I like to get really deep into this pose. Standing tall, opening my branches, letting in all of life’s possibilities—the feeling is pure nirvana. This is another one of those great life-affirming yoga poses. I’ve noticed recently that I’ll catch myself standing in tree pose while working in the kitchen or standing in a checkout line, so it has crept into my subconscious (love that!).
Savasana — What can I say? The ultimate resting pose had me at hello. My favorite part of yoga class is when the instructor tells us to lie on the floor and plug into savasana…aah!
So, which yoga pose fan club have you joined? Let me know what your favorites are and the reasons why they rock.
