Leslie seated at a massage table demonstrating a technique for a roomful of students

Leslie Kaminoff is a best-selling author and yoga educator.

Category: personal

  • Hashtagging My Actual Yoga

    I’ve been prepping my Portland workshops at yogaRIOT this weekend (there’s still room so come join me if you’re in the area!), which will conclude Sunday afternoon with “Better Backbends Through Breathing.” One of the slides in my presentation is a 1983 photo of me in Ustrasana (Camel Pose). It got me wondering what the 25-year-old version of my body would look like alongside my 58-year-old 2016 Camel Pose. So, I asked Lydia to take a photo of me on the mat in our living room so she could combine them in a single visual.

    Seeing the resulting image got me thinking about all the old photos I have of me doing asana, and how they would compare to my present-day versions. I’ve also been thinking for a while about how difficult it is to visually depict how yoga practice shows up in off-the-mat situations, because so often, it’s a very internal process that does not make for a particularly interesting photo-op.

    Uniting these two musings, I will henceforth supplement my Instagram, Twitter and Facebook feeds with images tagged #MyActualYoga.  You are welcome to use the hashtag as well if you have interesting before/after asana images to share, or if you can find a visual way to represent how yoga shows up in your daily life.  You can see examples of both in this post.

    Let’s put something different on Instagram yoga feeds! It may not be pretty, but it will be real.

    Camel Pose 1983-2016Switching Hands

  • GOT to Rock on, Jai.

    I’m departing from the usual fare to share something a bit more personal today.  File it under #father_son_geekiness.

    This story will make a lot more sense if you, like me, are a Game of Thrones fan.

    Khal-Drogo

    Jai_Drogo

    My son Jai, who lives in Los Angeles and works at the Hollywood Guitar Center store is a huge GOT fanboy – in fact, he’s planning to dress up for Halloween as his favorite character from the show, Khal Drogo. As part of Jai’s job selling and repairing guitars, he occasionally gets to rub elbows with celebrities, so you can imagine his reaction when, last year, he found himself next to none other Khal Drogo himself, Jason Momoa.  Now, Jai is six feet tall, so that will give you a sense of how large a person the 6’4″ Jason is.  Jai was beside himself with joy at meeting one of his idols.

    Fast forward to this week, when, during a phone chat Jai tells me how bummed he was that he wasn’t on duty at the store when an even taller cast member of the showBrodor showed up in tandem with his young co-star.  Yes, it was none other than Hodor (6’11” Kristian Nairn) and Bran Stark (Issac Hampstead Wright).  Jai’s co-worker (in the middle) sent him the photo.

    Hodor and Bran were recently at the center of one of the most powerful, devastating episodes in all six seasons of the show.  Jai was truly sorry to miss meeting them.

    So, I was thrilled to get a text the next day from Jai saying that Issac (Bran) was in the store again.  I’ll show you a screenshot of the actual text exchange below, which just tickled me, and prompted me to write this post as an example of shared father-son  geekiness.

    BranDoor5

    If you don’t get the reference, I can’t really explain it – you’ll just have to binge watch all six seasons of Game of Thrones.