Tag Archives: YIOM

Five Things I Want from Yoga Clothes

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This is a little message from me to all of the designers and manufacturers of yoga clothes out there.  True, this is only my opinion, but I will say that I have discussed this with a pretty wide range of people.  I feel like these five qualities are those that many yogis can get behind.

Just to set the ground for what I’m about to say, I’m talking about the asana limb of yoga in this post.  It seems to me that the other seven limbs shouldn’t really require special clothing.  But, to some degree, asana does.  Now, you might say, “it doesn’t if you practice naked.”  This might be true for some people.  However, some need a little more support in one area or another, and some of us are just never going to practice in the buff.  For those who do want to practice nude, or really like the itty  bitty tiny teeny outfits, run with that.  This is for the rest of us.  Given those basics, there are only five things I need from my yoga clothes.

Exactly what I'm NOT talking about

1.  I want the clothing to be designed with the activity in mind.  Yes, I know that there are many types of asana and it’s hard to remember them all, but I think the basics can be considered.   Pants should be an appropriate length.  This means long enough to cover all of the important bits when bending WAY over, and it also means not being an awkward in between length that makes bakasana impossible.  Necklines shouldn’t be so low that the person across from you is absolutely guaranteed full-frontal nudity when you move into catturanga.   Similarly, armholes should not be so large that the person on your right can see the person on your left through the shirt.  This is yoga, not the Hustler centerfold.

2. On a related note, the clothing should allow for ease and freedom of movement.  They do not need to be so compressing and constrictive that they feel like you are wearing a boa constrictor on all of your limbs.  I understand the benefit of compression pants for endurance running.  But, I don’t want my yoga pants to emulate sausage casing.  I want to be able to flow in a flow class, and not have that hampered by clothing items.  This means selecting fabric with some stretch.  While some items (i.e. a sports bra) need to be supportive, there is no reason that my calves, shoulders, and ribs need to be squeezed.

3.  Part of #2 might be related to a need for yoga clothing that fits a variety of bodies.  All too often, brands have one length of pants (we are all the same height?), a limited range of shirt sizes, one type of pants rise, etc.  We say that yoga is for everybody but we do not design the clothing for every body.  One glance around a yoga class makes it clear that there are a wide variety of waist/hip ratios going on.  Manufacturers should get that.  Breast size isn’t always correlated with overall body or rib size.  Designers need to understand that.  Making the center seam in pants the same rise on almost all lengths/sizes pretty much promises that there will be women in the room with a serious case of… I’m not going to say it but you know what I mean.  That’s not comfortable for the wearer or the viewer.

4. Speaking of viewer comfort, I have yet to find a magic transporter to get me to/from yoga.  So, I want clothes that are before/after class appropriate.  Sometimes, I have to run to the elementary school before yoga, or the doctor after, or stop by the pharmacy on the way.  Is it too much to ask that yoga clothing has the flexibility to be worn in other settings?  Yes, this may mean that we won’t all look like the Victoria’s Secret yoga clothes models (whew!), but it’s a trade-off that I would be willing to make.  After all, this is yoga, not a dance club.  If I wouldn’t be comfortable wearing the clothes in front of my grandma…

5. That having been said, I would like clothes that have pleasing aesthetics.  While I don’t need, or want, to try to look like a cover model, I do want to feel ok about my appearance when I stand in front of a class.  So, something a little prettier than black gym style shorts and a gray tank is desirable.  Solid colors are great, but they can get boring after a while, and it seems that a little bit of well-placed funky or yoga-ish pattern (without going over the top and heading into old-lady fussiness) would be a reasonable request.

And, as a sub category to all of the above, I want these things at some sort of reasonable price.  My yoga clothes should not cost more than my yoga classes.

So, there you have it: five (and a half) things that I need from my yoga clothes.  Is that too much to ask?

Namaste,

L

The Self Unpredictable

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I’ve mentioned before on this blog that I have a little competitive streak.  Well, I’m not sure it’s competition exactly, because it would be ok with me if everyone was the best at everything.  I just want to be really good at anything I do.  Since I’ve also grown up in a culture that believes in a consistent “self” at the center of being (even though I’ve been teaching about the absence of this center for 20+ years now), this has led me to reject – wholesale – activities that I’m not “good at,” in an assumption that I will never be so.  Sports is (are?) an example.

In school, I was really awful at sports, with the exception of individual things like archery and bowling.  Anything that involved speed or hand/eye coordination was a big no.  I always felt conspicuous and things like picking teams made me want to fade into the floor.  After high school was over, I tucked sports into the “things I don’t do” category.  The only exceptions made where for individual activities that I felt like I had a shot at doing well in.  I biked, because what I lacked in speed I could make up in determination.  I lifted, because my upper body isn’t so strong, but my leg muscles like  nothing better than to bulk up into huge knots (little did I know that this would be to my later sadness in yoga).  I avoided any sort of team sport or casual sport like it was a plague.  This was “me.”

And then yoga came along.  At first, it was about feeling better from RA pain.  And then it was about seeing what my body could do.  And then it was about calm and peace.  And eventually, it was about yoga.  I’m not saying that there aren’t still days when I get annoyed at myself because I can’t do a pose or feel envious that someone else can, but I don’t see those things as “me.”  I just see them as the moment.  Yoga does that for me, because on any one day, I’m a different me than I was the day before in a class, and I’ll be different again tomorrow.  My mind has a different texture, a different process, a different sense of the world.  In one class, I find it easy to be on my mat (mentally) and keep my focus in the present.  In the next session, I can’t stop worrying about work, or the curtains I’m sewing for the family room.  My breath will happily stay in ujjayi for a whole practice on Wednesday, and then on Friday I cannot maintain it for 2 breaths in a row.  My body can do a pose one day and then refuse to do it completely the next day (in fact, last Friday, it did a move 3 times in one hour, and then the following hour couldn’t even approach it).  It will shock me completely by going into a complicated arm balance on one side, and then refuse to even consider vasishtasana on the other side.

I guess if I was really intent on maintaining the sense of a core self, this would bother me.  But, I’m not.  I’ve rejected (rationally, at least) that idea for many years, so this simply reaffirms for me an idea that the self is not at the center (though I do believe that the Self – in the sense of the connection to the greater or divine – is there, but that isn’t about personality traits or abilities).  And it’s so freeing.  I don’t know what my body, mind, breath will be like tomorrow, or even in 10 minutes – not much sense fretting about it.  There is a certain peace in that.  The world of possibility is there.  There is a certain excitement in that.

I love yoga. Have I mentioned that?

Namaste,

L

The Yoga of Gathering with Friends

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Last night, I had the extreme pleasure of entertaining some friends at our home for a little party.  Entertaining is really not a good word, because I did very little to entertain anyone once they got there – other than bumbling poorly through some introductions (not my strongest area of social grace).  Once the cleaning, prep, and cooking were done, it was just a matter of waiting for the guests to arrive, and then – like making a vegetable soup with whatever you have in the crisper – seeing how the combination of familiar and unfamiliar flavors combine into new tastes.

Party guests, for this “birthday” party, were a combination of family members, friends from my workplace, and “yoga friends.”  It was an interesting mix.  There were many times during the evening when I wished I could listen in on all the conversations at one time, as old topics were renewed with vigor and new information and understandings were shared.

It was also a beautiful yoga experience.  I could see the flow from room to room as people moved in and out of poses and places, creating new shapes together, forging new connections and moving more deeply into places that had already been stretched by prior interaction.  Even the use of space had interesting dimensions, as some rooms and areas drew a large group of people at one point, and then remained empty at other times.  The grouping of people, and the selections made of conversational partners, also reflected the yogic idea of working with the edges of the body/mind.  As in a class, some people elected to really work those edges, spending most of their time in discussion with new acquaintances, while others primarily chatted with those they already knew.  I had the chance to have conversations with a couple of people who I’ve rarely gotten to speak to for more than a moment,  establishing new points of shared experience.

After the party, as after a practice, I felt tired but renewed.  Unlike a yoga practice, I won’t likely do this again next week, but it reminded me that a gathering with friends now and then is important and should not be neglected.

Namaste!

L