Dallas Hot Yoga, Pilates, Barre & Fitness

Yoga Tips for Beginners: What To Know Before Your First Yoga Class

Yoga Tips for Beginners: What To Know Before Your First Yoga Class

If you’ve been thinking about getting into shape, you may have considered taking a yoga class. Yoga can be a great way to either get in shape or maintain your level of fitness. It builds strength and flexibility while simultaneously allowing you to focus on your breathing. By practicing yoga, you learn how to control your breathing, even during some rather challenging poses. This in turn helps you in virtually every other area of your life, as it allows you to remain calm and stay in control of your emotions. Yoga also helps you become more in tune with yourself. Therefore, you have the chance to reap both physical and mental benefits of practicing it.

Here are some top yoga tips for beginners:

Hot Yoga vs. Vinyasa Flow: What to Expect

I’ve done both Hot Yoga and Vinyasa for over ten years. I cannot imagine one without the other. I was fortunate to acquire a taste for both - and they are acquired tastes. I enjoy warm rooms and hot rooms, never cold rooms – that’s where I draw the line. Fortunately, Sunstone offers hot, warm and ambient classes! Here's some of my take-aways:

Student to Student: Just Keep Coming Back to the Mat!

Streams of sweat run off my nose as I move into a Balancing Stick yoga pose, my body looking vaguely like a capital “T” from the side. When I tip forward standing on one leg with my arms above me and the other leg tipping up behind, it’s as if I’m a tea kettle and I am pouring a cup of hot water off my nose. You see, I am exercising in a 98.6^oF room with 60% humidity, and I can produce copious amounts of sweat. It is January and new faces crowd the room, ready with their New Year’s resolutions to get healthy, and it is clear that the newbies are struggling in the heat. How can I tell them that I was one of them some years ago, overweight, out-of-shape, and unable to make it through a class?

Why You Should Actually Go To Yoga

Almost everything can be done online these days—attending church, dating, and even grocery shopping. But some things are better in person, and despite the popularity of online yoga tutorials like YogaGlo and Gaiam, yoga remains one of them.

Skin Care In The Heat

In Texas we are aware that there is just no real way around the heat or exposure to the sun during the summer months. Without even enjoying a day of swimming, hiking, biking, or sun bathing, we are exposed to the elements just walking to and from our car, driving, and running errands.

Discover Sunstone… Orientation is where it’s at!

Have you ever thought about why beginning something new, or even picking back up something you have done before, is often a source of anxiety? Maybe it is because there is little frame for expectations of this fresh experience, because looking like the new kid can be embarrassing, or maybe it is just because a new path can often feel lonely.

Many Different Types of Love

It would appear there are many different types of love.

Most of us have felt the thrill of new love: that exciting rush of a new relationship. Parental love is, at its best, unconditional, all-encompassing, unending and at times, overwhelming. Sibling love is perhaps as powerful as parental love, though sometimes tumultuous and unpredictable. Love between friends, both male and female is usually a more patient, supportive love. However, are these many versions of love really any different?

Why Hot Pilates? And More!

I am very excited for Sunstone to be offering Hot Pilates (previously called Metal)! The postures Sunstone offers in our Pilates series are dynamic movements that complement the more static nature of most of our yoga postures. The dynamic movements of Pilates challenge the muscles, cardiovascular system, and mind in new and complementary ways. In our hot yoga classes we generally (not always) get in a posture and hold a static position. In contrast in Pilates, we generally stabilize our ‘Pilates Core’ (abdomen, back, inner thighs and buttocks) and making a controlled but dynamic movement.

How to Really Advance Your Practice

As yoga teachers, we sometimes hear students categorize themselves and others as “beginner” or “advanced.” It is interesting to hear people talk this way because they usually base the label on the number of classes attended, length of time they’ve practiced, or whether they can do certain postures. The fact is that everyone is advancing--it just looks different for each individual.

When To Take A Break

Everyone needs to take a break sometimes, even from something as wonderful as yoga. Have a conversation with your teacher about your experience and be ready to give yourself permission to take time off if: