Minimalist Shoes Get New Look for Spring

Minimalist shoes are getting a new look this year-which is good news for a lot of reasons...

For those who don't dig sandals or who spend lots of time in places where they can't wear sandals, these shoes offer all the benefits of barefoot sandals with a close-toed shoe.

They come from Xeroshoes, the original maker of barefoot running sandals that became popular after the release of popular running book Born To Run. While the hype about barefoot running has quieted, the demand for better running shoes-be they sandals or proper running shoes that actually let your feet move naturally, has not.

Nor has Xeroshoes slowed in its growth and success. When it's owner, Lena Phoenix, and her husband, Steven Sashen, professional sprinter who is dubbed the "world's Fastest Jew over 50" ditched Shark Tank's stingy investment offer, their growth only took off.

Forbes Magazine profiled Xeroshoes and gives details of the company's real growth and their strong position in the global shoe market.

As part of the original experiment that led to the production of Xeroshoes-a project that started ten years ago, I'm excited for the new stuff, and attest that the original sandals are still just as awesome!

Living Your Yoga-a must read for every Yogi

I recently started re-reading my beat-up old copy of Living Your Yoga by Judith Hanson Lasater.


I read it when I first started practicing Yoga 16 years ago and I've since often carried it in my bag over my 11 years as a Yoga teacher.

Living Your Yoga is an awesome companion to have on your journey into your Yoga practice. It relates to normal life-the life we live where we work, where we live-where we live for real.

Anyone can get an amazing experience from some dazzling, far-away Yoga retreat-don't get me wrong, if I can go to Costa Rica or India for a three-week Yoga retreat, I'm there. But the quintessential Yoga practice is one that you live wherever you are,and that's what this book helps you to do, and do it well.

I gain nothing financially from promoting this publication; it's simply that good for any and every Yoga student.

Shanti Om!

-Vincent

Yoga starts wherever you start.

 Yoga doesn't care about your age or how flexible you are.

 Yoga doesn't judge you by bad things you've done or mistakes you've made.

 Yoga sees you without judgment.

 So do Yoga by looking at yourself the same way.....

the Yoga of Kindness

Kindness is a component of any spiritual practice and is part of living your Yoga practice as well. Of course, in our Yoga practice, we learn to ignore the voices in our head, the ones usually put there by others, that say we're not being kind enough or that we're bound by a rule that defines kindness in a way that "counts", and which denies the presence of the self,

While we are making good karma when we are acting kind, we aren't looking to "score points".

Kindness loosely means giving to someone in need. Need is a loosely-defined word. Think of a time when you were extremely angry at the world and and some random person was nice to you, exactly when you needed it to happen.

Kindness comes in all sizes...

Such acts are powerful due to sincerity, not size. Maybe you were carrying a bunch of stuff through a doorway and you about to drop all of it on the floor, and someone held the door for you so you could get through, preventing an aggravating you certainly wanted to avoid. Maybe someone gave you a ride when you were stranded,

Whatever the act of kindness you witnessed or received, it made you feel alive again and reminded you that you weren't alone...

A gift of a flower, a hug or even just a good compliment can change a whole day and change the whole course of life for a person. To know that you have such power to change is in itself a great gift to you, and makes it easy to give without need of a gift in return.

Shanti Om!

Yamas of Yoga...Ahimsa-Non-harming

Deva Primal chants the mantra of ahimsa

lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu

"may all beings everywhere be happy and free"

Ahimsa is probably the most talked-about of the yamas because it is easier to define it as a concrete concept. Ahimsa literally means "non-harming", but is better understood as non-violence. Of course, this is where a bot of abstract thinking is necessary.

Violence has many forms and faces; the biggest example of violence when it comes to practicing Yoga is violence toward the self. 

We're all familiar with the term "beating yourself up". In our quest to be good, we become very critical of our own moral actions. We als may push ourselves too hard when working out because we don't want to let ourselves be "wimpy" or whatever other term we might use to say we're slacking. These are two ways we hold grudges against ourselves just as we might hold grudges against others.

If you can't forgive someone for something they've done against you, or if you can't forgive yourself for something you've done, this is an act of violence because it pushes love away.

Gia My Yoga

One of the most-popular ways yogis have sought to practice ahimsa in recent decades is to not eat meat. This idea seems simple but can be tough. Not everyone who has tried a vegetarian or vegan diet has managed to avoid health problems. To have a diet that makes you unhealthy means you are harming yourself. 

We can take a simpler view of ahimsa by simply seeking to avoid being unnecessarily hurtful toward ourselves and toward others. This doesn't mean lying as opposed to truth telling, but it may mean waiting until the right time to tell someone something. We can also avoid needless expression, such as reminding someone of a mistake they are already aware that they made and that you know they are already working to correct. 

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Sources:

Gia My Yoga

Mind Body Green

Insight State

Yamas of Yoga-Satya

The second Yama of Yoga is Satya which translates in English to "truthfullness"

The famous, former US House Speaker Tip O'Neill is credited with saying:

"Always tell the truth, that way you have a lot less to remember"

Or something very similar. Of course, O'Neill was speaking with reference to politics, not Yoga. But as Yoga means the connection and union of all forces and all things in proper measure, we can contemplate the Speaker's quote quite handily.

Former House SPeaker Tip O'Neill, right, shakes hands with former President Ronald Reagan. While O'Neill was a harsh critic of Reagan, he became famous for working across the political aisle to broker successful and fruitful political compromises.

Being truthful protects us from being roiled in scandal that can come from lying; scandals can range from political issues at work to conflicts with clients in business, and problems with friends and family.

Often, what makes it tough to be truthful is the timing of a specific situation. Sometimes, it is more proper to delay the truth in order to avoid doing harm, especially in a truly grave situation. This tactic can also backfire, say, if we lie to someone and later tell the truth while also saying:

How often has someone told us: "I lied becasue I didn't want to hurt your feelings" ?

It's happened at some point, to each of us. We've either done it to someone or had it done to us, or both.

This tactic will always backfire, because you've already hurt the person's feelings by lying, and by trying to do right by truth telling at a later time, you hurt that person double fold.

It's easy to learn from mistakes involving other people, quite simply, because after making this type of mistake, people react and want to push you away. You get lonely and you feel like a schmuck and don't ever want to feel that way again.

So what does this have to do with your Yoga practice? Without digging deeper into dogmatic moral contexts, let's look inward to ourselves.

Without other people to scrutinize our thoughts and actions, it gets tougher to tell how truth telling can be beneficial or negatively consequential.

The tenet of truth is to be honest with yourself, always. When dealing with your inner self, you need only be able to forgive yourself and love yourself. There's no timing involved with that; there are no political or social situations that are at stake when we are dealing with our own selves only.

Be honest with yourself and you won't create situations of denial that cloud our ability to see who and what we really are. When we see our true selves, and act in honest accordance to that knowledge, then we don't make clouded decisions.

When we don't deny who we really are, we are better to see who we are really talking to and interacting with, and we're far less likely to speak or act in a manner that distorts the truth.

Be truthful to yourself, and you'll have less trouble seeing the appropriate boundaries of truth with respect to to others with whom we share our world.

Namaste

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Author and Yoga Instructor Vincent Gerbino