Preserving Style: Breath IS Life

Preserving Style: Yoga, June 2012

If you recall from June when I focused on "movement" and how connecting one’s mind with one’s body brings a certain calm to ones demeanor in my Yoga post for Preserving Style. For me, yoga helps me to set the pace for my day. Diana Vreeland said, "How can one start their day without a healthy base?" I tend to agree! In the mornings I gauge how my body feels, and working out, doing exercises like yoga, really helps to get my breath together in the morning to control how fast or slow I want to move for that day. It’s like when one irons a shirt before putting it on. You have to iron out the wrinkles if you want to look crisp all day. 

In my fashion, one’s style is mostly important to keep us positive throughout the day. I find the hardest thing to do in life is to feel truly good about yourself, especially with everyone trying to tell you how to live YOUR life. If you don't feel good about yourself, you won't be of much use to anybody in this life if I’m not mistaken. It’s not until you know thyself, when one can actually BE thy best self for the people around us.

If you are not familiar with a program on Oprah’s OWN Network entitled “Super Soul Sunday”, she features a popular Reverend to the All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California by the name of Ed Bacon. Dwight and I caught the tail end of the program on our way out the door to church with our cousins and among all of his wise talk on faith and spirituality, he had some very insightful advice on how our connection with our breath is vital to listening to those cues life throws in our face telling us the direction to take in our lives. Read the information I extracted from the “The Book of Yoga: The Complete Step-by-Step Guide” by Lucy Lidell. Going into this week take this information into consideration and try to see if you find a difference within one’s self. 

EDITOR'S LETTER: September 2012

Sitting outside during a bad thunder storm during my 15 minute break at my jobs downtown office, it was quite the relaxing break as I witnessed the beginning stages of a thunder storm, mesmerized by the back and forth of the repeated gusts of whip-lashing wind that swayed the trees of the city side to side. As I sat  underneath the outside break area overpass it was relaxing to be outside right before the storm to watch it, unaffected by the pending precipitation, feeling the churning air that created that tense aura of a restless mother nature. I started thinking about how the environment around us really has an effect on how we feel, and in turn, how we look. It made me think about the manic personality our mother nature has, and how her moods as of late have been quite the buzz worthy news that has taken hold of television sets world wide. Earthquakes in Virginia, the devastation of tsunamis, hurricanes, tornados, and other vicious natural disasters; I then could not help to think about the phrase, "Hell hath no fury like a women scorned."

Think about it: why do we love our women so much, mothers in particular? The reason I love my mother is because she did an excellent job of creating an comfortable home environment with which to come home to. Mothers have a tendency to create that feeling for us. Of course, while my parents, together, worked to get what they have now, it was obvious how my mother's attention to the overall comfort of her family, mixed with an innate design aesthetic for the representation of our family unit, was strongly felt whenever I returned home. Half the joy of loving these women is for this reason, right? She provided a fabulous home environment and she taught me how to sustain a comfortable interior. After all, in my fashion, the comfort of one's home has a lot to do with how comfortable we are when we leave the home too.

On a global scale, Mother Nature has created a fantastic home, for all of us. All of us living on this planet must respect the land she hath provided for us, for all that she has provided for us to in order to sustain our lives are provided for us without any work from us as her children. Is that not why we respect the women who birthed us? From what I have observed, mothers feel their worst when they are not appreciated for their work. That is why I feel we should respect our Mother Nature as best we can, even down to that menial straw wrapper we rip off and throw out our window at the fast food drive-through.  

Candace Banks is an all beautifully strong all natural beauty. A perfect example of the balance of "feminine power"

As most people know about me I am a strong proponent of being environmentally conscious, and is why I seek to ask, "How Would Your Mother Feel?". Mother Nature is our home planet, the reason we have somewhere to live and enjoy this hing we call life. Green house gases are created by emissions from the various machine technology we have developed through time, and in turn, we have damaged our mother nature quite substantially. Is it safe to fathom that Mother Nature feels quite unappreciated, and in a effort to straighten herself out has to release some steam to let us know how she feels (i.e. tsunamis, hurricanes, tornados, and other vicious natural disasters)? Think about she feels, for "Hell hath no fury like a women scorned."

Style Maven: Russell Brand

Lately in America, for the past few years we have seen a surge in British talent making their way into the American entertainment market (i.e. Jessie J, Ellie Goulding, Rita Ora). Even America’s Next Top Model this past season was dedicated toward promoting this trend where the competition was not just individually competitive, but it was between a team of US models, and a team of UK models. This shift really speaks for the proliferation of globalization. In my fashion, 2008 is when we could see this trend really start to gain headway as MTV introduced us to this curiously androgynous Brit by the name of, Russell Brand, who hosted the Video Music Awards for the first time; I remember the night well. My friend had collected me from my dorm and we headed to a friend’s place for a dinner party where we all together had dropped jaws watching this unfamiliar zealous personality of a man who was seemingly bashing American culture going as far as lauding the, at the time, more than beloved Jonas Brothers, as well as, George Bush, referring to our President as that 'retarded cowboy feller' (his logic to his jokes can be explained in this article from reporter Miranda Sawyer of “The Observer” ). While some of our reactions to his jokes were at first astonished disbelief to the audacity of his comments on American entertainment, albeit on such a global platform, by the time I left my friends house that night I felt a spark of admiration for the ultra skinny pants sporting, grungy hair rocking, wildly sexual bloke, and I knew we weren’t done seeing more of him, hence the below recent interview…

Preserving Style: Yoga

"Yoga, the oldest science of life, can teach you to bring stress under control—not only on a physical level, but on mental and spiritual levels too. The human body can be compared to a car. There are five things that any automobile needs to run properly, whether it is a Rolls Royce or a rusty old car—lubrication, a cooling system, electric current, fuel and a sensible driver behind the wheel. (1) In yoga, the asanas or postures lubricate the body. They keep the muscles and joints running smoothly, tone all the internal organs, and increase circulation, without creating any fatigue. (2)The body is cooled by complete relaxation whilst pranayama or (3)yogic breathing increases prana, the electric current. (4) Fuel is provided by food, water, and the air you breathe. Lastly you have (5)meditation which stills the mind, the driver of the body. By meditating, you learn to control and ultimately transcend the body—your physical vehicle...The object of concentration can be different but the technique remains the same. The first yogis sought answers to two fundamental questions—“How can I get rid of pain?” and “How can I conquer death?” They discovered that through asanas you can control the physical pain, through pranayama the emotional pain, and through meditation you can come to a real understanding of who you are. Free from false identification with name and form, you can transcend the body altogether and find the Self which is immortal. So you see, though Yoga begins with the body it ends by transcending it." [Adapted from The Book of Yoga: The Complete Step-by-Step Guide by Lucy Lidell. Copyright © 1983 by The Sivandanda Yoga Vedanta Cenre]

-H.H. Sri Swami Sivananda - Born in 1887, Swami Sivananda was a great yogi and sage who devoted his life to the service of humanity and the study of Vedanta. His prescription for a spiritual life is summed up in six simple commands: “Serve. Love. Give. Purify. Meditate. Realize.”

Long time advocate of Yoga supermodel, Christi Turlington, has served as a shining beacon of the synergy between beauty and yoga.  

Per the last bolded statement from the passage above, it is this view of yoga that I have come to discover for myself after practicing it for so long. It’s been a little over half a year since I started back to the practice of yoga, and I have advanced to be concentrated enough to perform a controlled handstand and hold it for a good three seconds so far (my goal being to be able to hold it for 20 seconds by the end of the year). I discovered the powerful effects of yoga in high school when I ran track. Now, I have always been a limber person (a real freak of nature, I've been able to do the splits since I was in first grade), but I used yoga as a means to stretch and become more limber, as I was a hurdler and high jumper. After doing yoga for a few weeks, I found how the power and effect of yoga spreads past more than just increased flexibility. I would be dedicated, practicing yoga in the early morning before I went to school following the yoga programs On Demand in the "fitness" section.  I had realized that the sensational energy I would acquire after my yoga sessions was simply addictive, and I used yoga as my fix to gain that high I wanted for the day. A high where I was more aware and attentive to my bodies daily movements, and I had more focus and control over how my body functioned as well! As I mentioned in my Letter From the Editor I have come to a point in my life where I am willing to accept pain and focus only on diverting my mind away from it so I can become stronger physically and mentally, and I've learned how to do that through yoga.

Yoga and Basketball

With yoga I realized, now and in high school, that practicing yoga can be an excellent supplement to other competitive and challenging forms of fitness (I.e. Basketball, football, track), for with increased concentration and awareness of your body functions your mind will become more accustomed to surpassing pain thresholds, allowing for a greater range of motion, and you will reach a higher plateau for yourself in getting to your next level of your potential! Aside from competitive sports, yoga also helps in everyday life, for as I revealed in my recent Style Maven post for Karlie Kloss, being the tall person I am, I can be quite clumsy at times, but yoga gives me that easy concentration I need in my everyday dealings to keep myself in check and make more graceful, calculated, and tactful movements—movements that keep me from looking foolish and uneasy. I can definitely tell the difference in my acuteness to my range of motion from when I stopped doing yoga, to now being that I am back in the swing of my practices.