As a born ritual enthusiast, after the first time I took hot yoga, the 26+2 postures made me completely ecstatic. It seems so rare these days to find a healthy cultural activity or communal ritual that allows you to improve slowly without judgment.

We touch the most high when we reach to our side.

Meaning, if we want to connect with something bigger than us, we must connect with the person beside us. Maybe physically, by offering a high five or a smile between postures. Or maybe emotionally, by dedicating a certain pose to someone we love that’s in pain.

But either way, if we are to reach the most high, it’s awfully hard to do so alone.

It’s all part of the practice. Everything is grist for the yoga mill. Even the distractions and annoyance and injuries. They deepen us.

I started yoga by mimicking my father and eldest sister’s stretches at a young age; six or seven. My father is an athlete and my sister had been a gymnast for a spell.

what we fear confronting the most is ourselves. Sitting with our most difficult feelings, thoughts, emotions, and experiences.

Yogananda, who introduced millions of westerners to the teachings of yoga, said that it is a practice that contains timeless truths which can renovate our nature.

Reflecting on my very first class, in that ninety minutes, I could literally feel my pores cleansing and stress releasing. There was so much sweat, the blue dye ran right out of my shorts and stained my towel.

What Yoga Tribe Brooklyn Learned From A Week With Mary Jarvis

The first day of the year is always one of my favorite yoga classes.

Allow yoga to show you the new way to move forward.

Right after class, I always want to gulp down water with Superieur electrolytes — fresh watermelon flavor. A few hours afterward, I crave healthy food

Last week, Yoga Tribe Brooklyn instructor (and official studio photographer) Mónica Félix taught a class to raise money for Educamos Donde Sea, a non-profit in Puerto Rico enabling kids whose schools have been destroyed by the earthquakes and tremors to continue their education by setting up classes and resources in open spaces.

Sometimes our body can tell us more about what’s right and wrong than our mind.

Because our two million-year-old brain doesn’t want us to be happy, it wants us to survive.

Years ago my therapist taught me to ask the question, how can I make friends with this feeling?

Yoga is tough. There’s no doubt about it.

It’s tough on our bodies, tough on our minds, and if we practice with any kind of regularity, it’s tough on our schedule.

The goal of yoga is not perfecting mindfulness or levitating yourself into a meditating pretzel, but rather, creating an enlarged awareness of your bodily sensations.

“Don’t Move the way Fear makes you Move. Move the way Love makes you Move. Move the way Joy makes you Move.” -Osho