Before we get into the raditude that is Fog and Smog’s “Yoga Girl,” 303 Magazine and Core Power Yoga are coming together for this New Year and offering a free month of yoga to one lucky person. Have you wanted to try yoga but haven’t had the time or the money…got some wicked resolutions for getting physical? Tell us your New Year’s resolutions for the big one, 2012! Hey, this might be your last chance to get right with Mother Earth before we all transcend into a higher dimension next December, or…not, but moving toward that killer beach bod…sure, tell us why you should get free yoga in the comments below! Contest continues throughout December 2011. Don’t miss it!

Hard Tail Yoga Pants: Justice Done

Hard Tail Yoga Pants: Justice Done

Hey Yoga Gerrrrrrrrrrl

She said:
It’s been circulating a few weeks, sure, but “Yoga Girl” is a better late than never view. Whether you’re into yoga or not, you’ll “get it.” And hopefully you’ll laugh at the clichés that are “yoga girls.” As my fellow yogi- and instructor-friend said after she watched the video by Fog and Smog, “I thought they handed out a pair of TOMS with your free week.” Ain’t it the truth.

I, personally, don’t don the TOMS with my Lululemons, but enter any studio in the spring, summer and fall and you’ll see at least two handfuls of yoga girls who do. I break tradition and go shin-height boots in all seasons but summer (some sort of furry boots make up the remainder of yoga girls’ footwear choice).

We are as cliché as they come. Chakras, third eyes, hip openers and release of emotions…these are words that actually cross my mouth multiple times a week. No joke. And if I am not talking about them aloud, I surely am thinking about them that often. Shoot, just yesterday, young Blane Vira and I were talking about his root chakra and how it needs some work over beers and Tebow worship (he was technically doing the Tebow worshiping; I was just generally along for the beers.). Clearly, we should have been sharing a coconut water, but I had just drained the quart of it that had been in my fridge in an attempt to rehydrate after a particularly rowdy Saturday night the previous evening. What? I didn’t have any Synergy Kombucha.

Siddhasana, Yoga Asana, adept's or perfect pose, Svastikasana ( fortunate ~), Muktasana (freedom, liberated ~ ) and Guptasana

Wheels of Energy

I’m only slightly disappointed that the one cliché that’s been chipping away at my quest for inner peace and increased self-esteem lately wasn’t addressed in the video: at my studio, we’re not allowed to park in most spots on the street level of the adjoining garage. The signs say “No Yoga Parking. 45 Minute Time Limit” (as most/all classes are sixty minutes minimum) or something like that. Some person wrote the word bitch beneath “No Yoga Parking” No yoga bitch parking hahhahhah that’s a good one…upright posture and rippling shoulders from countless weekly Chaturangas can surely have an effect on neighboring coffee shop employees takin’ their smoke breaks in the engine oil spotted parking garage, now can’t they? No yoga bitch parking? I like that, though to it I say, “Your breathing sounds just a little heavy, cool guy.”

 

He Said (Blane Vira):
Man, where to even begin with this video. I think it’s so, so…accurate. First off I have to admit I’m semi-biased as my sister lives in Santa Monica and I recognize a good portion of the locations and have been in Vinnie’s packed-ass class, right next to Ryan Kwanten (Jason Stackhouse of True Blood), was a bit fanboy-sweet I must admit…

A friend of mine the other day, who is a serious, ten year yogini, was laughing about this vid with me while saying, “We are a walking cliché.” These guys, Fog and Smog, (one of which is apparently an award winning composer), really hit all the little parts that make yoga at once awesome and at the same time semi-hilariously cliché.

I’ve had a yoga practice for the past two and half years, and a serious yoga practice for the last nine months. This shit’s addictive. And there’s a whole lotta reasons for the addiction that “Yoga Girl” brings up, but simply: there’s the awesome physicalness that gives you that bangin’ bod,, talking to the girls here (yoga-butt’s not a little-known moniker),, and there’s the peaceful side that gives you the Zen-like calm, makes you want to say “namaste” and be cool to everyone and everything, except the guy who’s obnoxiously ogling while you’re in DOWN DOG.

Namaste: Pronam-mudra.png: Marcocarvalho

I Wish You Peace and Blessings

Now, I would never dream of actually talking to a girl in class. I don’t treat the studio like a meat market and I certainly don’t speak to people I don’t know except to say hello and that I do rarely. I’m there for me, my practice, the complexity and beauty of this ancient philosophical art in motion, the fiercely spiritual and the incredibly physical. Inside the studio is sacred–I don’t scope out girls, though I’d be a dyed-in-the-black-wool liar if I say I didn’t notice (seriously, Lululemon’s secret internal sell-code is hug-body-like-spray paint)–take earlier this week–where I ended up in DOWN DOG looking through my legs at the shirt of a girl whose…ahem, well, rack with a capital “R”…I wanted to treat like a pair of vanilla ice cream scoops. This is why “Yoga Girl” is so awesomely funny. It’s respectful, clever, spot on. They say all the things I, and probably most other guys, want to say…especially the ridiculous yet bodacious bald guy, who I’m convinced if Fog and Smog were slightly bigger would end up the spokesperson for some masculine-vectored clothing campaign (and by Shiva would it be hilarious and monstrously successful). These guys caught the inner monologue of every male in the studio, but if we’re there for the right reasons, you’ll never know it. Don’t blame us, we’re semi-complex hunter-gatherer leader-type modern sophisticates, but it’s simple math::

yoga + girl = barely dressed beauty moving liquid-flow sexy

“Yoga Girl” is sure to come to your favorite teacher’s play list here soon, cuz it’s actually a great track and an even better video and honestly can’t be linked to enough: