The World Is My Yoga Mat: Gram it up, yogis!

In case you haven't noticed, I LOVE yoga pictures. I've done some pretty insane things to make sure I get the perfect shot, including but not limited to asking a stranger on the beach to be a glorified camera stand, stack rock upon rock against a tree to make a platform for my phone, and reshooting numerous times to get it just right. The perfectionist in me can come out, for sure.

Do you love yoga, but have been resisting the Instagram yoga movement? Here are 5 reasons to succumb!

1. Inspiration

Taking yoga pictures and sharing them on social media is a great way to share your practice with the community. There are also a ton of pose-of-the-day challenges that groups of teachers and yogis put on. Participating in these challenges you to not only practice every day, but can inspire you to try new variations of poses you already know and even discover brand new poses. A lot of teachers post alignment cues for postures, and some include fun tips like ways to funkify it or cool apps to try out. It's a great way to play! To try new things and share them with a supportive and encouraging community!

Funky pinchamayurasana

Not camel pose...

Eagle legs in handstand!

Pretzel-asana (not really, but kinda)

Tip-toes variations

Reverse grasshopper

2. Check Yourself Out, and Record the Process

Yoga pictures create a visual of yourself in the posture, obvi. Unless you always practice in front of a mirror, or even if you do, seeing yourself in a picture can show you what you're feeling when you're in the middle of the pose. It can be difficult to "perfect" your alignment (if such a thing exists) when you're wrapped up in a pretzel or balancing on your hands upside down. You can look at a picture of an inversion and see that your feet still aren't quite straight up over your head. Or a picture of a lunge and see that your knee is caving in a bit. It's a great way to learn about your own practice.

Shoulders rounding forward, dumping into low back

Legs aren't straight up

Legs aren't in line with each other

It's also a cool way to record your journey. It can be fun to look back at yoga pictures, and even compare them to present day shots. To me, #transitiontuesday will always be about comparing this journey in certain postures. Even if it feels like you haven't progressed all that much, the pictures don't lie!

3. Yoga is Art!

In my mind, yoga is very similar to dance in that body movement is art! A spin teacher once quoted to us in a sprint at the end of class, "Dance is finding joy in movement." Ipso facto, yoga is dance. I've started visualizing compositions now. I no longer see just a pretty sunset over the ocean, but I see the silhouette of a handstand with stags legs WITH the sunset. I don't see a graffitied wall in the city, but I see eagle pose IN FRONT OF the convoluted mural. It's fun to play with the juxtaposition of an angular posture with a flowy scene, or the complement of physical angles with an angular background. To play with putting the yogi in the foreground or background, center or offset, in or out of focus… Finally, putting my art history minor to use! And the filters. Oh, all the options with filters… I may or may not have 8 photo-editing apps on my phone.

Many filters to get this dreamy, yet color-pop shot. Didn't coordinate with the birds on purpose!

Filtered to enhance the dreary day

Echoed the lines of the ceiling in O'Hare airport with the pose

Shifted the perspective in handstand

Silhouette with an insane Costa Rican sunset

Pop of color with the pants against the white, and echoed the arch of the tree branch

4. Spice Up a Photo

I look back at old travel pictures from my NOLS course and studying abroad and see all the missed yoga picture opportunities! I have so many pictures of Spanish cathedrals that are missing dancer poses and handstands. So many mountaintops I could have been on top of in tree pose. Without getting into more details, I have many many pictures of pretty scenery and tourist stops that could have been spiced up with a yoga pose. They're just generic and all blend together and are easily overlooked when I'm going back through albums. Rather than just hop in and awkwardly smile, as I do do occasionally, I could have jumped in and added some cool angles and shapes to an otherwise "nice" scenic or touristy photo.

Crystal Lake, CO

McCullough Gulch, CO

Wrightsville Beach, NC

Rowena Crest, OR

Seattle, WA

Vancouver, BC

Trillium Lake, OR

San Diego, CA

You can also take something that is legitimately generic, like a brick wall, and yoga-ify it! All the sudden you have a cool, artsy photo. Très bouge.

Why just take an outfit selfie in the mirror?

Documenting when I moved from CO

5. FUN!

Let it be fun, y'all! Whether you're capturing awesome scenery after a long hike, a pose of the day, a group shot, matching or mismatching funky-patterned pants… Enjoy it!