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!

Falling out of handstand is hilarious

Funky pants! 

Acro in Costa Rica!

Lifting ski boots is so hard! I needed a hand, and a tutu!

Color coordination 

More funky pants lovin'

To see many many many more yoga (and more!) pix, follow me on IG: @lizwilsonyoga!

AND, keep your eyes peeled for the follow up post naming some of my favorite yogis to follow on Instagram! 

Fitbloggin' 2015 weekend

This past weekend I went to Denver with +Jamie King and +Alyse Mason Brill to represent the +Fit Approach, LLC Sweat Pink team at Fitbloggin', a fitness blogging conference. Such a great weekend!

First, Jamie and I flew into Denver together. This was a bizarre sensation for me since this used to me my home airport (though there used to be a 2 hour drive ahead of me to get up into the mountains). After running into our first Sweat Pinker at the baggage claim, we went straight to the Westin in downtown Denver, where we were staying and where the conference was taking place. I got to finally meet Alyse face-to-face and in-person. After emailing back and forth all day every day for the past 6 weeks, and having multiple video conferences, it felt good to give her a big giant hug! We settled in the room; started the onslaught of Tweeting, Booking, and Gramming that continued all weekend; and worked a bit on the presentation Jamie and Alyse were giving at the conference.

                      Hotel yoga

Then we explored a bit. We were right off of 16th Street Mall, which allowed for some great people-watching. The tummy-rumbling took over. I took them to my favorite part of Denver, Larimer Street. We went for some aps and wine (none for Alyse, don't worry) at Corridor 44 and then to my favorite Denver restaurant for dinner, Rioja. Talk about some yumminess: mushroom, avocado, citrus salad to start, and sugar covered mint leaves to finish. Mmmm.

My Friday started with Jamie planting an iced coffee next to my bed to wake me up in time for 6:30am bootcamp with Erin Kreitz Shirey, the epic inspirator! (Side note, her daughter came up with this name. "Mom, your an inspiration and a motivator. You're an inspirator!" So cute!) Talk about some amazing energy! Erin got our blood moving, sweat flowing, and laugh wheezing (Denver is called the mile-high city for a reason). We bonded with short run bursts, partnered wall sits, mountain climber circuits, push up high fives, and a bootcamp version of a line dance. Great way to start the day and to start to meet some of the Sweat Pink community and other Fitbloggin' attendees.

After a quick (and light) bite, we headed to workout number two with Cathe Fredrich. An hour of using resistance bands and paper plates to move through rhythmic circuits definitely had my muscles quivering.

We attended Sweat Pink ambassador Tasha Edwards and Kelly Espitia's panel on body love. In this discussion session, attendees shared stories from their journeys on the quest for self love and acceptance. Such an inspiring hour! Take away: everyone has their s***, so try for a little compassion and empathy. Everyone then convened for lunch and the Fitbloggin fashion show, featuring workout apparel by Soybu. Then...the presentation!

Jamie and Alyse presented on how to be the blogger brands want to work with! They shared great tips on how to seek out the right brands, follow through on your commitments, and going above and beyond to prove how amazing you are to brands. It's a lot like online dating, which showcased Jamie's (not so secret) secret fascination with Tinder. I probably have an OK Cupid profile out there that she's set up for me. It turned into a wonderful discussion among talented and inquisitive bloggers that addressed key points necessary to be a successful blogging advocate for brands.

            And why aren't I on tinder?...

During the afternoon, Alyse napped while Jamie and I went on a running quest to find a mural a local ambassador had featured in a yoga pose picture. We found ourselves in an industrial part of town, literally on the wrong side of the tracks. After asking two guys for directions (turns out they went to school where I'm from), and getting offered a hit of a joint from the cute one (oh, Colorado), we set out with our goal within reach. (Oh, and we didn't take the hit.) Within steps, I hear, "Liz Wilson! Stop right there!" I look up and see my friend Maggie sticking her head out of a second-floor window. Turns out we were in the Rino district, where her studio is (check out Oxbow Designs on Etsy!). Talk about small world!

Back out on the road, we not only found our mural, but also numerous other art walls that screamed for yoga picture documentation. Our outing turned into a 5-mile art-yoga-run adventure! (Side note: oh my goodness I've lost my altitude acclimation. Whew!)

             The one we were looking for 

The evening was spent at Ignite, where the keynote speakers were Fitbloggin' attendees themselves! Our #sweatpink lady crush Tasha spoke and again wowed everyone with her presence! She's a vegan, and gave tips on how to maintain friendships between vegans and non-vegans. It is possible, y'all! Girl, I love salad, too!

After all the speakers finished, the three of us headed back down to the cute artsy Rino area of Larimer to have dinner at Los Chingones. It was a wonderful evening of girl talk; wine, mojitos and mocktails; brussels, kale salad, and tacos; Liz flirting with the cute server… Standard awesome evening. ;)

We had another early wake-up call the next morning for Jamie to teach Glider Yoga. It is a cardio-intensive style of yoga, incorporating gliders into the flow. Students of mine, you know that move we do in high plank with our feet on blankets and we slide our feet in and out? Just like that, except so much more! So inspiring seeing everyone, including the front row of #sweatpink-ers, work hard and sweat pink!

Jamie took off for the airport to head out to Tahoe. She had a friend's 100-miler to help pace and an anniversary with her hubby to celebrate. Alyse and I had a great meet-up-and-chat session at breakfast with some conference attendees. We then went to a panel on being a successful for-hire blogger held by Gigi, of Gigi Eats, and Nellie, of Brooklyn Active Mama.

We attended inspirator Erin's panel on working out in a 12x12' space. The bootcamp queen showed us we didn't need a huge space, or even a gym, to get a solid, sweaty, and huffing-and-puffing workout! We worked through the circuits, many using Harbinger Fitness's HumanX Fitness bands. Not only do I no longer have an excuse to not be creative with my circuits, but I have great workouts to take with me traveling now! Only a band and a space big enough for a yoga mat needed!

After lunch at Modmarket, where we had yummy kombucha on tap, and Katy Widrick's smart panel on some detailed blogging tips for how to better automate yet remain personal with your blog, Alyse and I walked back over to the Rino Larimer district to attend Denver Flea, where Maggie had a booth. We loaded up on some great jewelry, including a piece for each of us from Maggie's suite mate, Michelle of Union Studio Metals (whom I already knew too! The small world of Colorado continues!).

Closing evening was spent with a presentation from JumpSport trampolines, including talks from three awesome ambassadors and trainers. The kids were LOVING the tramps! Alyse and I then crawled into bed and watched some trashy TV before crashing. 4:30am was quite the early wake-up call for me to ride share with Kylie to the airport. Ah, DIA.

It was a little odd being back "home," but not home, for work and not seeing many people. But luckily I already had a trip planned for next week to see friends, see Neil Young at Red Rocks, and head up to the mountains. Thanks for an amazing weekend, Sweat Pink team, ambassadors, and Fitbloggin' community! See you soon, Denver!