We overheard this little ditty in a yoga class a few weeks back. It gave us something to think about and we thought you might like it too. That’s all!

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1. all the fixings for a holiday partyHost a Pinterest-worthy party with these ‘all-in-one’ holiday décor packages. You’ll fool even your most “Martha-y” friends with your ‘craftiness’.

2. your new favourite holiday albumWhen it comes to holiday music, we take things seriously…from Bing and Mariah to Wham!, we have a few artists that always make our festive playlists. For something new this year, check out Rod Stewart’s new album “Merry Christmas, Baby” – for serious. Rod sings all our faves in his signature croon (watch out – there is a 110% chance your mom will try to steal your iPod).

3. deck your halls, your walls and your screensWe’re loving these festive wallpapers from West Elm.

4. nails done. hair done. everything didWith all that wrapping your hands have to do, they deserve to sparkle in the spotlight. Give your nails a little TLC and book yourself a manicure. Top it off with Butter London’s Holiday Collection – we certainly will be! (image source)

5. introducing the beginning and end of your holiday shoppingFor the yogi, the runner and him or her - check out our gift guides to deck your loved ones out for all their sweaty pursuits. For everything else - this guide will be your secret gift-giving weapon this holiday season. We pretty much dropped everything and drooled when we found it.

Throughout the next few months, we'll be sharing stories from our ambassadors on things they've experienced that helped contribute to who and where they are today.

Mary Beth Larue is a Vinyasa yoga teacher and ambassador at our Santa Monica store. She began practicing yoga to find relief from sitting at a desk for her day job and decided she needed to become a teacher to helping others find joy through yoga. We sat down with Mary Beth recently and asked her about a time in her life that helped shape the person she is today.

watch the video

what's a yoga rut?

It's happened to me and it's likely happened to you before, too: the yoga rut.

What is a yoga rut, you ask? It looks like this: your friend asks you to a class and you have to think twice. Your favourite yoga pose is boring you. You're frustrated that after x amount of time you still can't hit that super advanced pose. You're scared to admit it, but yoga is boring you.

We all get stuck from time to time, but don't worry. There is a way out.

listen to this

This meditation is part two of our four-part audio series with Baron Baptiste. You can listen to this meditation at your computer or save it and take it with you for inspiration on the go. If you're in any kind of rut, this meditation was made for you. Plug in and get unstuck!

If you missed last week's Meditation for Your Inner Athlete, go here.

finding inspiration in all the right places (aka twitter)

I have a confession.  While I enjoy quotes, lyrics and inspirational messaging very much, I like to come across them by accident. Call me quixotic but I like inspirational material to make an immediate and surprisingly profound impact in the moment. This is why I love Twitter – in between the random musings of pals and the relentless take on the day’s events by various personalities, I follow a few yogis, athletes and musicians online. These special people often talk about their practices or training schedules – and sometimes they share musings or quotations (their own and other people’s) that strike a chord amongst the mad goings-on of the Twittersphere.

Here are the people that consistently inspire me to learn and reflect:

Elena Brower, @ElenaBrower

Without question, Elena is one of the coolest yogis on the scene (feel lucky, New Yorkers who get to practice with her!) She is so real online that it feels like I know her just through her tweets. She shares her experiences and thoughts in an accessible way that always seems to have relevance in the moment.

Alex Mazerolle, @girlvanayoga

Vancouver yogi Alex Mazerolle founded Girlvana Yoga to be a place for young girls and teens to discover yoga in a relatable and authentic way both online and in the studio. She is a must for daily inspiration and also for all the young folks in our lives who are just getting into their practice.

Marianne Williamson, @marwilliamson

Spiritual author and lecturer Marianne Williamson spits hot truth all over my Twitter feed on a daily basis. Her messages are simple, yet eerily effective; many times  I have dreamt out the window thinking and feeling a whole different way after glancing at one of her anecdotes.

Baron Baptiste, @BaptisteYoga

I completed an intensive Vinyasa retreat with Baron last year and still find myself thinking about what he said to us over the course of the weekend. He has the uncanny ability to sum up a profound ideology in a few words in a way that is immediately striking and powerful – and very, very yoga.

Danielle LaPorte, @DanielleLaPorte

This woman defies categorization. She’s a motivational speaker at events across Canada and works as a life coach – and many more things I’m sure I’m not doing justice to here. What I do know is that her Twitter feed is always filled with juicy nuggets that knock me on my butt and get me thinking in a whole new (and usually healthier and more awesome) way.

Who do you follow on Twitter for inspiration (and maybe perspiration)?

We’re constantly searching online for different blogs and articles to help inspire and motivate us. All that information can be overwhelming and sometimes surfing the net for ultra-marathon training tips can take longer than actually running the ultra-marathon. We wanted a way to track down all that information (from challenging workouts to new recipes) without wasting valuable time. That’s when we fell in love with Zite.

zite, the personal magazine

Zite is a free iPad (and now iPhone!) app that pulls together articles about all the topics we're interested in and organizes them into a personal magazine. The app personalizes the feed depending on which articles we read and how we feel about them; we can give an article the thumbs-up (or thumbs-down) and share it with friends. The more we use it, the more it learns about what we like and, over time, it serves up the best content from our favourite sources, people and places.

lululemon's section on zite

Zite is a great tool for busy people who love to discover things, so we've been working with their team to co-create a section within the app to curate content that both inspires and challenges us. The section pulls from some of our favourite sources and topics across the web – recipes that make us want to cook, workouts that make us want to sweat and design inspiration that helps keep our creative juices flowing. We’ve sculpted our section on Zite to serve up content we think you’ll like; the more you read on Zite, the more it will cater to your own personal taste. If you read more articles about yoga, rather than ones about running, you’ll start to see more posts about Half Moon and fewer about half-marathons.

how to get the lululemon channel on zite?

1. download “Zite” on your iPad or iPhone
2. click on “Customize” in the bottom right-hand of the screen
3. under “Enter your own,” type in “lululemon athletica" and select
4. click “done” in the bottom right corner and you’ve added the section to your zite
5. enjoy reading

At the moment, we're still testing and evolving our Zite section. We'd love to hear your feedback about it. Try it out and let us know if you think it's something we should keep doing.

We don’t think we need any reason to share the things we love. Here’s what’s been making us think, act, create and laugh this month.

From their blog to this stunning book, we’re soaking up everything Design Sponge has to offer.

How many Downward Dogs ‘til we can yoga-breakdance like Alex Yde?

Whisker Works presents handmade hilarity leaving no set of lips undusted.

Wunderkit is keeping us ‘wundering’. We’re anxiously awaiting the release of their app!

Punchfork makes the world your Oyster Fitzpatrick.

Training Mobs get people sweating together. No flash mobs here.

breaking new ground

When we show up to our mat we come ready to embark on our personal practice and eager to disengage from the busy hectic lives we lead. We set intentions, ignore our limitations and, well, just go with the flow. What is amazing to me is that everyone has their own reason for showing up and that the same series of postures can mean so many different things, and present so many different challenges, to so many different people. While talking with 4 local yogis, I took the opportunity to ask them what initially brought them to their mats and how they continue to push themselves to break new ground.

what inspired you to start yoga?
I started practicing yoga in 1999, while I was touring India. After three months of heavy travelling in the south, I dragged my sick-and-travel-weary body into Osho’s Ashram outside of Bombay to rest from bouts of Giardia, otherwise known as Delhi-Belly. Yoga was the doorway back into my body, where I was able to regain strength and mobility.

anything new you’ve tried and accomplished?
I was quite convinced for a while that my body couldn’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t do certain poses, specifically ones like Wheel Pose. With inspiring words from a teacher Ross Rayburn, I realized I might actually be wrong about my body, and decided I just needed to go for it. The first time I tried my head was only lifted a few inches off the mat, and after a panicked gasp of air I came straight back down. Something shifted in that moment. I was now more open visiting that scary place over and over again.

what inspired you to start yoga?
I was injured from dancing, as well as getting over pneumonia and severe asthma. I was looking for a way to heal myself and thought yoga would help. I took one class I was hooked.

anything new you’ve tried and accomplished?
Recently, I have been getting back into running. Having asthma all of my life, it was something I have avoided in the past due to fear of having an attack. Yoga has helped me to calm my mind and control my breath. I love running now, feeling how strong my lungs are and also knowing when to slow down and really listen to my body.

what inspired you to start yoga?
Yoga was a way for me to get back into an active lifestyle when hectic university life hit me. When I go to yoga I feel my stress melt away and I leave feeling fabulous.

anything new you’ve tried and accomplished?
What intimidated me when I first started yoga was that feeling that people would be watching me try to hit poses and judging me if I didn't look perfect. I realized that yoga is a place to get away from all that and celebrate our accomplishments, not a place where we are judged based on imperfections or struggles. Once I overcame this I was more comfortable with trying new things. I recently managed to hit the “half moon” pose and am now working towards a headstand.

what inspired you to start yoga?
I was inspired to start because my dad was practicing and encouraged me to try it. I continued, however, because as an anxious teenager I found that it helped to balance all of the changes going on in my life.

anything new you’ve tried and accomplished?
I recently travelled to India which was a challenge because I was nervous about travelling alone. This fear ended up making it the best possible experience because my adventures were left untainted by anyone else’s opinions, thoughts, or distractions. I wandered to whichever experiences were speaking to me at that time and was able to fully-immerse in what the culture and teachings had to offer.

my yoga breakthrough

When it came to yoga for me, I was a skeptic beyond all. I was initially came to my mat mostly through the simple notion that everyone else was doing it. My mom, brother, best friend, and heck, even Jennifer Aniston, were all doing yoga and it occurred to me that there must be something I just wasn’t getting from my stance on the sidelines. I think it was in that first moment when I finally pushed up into downward dog, that I understood why I was there, and why I would continue to come back. I realized that I wasn’t there for anyone but me, and it was my fear of not being any good that had held me back for so long. The realization that it didn’t matter (that it should never matter) what anyone else thought, opened me up to a whole new world of trying without the fear of failing. While talking about breaking new ground, Tedi said something that really summed everything up nicely for me. “In the case of trying something new, you’re giving a lot but will be rich with benefit in the end.”

want more

• setting goals to break new ground
• gear that's designed for yoga

Practice, practice, and all is coming – Sri K. Pattabhi Jois

Even though I had been practicing yoga on and off since I took my first class in 1998, I used to think that I would not be a legit yogi until I had mastered Adho Mukha Vrksasana, aka handstand.

Two things happened that changed my mind.

do it now. do it now. do it now

First: a friend at work signed up for the first part of Anusara teacher training, which I had been quietly planning to do within the next five years – after I had perfected handstand, of course. “Why not do it now?”, she asked me. And she was right. I couldn’t do handstand, but I had the support and blessing of my coworkers to pursue this goal, I was in an okay-enough financial position to take this on, and lastly – I was passionate about learning how to share the gift of yoga with others. I registered for teacher training a few days after this conversation, in January 2010.

handstand attempt at Carcross Desert, the Yukon

set your intention

The second thing that happened was during teacher training itself, which was full of all sorts of partner-assisted handstands, including forearm balances, dropbacks, supported one-arm handstands, and a variety of ways to kick up. Someone asked if you could still be a good instructor without being able to demonstrate all advanced poses. “I don’t give a shit if you can do handstand or not,” our teacher said. With that one sentence, my perspective shifted. He continued: “What’s important is your intention. The way you open yourself to grace every time you practice. The way you encourage others and teach what you know from a place of authenticity.”

I realized then that my handstand goal had to change in order for me to achieve it.

always learning

I was reminded of my teacher’s words about handstand during a hot yoga class this past Friday morning. As we reached back to grab our ankles and extend out into Dancer Pose, the teacher said: “There are no final yoga poses. There is always something to learn, something new to explore, something we haven’t yet experienced.”

handstand attempt in Campbell River BC

the pursuit of handstands

Today is July 10, 2011. I’m a certified yoga teacher. I still can’t do handstand, without the wall, in the middle of a room with no one to catch me if I fall. But I’ve realized that the discipline of a regular and consistent yoga practice is much more important and difficult than mastering one advanced pose.

To others in pursuit of handstand, this is what matters: you got out of bed. You unrolled your mat. You moved, you breathed, you were kind to yourself and others. Your handstand, the master pose that you think signals you are finally a yogi, does not exist. You are a yogi now. What matters is your two hands, pressed into the top of your mat, and your open heart. What matters is that you kicked up, that you keep kicking, that you kick over and over and over.

Practice, practice, and all is coming.

Something you should know about Thea, one of our Vancouver educators, is that she loves to dance for fun. For her, a successful party is simply not complete without a sweet, sweet dance floor. She tells us how her passion for dance (and a belief that it can bring communities together) led her to a series of Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals and a future date with Ellen.

I lost touch with dance in any sort of formal way after I finished school. It wasn’t until my sister’s wedding, 3 years later, that my passion was reignited with the brilliant plan of creating a flash mob as a gift! I choreographed a ridiculous routine to Beyonce’s ‘Put a Ring On It’ and made a step-by-step instructional video. The guests learned the steps prior to the wedding and busted it out an hour into the reception. It was awesome! The next winter, during Vancouver's Olympics, 5000 spectators watched as a 3000 strong flash mob danced my choreographed routine up and down Robson St. This second success gave me a new sense of energy, momentum and purpose (and an opportunity to set some goals.).

 

setting big hairy audacious goals

Focusing on my strengths and my passion for dance, I set my first BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal): I create an online instructional dance choreography business by January 2011.

It felt scary, foreign and ridiculous to create a business out of thin air. That, by the way, is how you know a goal is a BHAG. If it scares the crap out of you or seems impossible, it is a BHAG. It's been a year of huge learning, perseverance and patience but I have successfully created my business, Just For Fun Dance Party, and can check that BHAG off the list.

Of course there is always another juicy one waiting around the corner. My current BHAG gets me excited every time I think about it: the Vancouver Bust Out! It's an opportunity for Vancouverites to get together and create a unique and hilarious experience. A Bust Out is like a flash mob but it's NOT a secret. The goal is to engage with our greater community and do something just for the sake of fun!

the bold declaration

• 500+ Vancouverites participate in the Vancouver Bust Out on July 23rd during the Khatsahlano Music Fest.
• Ellen DeGeneres sees the video of the Bust out on youtube and invites me to teach her and her audience the dance. (I've assigned you a special ring tone, Ellen).

join in

Come join in the fun and bring all of your friends and family. We dare you all to try learning the first few moves and NOT giggle. Check out  justforfundanceparty.com or find the Just For Fun Dance Party Facebook page so you can learn the moves at home.

Or come practice in person with Thea. Here is the schedule of rehearsals for the Bust Out! happening on July 23rd:

• Wed July 13 from 8- 9pm @ lululemon West 4th (2113 W 4th Ave)
• Wed July 20 from 8- 9pm @ lululemon West 4th (2113 W 4th Ave)
• Fri July 22 from 7:15- 9:15 @ Semperviva Kits Beach (2201 W 4th Ave).

want more

• learn how to create powerful goals
• dance. sing. floss. travel. it's right there on the manifesto

top 10 wanderlust must-haves

When our team hit the Wanderlust yoga festival in Bondville, Vermont, last month they had an amazing time (despite the inclement weather). It was like a sampler pack of yoga styles and music: acro-yoga, vinyasa, chanting and gongs. With plenty more summer still to come and lots more festivals coming too, Paula (our Social Media Specialist) put together her list of essentials to get the most out of upcoming yoga festivals.

1. Wanderlust Rucksack – I was lucky enough to test this backpack before it hit stores.  I loved all of the zipper pockets and the laptop sleeve; plus the built in rain cover came in handy during the unexpected downpours.

2. Skinny Satin Pirouette – I’ve finally found a headband that works for my head; skinny and sticky so it stays in place. We did tons of inversion workshops so this was crucial for keeping my hair out of my face and letting me focus on the pose.

3. The Mat – Cushioned and grippy! After a 12-hour travel day, I was extremely happy I was carrying a comfy mat.

4. Manduka Equa Towel – The towel helped provide a little more cushion over my travel mat when I needed it and soaked up the puddles.

5. iPhone – My lifeline. I was tweeting, facebooking, instagramming and checking-in everywhere.

6. Water Bottle – When you’re doing 4-6 hours of yoga every day, staying hydrated was uber-important.  I switched back and forth between H2O and coconut water.

7. Travel Pooch – Anyone I travel with will tell you I’m more than slightly forgetful. I need a bag I can keep close to my body and easily do my keys-phone-passport-wallet check.

8. Vinyasa Scarf –This magical piece acted as my scarf, towel, wrap, pillow, blanket and rain cover. `

9. Dense Foam Block– I actually didn’t bring this with me, but I wish that I had!  Bricks were not supplied in any classes, and when you’re on your 3^rd class of the day, a little extra support would have been greatly appreciated.

10. Moleskin (not pictured) - This was beside my mat all weekend.  With so many amazing instructors at Wanderlust, I was constantly jotting down inspiration and education.  I saw some people using the moleskine app on their iPads instead of notebooks too.

top two nice-to-haves

11. Passport & Rosebud Strawberry Lip Balm – These aren't must-haves, but they're pretty important if you're a Canadian with a lip balm addiction.

upcoming wanderlust yoga festivals

• Wanderlust Chicago - Yoga In The City
• Wanderlust Tahoe - Inspired Gathering
• Wanderlust Santa Monica - Yoga In The City
• Wanderlust Tahoe - Wanderlust CA
• Wanderlust Seattle - Yoga In The City

lululemon ambassadors are always up to amazing things. This October, Ted McDonald is taking a break from teaching yoga and promoting healthy living in Southern California to lead a life-changing trip to Ethiopia with Imagine1Day. The best part? There's an opportunity to be part of Ted's inspirational trip.

building schools & communities

Imagine1Day has a goal of bringing quality elementary school education to every child in Ethiopia. Most of us are familiar with the way in which Habitat for Humanity builds homes for communities in need. Rather than homes, Imagine1Day builds schools in small communities in Ethiopia. Imagine1Day spends three years working within each community to ensure that the programs can be sustainably maintained. They collaborate with the local communities and the Ethiopian government to train teachers and to teach families in the community to run profitable businesses. It's the educational equivalent of "give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you'll feed him for a lifetime."

who's educating whom?

Ted, who's been leading yoga retreats for eight years, has set a vision for this trip to "create a better world". "It's amazing to go to places like this and to meet people who would never imagine to have the kind of infrastructure, amenities, technology and support that we have in the West. Meeting people like that, to me, is one of the greatest ways to open your heart." Ted thinks that the ripple effect will continue long after he gets back State-side (although the focus of Imagine1Day is to create education opportunities in Ethiopia, a large component of their work is dispelling misconceptions about Ethiopia). "If anyone has an interest in elevating their own lives and the lives of others," says Ted, "they should definitely come on this trip."

the trip in a nutshell

get involved

• Contact Imagine1Day & pack your bags. There are spots available on the trip.
  
• Meet some 'creatributors' and see how it all works.
• Help by doing something you love. Become a 'creatributor'.

Many things help brighten our day as we head through the week (random smiles, exhausting sweat sessions). Click on the images below to see some of the stuff that inspired us lately.