National Yoga Month
Because I am a social media fiend/’90s web geek who used to make websites about Buffy the Vampire Slayer in middle school, I decided to check out Fitocracy, which is like Foursquare for fitness. You win points and move up levels for exercising, while sharing your fitness activities with friends. If you perform best under peer pressure or you’re competitive, this is perfect for you. Unfortunately, it’s still only invite-only for now, but if you’re interested, join here or here. If you’re already a member of the website, friend me (I’m misscouturable)!
On a related note, September is National Yoga Month, which means a lot of studios are hosting free yoga classes, which you can find coupons for here. I am a huge, huge, huge fan of yoga and I do it on a very regular basis — so much that I ended up bringing my yoga mat to work with me this summer so that I could rush to yoga class afterward. Of course, there are great physical benefits to doing yoga, but my favorite part is the spiritual, meditative aspect. As silly as it sounds, doing yoga forces me to spend 90 minutes of my day taking a break from the rest of the world. I spend so much time thinking about everything else in the world that I rarely think about the present and how I am feeling in the present.
If you’re in New York, I love Yoga Vida for NYU students on a budget ($5 a class with your student ID) and Life in Motion for Columbia students on a budget (if you’re willing to invest in a 20-class card). I also have friends who use DVDs and do yoga in their dorm rooms, but I enjoy the peer pressure because otherwise I would probably do Savasana (“corpse pose”) all day.
