Author Archives: Alejandro

About Alejandro

Alejandro is the techie behind Coostom Yoga. He's in charge of making the best Coostom Yoga experience possible. He spends most of his day building software, and in his free time he likes to challenge himself to Hot Yoga or early morning sessions.

New recommended session

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There are virtually infinite ways in which you can practice Yoga.

This is one of the key ideas that motivated us to create Coostom – a place where you can create your own sessions, based on what you need and want to get out of Yoga.

When you use Coostom to create your session, you can start with a blank canvas (my favorite way), or with a recommended session. These are sequences we have put together to reflect common and balanced sessions for beginners and intermediate yogis.

Today we added a session created by our friend Gillian Swan.

Gillian is an instructor from Toronto, who has started collaborating with Coostom – and we’re thrilled she has. She has tremendous passion for her work with Yoga, and was open and ready to share her ideas about Coostom’s potential for students and instructors alike.

Give her session a try, it’s as simple as:

  1. Log into Coostom
  2. Click on New Session
  3. Click on let us suggest a session
  4. Select Gillian’s session
  5. Hit Save and Play

And if you haven’t done so yet, check out her blog and her twitter.

Coostom is Walking the Walk

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Did you know 1 billion people worldwide do not have access to clean drinking water?

Did you know 2.6 billion people live without basic sanitation?

Just imagine that:

no drinking
no cooking
no sink
no shower
no dishes
no laundry
no nothing

Except, of course, if you walk to the nearest river/well/etc and carry back your share. On your shoulders.

We want to help change this reality.

WaterCan/EauVive has been working for many years to help bring clean water to communities around the globe, particularly in Africa. This year’s Aveda Walk for Water, which benefits WaterCan/EauVive has as a mission to raise as much money as possible to save lives in East African communities by creating projects that provide clean water and education.

What Coostom is doing

Coostom will be participating in a 6km walk to raise awareness and funds to support WaterCan endeavours in East Africa. Why 6km? Because that’s the average distance that people in Africa have to walk to get to a water source.

A walk might seem like a small thing, but the more people are conscious of the huge difficulties people go through around the world, the more motivated we’ll be to find ways to help others build sustainable and rich communities.

Coostom needs your help!

So, here are ways in which you can help right now:

  1. Join the team! The best way to participate is to walk with us this April 22nd. We’ll have a great time, you’ll get to hang out with really cool people, and the exercise never hurts! There’s even a 7 month old baby in the team, how cool is that?!
  2. Make a donation to the Coostom team: If you can’t join us, you can make a direct donation to the cause here. 100% goes to the cause, and your support will be encouraging us to keep being a part of these initiatives.
  3. Buy a Coostom T-shirt or Sticker: If you want to support both WaterCan and Coostom at the same time, you can buy our T-shirts and/or stickers. Your contribution will cover the costs, and provide a little extra to be donated to W4W. Because of timing, we’ll have to do this old fashion: contact us at team@coostom.com and we’ll take care of you.

Coostom T-Shirt

Of course, you can combine more than one of the above, which will make us extra happy!

Finally, you can help us by spreading the word and directing people to our blog so that they too can support this great cause:

http://coostom.com/blog/walk/

Coostom is pinning

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We’re the new kid on the block, and we’re looking for friends. What do you do to find friends? You go to where others hang out, like Facebook, Twitter, and – more recently – Pinterest.

Each social network offers a different experience.  Let’s put it this way:

With Facebook, you’re keeping in touch with people you know, mainly by sharing your photos and status with them.
With Twitter, you connect with people you may or may not know by sending short lines about what you’re up to and what you find interesting, and retweetting what others share.
With Pinterest, however, you become the curator of an online gallery. Most of your activity comes from finding photos you like anywhere on the web, and then pinning those to your boards. Your Pinterest profile becomes your personal gallery where you are showing to others the stuff you like, by means of other people’s great photos.
Of the three, Pinterest is the newest for us, but we’re finding it quite addictive. It’s great to spend time searching for great photos, to then make them ours by pinning them to our boards.
So, take a look at our Pinterest page and tell us what you think (and if you haven’t, check out our Facebook and Twitter pages as well). Follow us, share the love, and let more and more people know and appreciate Yoga!

Why do you practice yoga?

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That was the question we asked to a few of our fellow Yogis: Why do you practice yoga?. Here are the awesome answers we got:

From Lisa:

“Yoga helps make me a better athlete, manage stress and keeps me injury-free. It teaches me to live in the moment and become a more balanced person. And don’t forget the social benefits! I get to meet a lot of wonderful people!”

Laura said:

“I practice yoga because it brings me peace, calmness of mind, acceptance of the body and the freedom to let things be as they are in any given moment. On and off the mat, yoga inspires, challenges, supports and uplifts me every day.”

Carlos thinks:

“Yoga is a way of life – what I feel in every session is that I have the energy and knowledge to fulfill my goals, to be happy, and to make other people happier in this complicated World.

When more people do Yoga, or at least practice the Yoga principles, we will have a better world.”

And Natalia told us:

“I can get technical about this answer and say its because I know I’m the Ayurvedic version of Kapha and Yoga balances out the Vatta and Pitta in me. I can get spiritual and say that Yoga keeps my mind quite and my heart loud. Or, I can keep it simple and sum it up with: because I love it.”

People find all kinds of different reasons to return to the mat.

What about you? Why do you practice?

How to create your own yoga sequence

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Welcome to Coostom Yoga!

We, the Coostom Team, are honoured that you decided to share your yoga practice with us. Regardless of where you are in your practice: new, intermediate, advanced, a teacher, Coostom is designed to provide a safe space for you to create, expand, and deepen your own practice. The best part is that you get to choose where and when.

It may be hard at first to choose the order or the type of poses you want to include. There is no right or wrong here. However, there are ways to make it a more natural flow. You can draw on classes that you have been to and include ones you love to do. As you create your series you will notice what works for you. This may change from week to week, month to month. It is important to try new things and make sure to even work on postures that you don’t like so much! Sometimes those are the ones you need the most. Try to include at least one of each type – standing, balancing, forward fold, back bend, twist and core.

Let me just share a few tips to get you started.

  1. Set your intention:

    It is important to know why you are practicing. Whether it is for physical reasons, mental, or emotional. Or, even if you are just trying to get a feel for yoga – get your feet wet so to speak. Set your intention, bring purpose to your practice.

  2. Create space

    Choose a quiet space where you will not be interrupted. A place where you feel comfortable moving freely.

  3. Use the right accessories

    Have your water bottle, a mat, and any other tools you need such as a block or a strap.

  4. Breathe

    Do not forget to Breathe Deeply. The breath is the most essential part of any yoga practice.

And most importantly, have fun!

Do you have any questions or suggestions? Leave a comment below!

Sarah.

Coostom Yoga is now live!

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AwakingAfter months of hard work and collaboration with a fabulous team of people, Coostom Yoga is now open to the public.

Out of the many lessons we’ve learned, there’s one that stands out: it feels great to build something you’re passionate about. We love yoga, and creating something that can help others practice more often is just exhilarating!

We’d love to tell you a thousand great things about Coostom, but we rather you find out for yourself. So go take a look, try the application for free, and let us know what you think.

If you want to give us an extra hand, the best you can do for us is to share Coostom with your friends through Twitter, Facebook, email or any other means you’d like. The more the merrier!

We can’t wait to have you practice with us!

The Coostom Yoga Team.