Yoga Mandali

In my homage to retail spaces selling my work, the next space focus is on Yoga Mandali, a yoga studio on Broadway in Saratoga Springs. I haven't been doing yoga lately (I go in phases with exercise and movement, from water aerobics to pilates to, most recently, walking 5 miles a day and doing weight training), but when I regularly practiced, I adored the classes at Yoga Mandali. I loved it so much that I actually briefly considered taking a 200-hour teacher training program to deepen my practice and understand the poses more thoroughly.

Yoga Mandali is a wide-reaching studio deeply immersed in the tradition of Bhakti (the yoga of devotion). They host special events all year long from kirtans to yoga book club to vegan cooking classes. And my very favorite perfume is an amazing oil that I buy from the studio store that has a hint of patchouli in it without being a blatantly hippy scent. When I am wearing it and hug someone, they always ask what scent I have on and where they can buy it. Naturally, I am psyched that the Studio Store is now carrying my Petal People card of a person doing a yoga bend. (One of my yoga friends was charmed at the fact that this yoga person even has a little tail bone.)

I know I will circle back around to a regular yoga practice some day, but right now I am obsessed with my FitBit and feel such a huge accomplishment when I get an email from my little device congratulating me on the total amount of steps I have walked. Or when a recent hike prompted an email on how many stories I had climbed that day. Very motivating!