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Laurel Beversdorf | Titanium Blonde Talks

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In this episode, I talk about movement, enjoying moving rather feeling like you have to do something because of what you look like or what you did during your day. Moving for the joy of moving your body in a way that feels good. Plus a whole lot more.

It was an inspiring conversation about moving, fear, enjoyment and the change in where and how we move as we continue to travel the pandemic. I also share my story of how I went from an actor to movement teacher.

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Topics
- Body Science
- Core
- Hips
- Lifting Weights
- Myth-Busting
- Pain
- Philosophy and Love
- Resistance Bands
- Self-Massage
- Shoulders
- Strength and Conditioning
- Teaching Inspiration

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laurelbeversdorf

Bible thumping energy is like big dick energy. Som

Bible thumping energy is like big dick energy. Some of us are more susceptible. I’m drawn to confidence and charisma. I can demonstrate them, too.But doubt and skepticism are rare mental powers we can cultivate to buy ourselves future time, to consider conflicting viewpoints, to get a bigger picture before our minds are made small.They help us see the gray, through the bull 💩. They are a truthiness firewall, or vitamins that help us ask, “is it that simple?”
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#repost Yoga evangelism feels similar to what I felt in my conservative Evangelical Christian upbringing. I felt an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ mentality - our Christianity is better than yours (because God told us so, and good luck proving whether He did or didn’t.)Assumptions were made in a way that put others down, sometimes all the way to hell, poor bastards.Meanwhile, the chosen few, ‘the true believers reading the holy books’ were the ticket holders to heaven. They worshipped the right way, held the correct beliefs, the true faith. Their souls were saved.I left my religion which never felt true to who I wanted to be in the world. I found yoga and made it my own over time. In yoga, I practice a personalized spirituality using embodied tools - so different from sitting in a pew. The holy book thumping evangelists are still here, though.Rather than ‘your soul is in trouble,’ though, it’s ‘your knee is in trouble if you don’t align your body in this particular way,’ or ‘you aren’t really practicing yoga if you aren’t practicing the Eight Limbs as I understand them.’I’m glad I’m older now with tools to disentangle myself from these messages, both those I internalized as a kid, and those still flying around on social media like shrapnel in every life context - yoga, fitness, relationships, diet, health, parenting.I’ve gained tools to redirect away from the fear-mongering. I find myself practicing a form of defiance in being sure of one thing:I’m sure it’s not that simple.Make your practice personal, whatever it is. Share from your heart. Make it your own.Question everything, too. AND learn to trust.Keep an open mind so you can begin your practice everyday again. Atha yoga anushasanam.

Try this Kitchen Sink Circuit!Set an interval ti

Try this Kitchen Sink Circuit!Set an interval timer. I like using Intervals Pro for my workouts and to teach with.Work/rest ratio for 9 intervals, 8 exercisesWork 35 sec, rest 20 sec, do 3 cycles, rest 30 seconds between cycles.That’s around 25 minutes of heart-pumping fun!This is the latest Kettlebell Gym Basics class to hit the Virtual Studio. (The Kitchen Sink Circuit classes are some of the most popular in my Virtual Studio. This is 1 of 5 Kitchen Sink classes of a total of 49 kettlebell classes, most of which are less than 45 min long! All within a mutlidisciplinary movement library of close to 200 classes. 😮)If you’d like the receive this *whole class free in your inbox* (which includes a targeted warm up, thorough pre-teach of each exercise, and lots of options to scale each exercise, plus an active kettlebell stretch session at the end) click the link in my bio to get on my mailing list. 👀

Today was a good day in Rocket City (Huntsville),

Today was a good day in Rocket City (Huntsville), Sweet Home Alabama. We made a rocket ship in the morning—a project at the back of one of Eliana’s magazines—and then went to the arts festival downtown.We’re settling in slowly to life in the south. That NYC edge is softening. I wear sun dresses now—a new thing I’m trying.I don’t have many friends here.I’m not gonna lie. It’s a little lonely. I work entirely from home. Even though I’m fairly introverted and love my alone time, it’s a little too much on some days.Loneliness is its own form of stress and I get a little overloaded. (I miss my friends in NYC and elsewhere.)We got our first birthday party invite for next weekend. That’ll be fun. And we won the neighbor lottery. We hang out with our friends next door regularly while our daughters (ages 3, 4, and 6) play on the trampoline, tree swing, monkey bars, sandbox, swing set, slide, and club house between the two yards. It’s heaven to watch them play.I joined a CrossFit gym. I can climb a rope now. I know what a barbell clean and snatch are. I regularly hit a PR. My strength and power are improving rapidly, especially in combo with the other work I’m doing with my strength coach. I feel welcome at this gym and I look forward to working really hard and finishing way behind almost everyone else. It’s humbling and very physically challenging, which I benefit from here where the livin’ is easy.This is not where I saw myself ever, especially at age 18 on my way from a poor rural town in Wisconsin to Upstate New York to get my BFA in Acting.It’s not where I imagined I’d end up after living in NYC for 19 years and working as an actor, waiter, English teacher, and then yoga teacher and trainer.But, despite never imagining myself here, I’m glad I made it! I’m glad for this twist and turn.I’m content.Another new thing I’m trying.Gratitude helps. So does my privilege. Strength training, visits and phone calls with friends does wonders. Time with my sweethearts—Nathan and Eli—bring me joy. And I love my work.And that’s my check in, Insta fam.It’s been a while since I made a post like this—maybe another new thing I’m trying.

Hey hey now! Ketanji Brown Jackson to become first

Hey hey now! Ketanji Brown Jackson to become first black woman on Supreme Court. She’s also the first public defender on the Supreme Court, which is actually also incredibly significant. 🎉

Learning about strength makes me want to strength

Learning about strength makes me want to strength train more. Funny how that works, isn’t it?In fact I’d say at least 50% of my motivation to strength train comes from my intellectual curiosity about strength (which is an extension of my continuously evolving curiosity about the human body.)The other 50% is to reach my goal of becoming a badass old lady just living her life.#anaerobicadaptionstostrengthtraining #badassoldladygoals #studybreak

Repetition with variety is the hallmark of my appr

Repetition with variety is the hallmark of my approach to building strength.  In my class Kettlebell Gym, we are much more likely to go multi-planar and color outside the sagittal lines using the more multi-planar exercises in this carousel as well as from recent posts on my grid. 👀   If this approach to resistance training is intriguing to you, I’ve got good news.  On March 17th, I’m opening up my Kettlebell Gym Multi-Planar Basics class to non-members for FREE.This class is called CORKSCREW CONNECTIONS.  If you are not able to make the live class, you will also receive a 7-day replay.  Members, you are already in on this action!
 If you are not a member, but you want to try this class for free, sign up via the link in my bio.  Keep your eyes on your inbox March 17th for the Zoom link and then look for the 7-day replay 48 hours after the live class ends.LINK IN BIO TO JOIN THE FREE CLASS LIVE AND GET A 7-DAY REPLAY 👀

It’s that time! A brand new influx of live and o

One of my favorite ways to sequence AND come up wi

One of my favorite ways to sequence AND come up with new moves is to choose a pose like figure 4, and then play with lots of different orientations—prone, supine, standing, side-lying—as well as transitions from that shape to other shapes.Here we have four examples of just that!1️⃣—Quadruped to half tall kneel, or figure 4 quadruped pigeon slides, “fan out” to parighasana!2️⃣—Standing balance! Figure 4 balance to tree (Bonus! You’re already there in the externally rotated hip.) Then dancer, opposite-side-hand-to-foot style. This version of dancer targets a different coordination than the usual one where we come into the pose from a predominately saggital orientation (we take the limbs behind or in front of our body). Here I move from an externally rotated flexed hip to a more internally rotated extended hip. A dancer transition with cross-body coordination and rotation!3️⃣—Supine to side-lying! Did you know rolling in figure 4 is both fun AND when you roll toward the *ankle to knee connection* side, your foot is ready to plant for this variation of side plank?4️⃣— This one is my favorite. I love the little “drive-thru” of an “almost” Ardha Matsyendrasana, half lord of the fishes, en route to uttanasana. An efficient, spiraling, and feel good way to get from seated to standing!
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If you appreciate the way I think about movement, every class in my Virtual Studio, whether it utilizes bodyweight, kettlebells, resistance bands, therapy balls, novel prop strategies—considers movement through this creative lens based on an understanding/curiosity for how our bodies move.I’m going to be offering a FREE class to my mailing list soon. If you aren’t on my list you can join via the link in my bio. 👀

Core and shoulder work often include neck work. De

Core and shoulder work often include neck work. Depending on how you look at it, the core and shoulders include the neck.Who decided they were separate, anyway?But because we tend to want to treat things as isolated parts, the neck work part of core & shoulder work can get left out.On top of that (and unfortunately) the neck has been fragilized into a dusty corner of the playroom. We avoid moving it “out of neutral” because someone else decided neutral was safe.Not ever leaving neutral is not safe at all. It’s stiff and creaky.Sometimes we need to build up more neck control. To do this we need to dispel the many myths about “bad” shoulder blade and neck positions and move in all the ways these joints can move.We need to open up all the doors of our house and (maybe) discover rooms we didn’t even know we had.For many students these hidden “rooms” areinternal shoulder rotationneck movement out of neutral and against resistance 😮elevating your shoulder blades 😱AND THEN KEEPING THEM ELEVATED AND MOVING YOUR NECK OUT OF NEUTRAL 🤯These short sped up clips are from my Balls & Bands Mobility class called Hollow Body, Happy Neck.Our peak shape was the staple strength and conditioning core exercise hollow body. To build up to it, we explored many neck mobilizing and conditioning exercises.Each Balls & Bands Mobility class we take a look at a movement or position that we explore often in strength training and then take this move apart piece by piece to wake up, mobilize, prepare, discover, and embody the details using bands, balls, and novel movement.At the end, we put it all together again to see how if we can embody the move with more awareness and skill.Other Balls & Bands Mobility classes in my on-demand library include:Squatty Feet & Ankles
Lungey Hips
Hollow Body, Happy Neck
Overhead Overhaul!
Sassy Ass Curtsies
Hand Help for Handstand
Lungey HipsWanna take Balls & Bands Mobility classes and 120 others, too?Membership includes all-access to live and on demand classes like these. Kettlebells, yoga flow, yoga with resistance bands, strength programs, and more!Learn more about membership via the link in my bio. 👀

Alignment is one tool among many that we have to w

Alignment is one tool among many that we have to work with in our toolkit as teachers.It matters.But it's important to realize and remember that there is no universally safe or correct alignment for everyone.And typically, when that is what is being communicated—that there is one right way to align—the goal is probably aesthetics in disguise.When this is the case, as students, we should ask ourselves if aesthetics is our top priority for our movement practice.If it's not, then we should instead investigate the implications of different alignment choices when seeking to facilitate the actual goals that we (or our students) might have, whether they are about strength, mobility, skill-development, or pain relief.We can explore alignment beyond aesthetics, and in doing so, alignment might become a far more transformative and useful tool in our toolkit!Stay curious.(Note: the blog is not new. But that’s okay, because the topic is still not old. If you missed it, give it a read.)Read the whole blog via the link in my bio! 👀

I loved sitting down with @jenniferkurdyla and dis

I loved sitting down with @jenniferkurdyla and discovering connections between Ayurvedic wisdom and exercise science a few days ago.For an incredibly thoughtful perspective on Ayurveda and really everything (because Jen is the essence of thoughtful) then definitely check our what she’s up to.#Repost @jenniferkurdyla
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Missed my live conversation with Laurel? Get the recording in the Sattva Sangha or benourished.mn.co
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Every time I talk with Laurel I learn something new. She so generously shared about her experiences with different movement modalities, but what stood out to me most was this idea of how relaxation—whether it's deep rest in savasana or the "timely removal of stress" in a strength or other fitness program—helped her be more "in touch" with her whole self, including the physical and emotional feelings both pleasant and challenging, and setting goals that are attainable and genuinely satisfied with yourself. If you didn't already love vata—and movement!—you will after this very moving conversation.
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Please check out Laurel's website and IG page @laurelbeversdorf for tons of new ideas for how to love your body with movement. And Module 2 of "Sense-Care is Self-Care" for 9 different rituals that will revive your sense of touch through nourishment of body, mind, and spirit.
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#benourished #benourishedconversations #laurelbeversdorf #moversandshakers #vatadosha #airelement #sensecareisselfcare #sensecare #ayurveda #yogaayurveda #restanddigest #recovery #strengthtraining #movementdiet

I got to hang out with my webmaster @greatoakcircl

I got to hang out with my webmaster @greatoakcircle (AKA Christine, the absolute-best-webmaster-and-web-designer-in-the-world that I wouldn’t be able to live without!)I got out of my house in Huntsville and drove to Birmingham today. We had a delicious brunch, did a high intensity workout, and then went sight seeing.When you get to meet the mastermind behind such a huge part of your digital existence and business, someone you regularly lean on through email and Marco Polo, who does the work you don’t want to learn how to do yourself (just say no to wearing all the hats in your business) who helps you solve your tech problems and keep things running smoothly on the website, it’s always amazing to meet that person IRL and hang out as friends, too.Christine’s caring nature jumps right off the screen at you over email, so you can imagine that spending time with her in person is 100X better.So good to spend some time with you as a friend, Christine. Thanks for helping me out all. the. time and for showing me around Birmingham. 💜

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