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

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Sequencing is a story we feel. With peak pose cla

Sequencing is a story we feel.

With peak pose classes, the peak is the main character. Perhaps one that we *feel* different facets of as the plot unfolds. Bit by bit, we get to know this character (which is really us—our body and the way we can learn to move it—in particular circumstances that the story presents.)

Here we have the story of Banded King Dancer (Natarajasana).

ACT 1 — in which we tell our shoulders the story of the path of external rotation during shoulder flexion as it relates to keeping the elbows hugging in. (Oh and we warm up the wrists some for Act 3 😉)

ACT 2 — in which we continue to tell our shoulders the story of external rotation but now with resisted external rotation.

ACT 3 — in which we continue the plot line of external rotation but the plot thickens! Enter thoracic extension and isometric presses in Upward Facing Bow pose prep (a cousin of Natarajasana)!

ACT 4 — in which we flip ACT 3 upside down and load our shoulder flexors and spinal and hip extensors more significantly in a more “open chain” active range situation which is more similar to the way we need to produce force in Natarajasana.

ACT 5 — in which we stand up and revisit some of the plot development of ACT 1 & 2 but now from standing (and so in an orientation more similar to Natarajasana.)

ACT 6 - Natarajasana in *their* tensegrity glory! Banded, mid range, partially closed chain, partial assistance. Proprioceptive and spacious!

ACT 7 — the big dance! A flow montage. Putting it all together...

And scene. 🎭 💃

If you’d like to try membership to my multidisciplinary Virtual Studio, and take classes like Banded King Dancer, you can pay for one month all-access (sign up and cancel) or recurring subscription (sign up and stay.) $40/mo link in bio 👀 or go here —
https://laurelbeversdorf.com/membership/

I moved to NYC May of 2003. I had already been sig

I moved to NYC May of 2003. I had already been signed by one of the top commercial agents in the city. He arranged for these headshots to be taken and the two you see here are the ones he sent off to casting directors for commercial auditions—Colgate, Burger King, Wendys, Calgon.

I was 23 and constantly auditioning for the “mom”.

Of course they wanted a 23 year to play a role on TV that most women actually play in their 30s.

I didn’t book a single commercial that year and the agency dropped me.

I remember getting the call “early” one morning (so like 11am). I was asleep in my one room apartment I rented with weekly wads of cash from waiting tables. You didn’t need good credit or a high paying job to stay there so it worked for me at the time.

It had no kitchen. Just a mini fridge and a microwave. I slept in a single bed next to a single window. There was a shared bathroom down the hall. I lived on a hall with a lot of people down on their luck. It was the first and only place I lived in alone. I kinda liked it, but when my friends visited they looked concerned for my safety.

“Hi Laurel, it’s Johnny.”

I didn’t recognize my agent’s voice at first.

I’d stopped going into schmooze with him at his Gramercy office months ago.

Making small talk with him made my skin curl. Performative small talk (trying to be cute or illicit a laugh, to be “memorable”) for more auditions, made my legs refuse to walk me there.

I would take the train downtown from the upper west side, step out onto the wide boulevard of Park Avenue, get to his office building, look up at the window, turn around, and go all the way back home.

It’s probably why I didn’t get more auditions.

“Hi Laurel, it’s Johnny. Are you okay? Unfortunately we’re not going to be able to re-sign you this year.”

I remember feeling a brief sting of rejection and then a wave of relief.

“Okay. Thanks, Johnny. I understand.”

This part of my life is probably why I no longer audition (or interview for jobs) anymore. It’s probably why I run my own business and teach.

I’m not big on small talk. 😂

This lumbopelvic-focused progressive sequence (SWI

This lumbopelvic-focused progressive sequence (SWIPE 👈) is called Gentle Hip Unwind.
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The lumbopelvic region is an “intersection” of our body where our low back & pelvis negotiate, coordinate, initiate, and control movement of our spine and lower extremities (ya know, so only about most of our whole body.)
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The lumbopelvic region is Grand Central Station for movement and load management!
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Since it’s such an important and often sore area of our body, sometimes it’s good to gently explore “unwinding”
it.
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There are many ways to go about unwinding this area. This series of short, sped up videos, shows parts of a progressive sequence I taught Tue.
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I note the general body position in each video (seated, crab, supine, standing). This is akin to “chapters”.
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The chapters are basic body positions and within them, I bring in and develop key movement relationships + points of awareness.
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My sequences often go from the ground to standing, but they often deviate too, like starting standing and moving to the ground. It depends. What’s often the case is an element of repetition of the same or similar movement relationships in each stage.
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If the body positions are like chapters, the movement relationships and repeat points of focus are like dialogue between characters.
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Because this sequence is relatively passive, I refer to it as ‘gentle.’ You could certainly make this sequence more active by changing some things, and that wouldn’t necessarily make the sequence whatever the opposite of gentle is. ( ;
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The word gentle is a shared language within communities that practice yoga, and people tend to associate it with more passive or “mellow” work that isn’t just static but mixes dynamic and static work.
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What do you think of when you think of a “Gentle” practice?
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If you’d like to try membership to my Virtual Studio, you can pay for one month all-access (sign up and cancel) or recurring subscription (sign up and stay.) $40/mo link in bio 👀

It’s a new day. Thank you scientists, doctors, a

It’s a new day. Thank you scientists, doctors, and nurses. And thank you to the amazingly organized team at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital (at the Armory.) #Pfizer

To feed my creativity this spring, I’m doing le

To feed my creativity this spring, I’m doing less to do more.

Less computer, more outdoors.

Less Instagram, more IRL.

Less talking, more doing.

Like creating content for the spring schedule of live classes in my Virtual Studio starting tomorrow, April 6th.

This spring we'll create strength in my 8 week beginner strength programs —Kettlebell Building Blocks and Sweet & Simple Strength.

We'll get creative with new classes & workshops like Mellow Yoga Flow and Kettlebell Fluency in Flow as well as old favorites like Yoga with Resistance Bands, and One Prop, Many Opportunities.

Oh, and another thing…

Against all the best advice from marketing gurus, I'm here to tell you (in defiance of the GET IT NOW OR IT'LL BE GONE FOREVER drummed up urgency) that you have all the time in the world to practice with me. My Virtual Studio isn't going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

And for sure, I'll run occasional sales and challenges. I still have to market this puppy!

I run a business that pays my bills and I gotta let people know about it. Anyway, marketing isn’t so bad when it becomes another form of teaching.

But I won’t be packaging content separately for the foreseeable future and opening and closing carts.

Somebody’s got time for that.

It ain’t me, though.

Because it’s spring and creative people gotta create.

I’ll be doing less to do more of THAT.

If you’re ready to join me for live and on-demand classes to infuse your practice and teaching with creativity, you can sign up via the link in my bio 👀

New blog + a special FREE kettlebell mini-course f

New blog + a special FREE kettlebell mini-course for you. Swipe 👈 to preview, then click the link in my bio 👀
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#cantgowronggettingstrong
#evidencedbasedteaching #teachsmarternotharder
#yogavibes #maketheprocessthepose #kettlebellworkout #kettlebellflow #yogawithresistancebands #yogaathome #mobility #mobilitytraining #virtualstudio #multidisciplinarymovement #cantgowronggettingstrong #varietyisthespiceoflife #yogaflow #creativeyoga #multidisciplinary #movementismedicine

Creative sequencing tip alert! I call these 7 mov

Creative sequencing tip alert!

I call these 7 moves warm ups, but they’re all versatile and could go lots of places in a sequence.

At the beginning to “prepare” the shoulders (specifically some of the mobility requirements) for a pose like forearm stand. (Also useful for upward bow pose, king dancer, handstand, or down dog, too.)

Any of these could also make an appearance in the middle of a class to “imprint” some key action of a pose.

They could come at the end to “reset” awareness and move or release a bit after a period of intensity.

They could act as pose alternatives for people not practicing forearm stand (or some other pose).

They could even be the bulk or entirety of a whole class with a more general aim to “bring awareness to the shoulders” in a particular relationship with the trunk.

Any one of them could make a “guest appearance” in your otherwise regularly scheduled programming to “wake up” the shoulders in a new, informative way.

For more ideas like this, my Virtual Studio is chock full. All of these moves come from just one class in a library of over 100 classes.

Link in bio to learn more 👀

It’s tempting to want to burn it all down. But

It’s tempting to want to burn it all down.

But unlike buildings, we can’t demolish what we taught before (what we learned before) and start over.

Like nature, we grow from what came before us.

As an educator, my goal is never to communicate to students that they are not enough and need to hurry up and change.

Teacher training programs promise this “better teaching you” and push urgent purchases to expensive programs to remake and remodel teachers in some ridiculously short amount of time.

News flash: this isn’t how learning works.

Sure, trainings can be helpful for acquiring a new skillset in a more concentrated way.

But probably one of the best kept secrets in this industry is that, if you’ve been teaching for a while, it’s much more affordable and equally (maybe more) effective to change your teaching by changing your weekly practice, and increasing your exposure to teaching that looks more like what you want to be doing consistently over time.

Let that exposure work on you slowly and take regular inspiration from it.

Daily/weekly exposure to new ideas can gradually evolve your teaching in a way that helps you integrate what you do WITH what you want to be doing. No slash and burn necessary.

Want exposure to new ideas?

Live classes start up in my Virtual Studio April 6th.

Four live classes weekly for two months — all of which will be edited and added to the on-demand library for a big infusion of creative, multidisciplinary movement education.  One of my favorite parts of teaching live classes is the Q&A chat with students after each class. It's part informal mentorship, part puppy, kitty, kiddo meet up.

For me, it's what makes it all worthwhile—the community.  The business model I use to share my teaching is a membership model.  Members pay a relatively small amount of money on a monthly or yearly basis to access all live and on demand classes. Because I’m working with a relative high volume of members, this exchange is win-win for all of us.

Link in bio to learn more about becoming a member. 👀

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but some o

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but some of the ways I broadly focus my classes. SWIPE 👈

There is always crossover. One class can deliver multiple outcomes. And certain outcomes go better together than others.

Strength loves power which might also incorporate transitions — Kettlebell Gym is that class.

Mobility and relaxation practices go well with breath awareness — that’s my Breath Massage classes.

Movement nuance and creative sequencing are my Yoga with Bands and Yoga Flow classes.

But because I like to dig in really deep to ONE subject and immerse myself in it fully (sometimes exclusively—I have some odd feature of my attentional focus that makes it difficult to get my attention when I’m really concentrating on something which can be frustrating for people who live with me, ask @blomnathan) Because if this, I often try to focus my class as much as possible around *one* general outcome (which means that one of my classes definitely doesn’t deliver everything someone needs.)

However, since my offering is multidisciplinary, I’m able to meet a wider variety needs with my work on a whole.

My niche (if I have one, I believe that I do) is that I serve students and teachers who have spent the majority of their movement history as students and teachers of *mostly one method or modality*.

I was that student and teacher with yoga and the asanas.

It was difficult to know what I didn’t know and I had problems that I couldn’t solve with just one way.

At the same time, my attention to just ONE modality (there’s that hyper-focus again!) gave me a ton of valuable insight into myself, my body, human movement.

It was a strong anchor to a foundation. One that, for the most part, served me very well. I’m a fan of digging deep and staying focused on one thing.

Just not forever.

In stepping outside this exclusive way of moving and teaching, I learned more of what I didn’t know. And what is possible (deeply transformational) through varied movement that offers different outcomes.

Are you interested in stepping out and exploring more? Live classes start up in my multidisciplinary virtual studio 4/6. Click the link in bio to learn about becoming a member 👀

This upcoming season of live classes in the virtua

This upcoming season of live classes in the virtual studio is gonna be lit! 💡 🎉

TUESDAYS
 💪 Sweet & Simple Strength 8 week series runs Apr 6th - May 25 12-1p EDT  Build a baseline of strength in a supportive community with ample space for Q&A and individual coaching.  🧘 Yoga Flow (The Mellow Edition) 4 week series runs April 6 - 27th 1:30-2p EDT  Flluid, wind down classes that combine somatic movement with mellow, stretchy flow.  💡 One Prop, Many Possibilities Pt. 2 4 week series runs May 4 - 25th 1:15-2p EDT  Limiting practice to just one prop can feel limitless. How many ways can a single source of input wake up your body in a targeted, logical sequence? You'd be amazed! This round we'll play with one chair, one bolster, one weight, and one yoga belt in 4 "proptastic" adventures!  THURSDAYS  💪 Kettlebell Building Blocks beginner series 4 workshops (April 8, 22 & May 6, 20) 12-1p EDT  Hone the 6 basic building blocks of kettlebell technique in 4 workshops. Learn to swing, squat, clean, press & snatch a kettlebell with skill. Learn the Turkish get up.  🧠 Kettlebell Fluency in Flow
every other week for 8 weeks 4 classes (April 15, 29 & May 13, 27) 12-12:45p EDT

Apply what you learn in kettlebell building blocks for greater fluency. Each class, we'll break down and build up toward a kettlebell flow.

🕸Yoga with Bands 8 new classes April 8 - May 27th 1:15-1:45p EDT

Resistance bands are invaluable tools that challenge your body and mind in new ways. Each class targets a peak pose creatively and logically using bands for enhanced awareness and inTENSION!

Members get all-access to live and on demand . $40/month. Cancel anytime. Link in bio to learn more and sign up! 👀

I’ll be there tomorrow (Tue 2p EST) for @arianay

I’ll be there tomorrow (Tue 2p EST) for @arianayoga’s new course INTRO TO YOGA AND MOVEMENT RESEARCH! Will I see you there 🤓 🧠 💡 ? There is also a replay if you can’t make it live.
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#repost @arianayoga @yogaresearch
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FOR YOGA TEACHERS!!! This is my new online course for teachers who are curious about finding and applying reliable research on yoga! Research is used to make important decisions in skincare, healthcare and fitness, so why not yoga? This is the latest, updated version of the course that, up until now, I have only given to teacher trainings. This is the first time I am making it available to the public. ⠀
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So if you've ever wanted to get to the bottom of flashy headlines about the benefits of yoga, or wondered what kinds of studies are worth your time and how they can change the way you teach, check out this course. It's very affordable, only $39 and $24 for annual members of YR&B.
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SIGN UP via the link in @arianayoga’s bio!

🙋‍♀️ Want to improve your mobility in bac

🙋‍♀️ Want to improve your mobility in backbends? 🐪 Read my new article for @shutupandyoga 🔥 The Three Seeds of Mobility. Part II: Passive Propping Strategies for Improving Mobility in Backbends — link in bio 👀

In this article, I introduce passive propping strategies for Ustrasana🐪.

Each strategy is accompanied by a thorough analysis of exactly how the prop strategy supports increasing passive ROM joint by joint for the pose. This will help you understand the concept underlying the technique so you can apply it to any pose.
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🤔 “In referring to the strategies as more passive, I mean that they decrease the demands placed on the body relative to what the demands would be if we practiced the pose without props. As the result of decreasing demands, these propping strategies change how we are able to work on specific seeds of mobility—flexibility, strength, and coordination.
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👏 In offering these opportunities for accessibility and scalability, passive propping strategies can help a pose feel safer and better for a practitioner, but also inspire questions and creativity, and provide a path for improving skill by embodying inquiry rather than performing shapes.”
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Top link in bio 👀
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✍️ Edited by @jordanparkerreed | 🧑‍🎨 Art by @ksenia_sapunkova
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#yogamobility #yogaanatomy #mobility #yogateacher #yogapractice #ustrasana #backbends #yogaillustration

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