Rita Hraiz Yoga Lunghi

I have fallen in love. Not with a person, a lifestyle, a pursuit, but with the Yoga Lunghi from Rita Hraiz. Visit Love Yoga Clothing and your sight will be assailed by the carefully chosen hues of Rita Hraiz’s new collection. A colour therapist amongst other things, Rita has infused her recent collection with a veritable rainbow to compliment the silk-soft, beautifully draped jersey creations that will take the yogi from breakfast, to practice to leisure without batting an eyelid.

Why so effusive? Well I haven’t been offered anything for free I assure you ;). Rather I noticed the collection advertised in Om Yoga Magazine preceeding the Om Yoga Show in October and took the opportunity to try the Lunghi when I visited the stand. I was able to experience first hand the vibrant colours, the baby-soft fabrics and the stunning drape of Rita’s peices that seem to flatter every shape equally. The lunghi is a reworking of the traditional male trouser garment (a development of the thai pant, more sophisticated), which is closer to a long short than a trouser. I was asked to demonstrate the garment’s behaviour in an inversion, so I obliged with a handstand which I executed and exited with my dignity very much intact. As soon as I put the lunghi on I wanted very much to keep it on! In my view it is the perfect garment for the busy yogini/mum/therapist/enter-your-role-here as it is pretty and feminine while at the same time comfortable, flexible and adaptable. It is as attractive as a skirt with all the practicality of a trouser or short without the restriction. Love at first sight does indeed exist.

Not content with producing beautiful, functional garments, Rita has dedicated her sponsorship to Lama Khenpo Chimed Rinpoche and his work of providing for over 100 mostly orphaned Tibetan Monks and Nuns.

There is a catch. These beautiful garments do come with a high-end price tag even for yoga wear. However, the high quality of fabric and design combined with the charitable and ethical stance of the company cause me to urge you to indulge if you are able, as Rita’s collection may as well have been made in heaven! See it for yourself at Love Yoga Clothing against the suitably Tibetan background of bamboo canes and see if you don’t fall in love…

With my Yoga Teacher Training at Feel Feel Hot Yoga coming up next April I have been practicing a great deal and reading around the subject in texts such as the Tao Te Ching. The idea of moving in ‘the flow’ of The Tao, Life or Universal Energy has therefore been rolling around my mind a great deal. This morning as I was driving to the Feel studio to open up I had the image of a car entering a motorway from a slip road. The car has to adjust its approach to feed into faster moving traffic. This takes observation, judgement, skill. Remember the first time you did it as an inexperienced driver? Moving in the energetic flow is less about speed and more about harmonising with the energy of life, which is what we aim to attain through our Yoga, meditation and Martial Arts practices. With flow there is no fear of physical disaster as with driving on the motorway if we misjudge the stream! But it’s worth giving thought to the effect of our resistance to the flow of things. There is much in life I cannot change, even if I desperately want to. My resistance to this causes me pain. Now I am no sage but over time (I’m a slow learner!) I conclude that this resistance is not only pointless but draining to me and those who live alongside me. Let’s go with the flow. Peace & Love Shasha x