Yoga Playlist Archives - One Down Dog

Libra-ate Yourself | Finding Freedom in the Falling

oddfam — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 15:29:17 +0000

In Virgo Season, we dared ourselves to flirt with order and perfection—without rules. Instead of chasing flawlessness, we leaned into patience, clarity, and the art of letting go when imperfections surfaced. Now, in Libra Season, that exploration evolves: from striving for perfection to striving for balance.

“Balance” is one of those wellness buzzwords we hear everywhere, but with so many interpretations, it can also feel heavy. We picture ourselves holding scales on our shoulders, expecting them to stay steady while life relentlessly nudges us off course—through phones, schedules, traffic, or as One Down Dog founder Jessica Rosen says, the bugs on the windshield.

Our culture tends to frame balance through hustle-driven sayings: when you fall off the horse, get back on. No shade (okay, maybe some) to the cowboys who coined that one, but yoga offers us something deeper and more poetic. Instead of a “walk it off” mentality, yogic wisdom invites us to embrace the wobble. To laugh when we stumble, to learn from the moment, and to keep practicing—whether in a tricky pose or a tough conversation. That’s how we turn the fall into something fabulous.

3 Key Takeaways on Balance in Libra Season

Humor softens the wobble. Laughter turns frustration into perspective, helping us lighten the load of imperfection.
Information builds clarity. When we notice patterns—on and off the mat—we transform missteps into opportunities for learning.
Cultivation creates resilience. Each fall is feedback. With practice, we grow steadier, stronger, and more compassionate toward ourselves.

Playlist of the Season:

Every season deserves a soundtrack. Our Libra-themed playlist is curated to sway with the scales—songs that teeter between light and deep, calm and energetic, playful and soulful. It’s music for finding balance in the wobble, whether you’re flowing through poses, navigating traffic, or just dancing it out in your living room. Let these tracks remind you that harmony isn’t about standing still, but about learning to move gracefully through the shifts. Press play, find your rhythm, and let balance sound as good as it feels.

Asana of the Season:

Sirsasana (Headstand)

Every season deserves a new perspective. In Libra Season, balance isn’t just about standing tall—it’s about flipping the script. Headstand (Śīrṣāsana) is the ultimate teacher in this practice: equal parts strength and surrender, focus and play. It reminds us that wobbling, tipping, or even falling are all part of the dance toward steadiness.

How to Step Into Headstand (Śīrṣāsana)

Foundation first. Interlace your fingers, set your forearms on the ground, and cradle the back of your head in your hands.
Root down. Press firmly through your forearms and lift your shoulders away from your ears.
Lift lightly. Tuck your toes, straighten your legs, and walk your feet closer until your hips stack over your shoulders.
Float up. Bend your knees into your chest, then slowly extend your legs toward the sky.
Find balance. Engage your core, breathe steadily, and remember—falling is part of the practice.

Ready to play with balance, flip your perspective, and enjoy the art of falling? Join Meghan Lastra in Echo Park for our upcoming Headstand Workshop—where strength meets curiosity and every wobble is welcome.

The Benefits of Headstand (Śīrṣāsana)

Mind

Builds focus and concentration by requiring presence and attention
Trains patience through gradual progress and practice
Cultivates mental clarity by reversing perspective and shifting energy
Encourages confidence and courage in facing challenges
Helps release fear of falling, fostering resilience and adaptability

Body

Strengthens shoulders, arms, and core muscles
Improves circulation by inverting the body and assisting blood flow
Stimulates the lymphatic system, supporting detoxification
Can relieve tension in the lower back by decompressing the spine
Enhances balance and proprioception (awareness of body in space)

Overall Wellbeing

Offers an energizing, uplifting effect on mood
Balances the nervous system, supporting stress relief
Symbolically flips perspective, inviting new ways of seeing challenges
Builds trust in the body and practice, deepening the mind-body connection
Creates a playful, joyful relationship with movement and imperfection

Class of the Season: FIT: full-body

Balance isn’t just about stillness—it’s about finding strength in motion. FIT: Full-Body is a high-energy, total-body HIIT that invites you to play with your limits while staying grounded in your center. Through bodyweight conditioning, strength training, core work, and all-levels cardio, you’ll feel the push and pull of challenge and recovery, effort and ease—just like navigating the scales of daily life.

Sweat, wobble, and laugh through it, and discover that balance isn’t about perfection—it’s about showing up, moving through, and finding joy along the way.

Book FIT: full-body >>

Ready to find your flow, test your limits, and embrace a little wobble? Join our October Attendance Challenge and try a variety of classes designed to balance out your practice—because the best way to master balance is to mix it up, move your body, and have fun doing it! Plus stickers. Never forget the stickers.

Sutra of the Season: 2.26

Libra Season: A Meditation on Balance

In Libra Season, we move from perfection to balance—an ever-shifting, playful dance between effort and ease. The scales we carry aren’t meant to stay perfectly level; life nudges us off course with phones, traffic, schedules, and “the bugs on the windshield.” Balance is less about standing still and more about learning to wobble with grace.

Yoga Sutra 2.46 reminds us that the practice of yoga is about finding steadiness through steady effort: sthira sukham asanam — the posture should be steady and comfortable. It’s a meditation in motion, teaching us that effort without ease becomes rigid, and ease without effort becomes sloppy. True balance lives in the middle, where we engage, stretch, breathe, and allow ourselves to wobble.

So give Libra Season and your practice a soundtrack that sways with the scales, then take it to the mat and play around with arm balances like headstand, then sweat it all out with FIT: full-body. Rinse, repeat, and get to 21 classes in October to meet our Practice Feeling Balanced Challenge. Show up, show more, and let the wobble guide us.

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Grow with the Flow | Pisces Season at ODD

oddfam — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:56:49 +0000

Joy is a Catalyst for Change

Acts of joy are acts of resistance! In times when we must show up for our communities, especially the most vulnerable, it can feel like we’re pulled in a million directions and the brief bright spots we find in our day can fill us with guilt or even shame. Just as there is a fine line between self care and overindulgence, there exists an even finer line between altruism – selfless service – and burnout. This platitude can often lose its meaning due to overuse or misuse, but we find that it can serve as a strong visualization and mantra for these difficult times – you can’t pour from an empty cup. This season’s mission is to take inspiration from our fishy friends – the Pisceans – to allow ourselves to recognize what we’re feeling, feel it without shame or remorse, take time to recharge and fill our cups, then pour positivity into all of our interactions. The community we have is filled with love, light, and compassion, and we’re only here to facilitate the deepening of connections between people who are doing their best to care for themselves, their local communities, and that which is greater than us. Together, we’re so powerful!

Diving into the Emotional Depths and Swimming Upstream

When news fatigue and proximity to suffering becomes too much, you’ll start to feel it. We need rest and recovery to continue to show up for others as our best selves, but we also need distractions and moments of genuine joy that soften the blow and strengthen connections. From soothing and reflective sound baths to fun partnered workshops chasing the tail of the season of love, we’ve curated events that will help support you and our entire community in whatever way you need.

Go with the Flow and Grow with the Flow (aka Pisces Season Workshops & Community Events)

200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training, Spring Session begins March 13th: Deepen your knowledge of anatomy, asana, and philosophy while cultivating lifelong friendships and strengthening the bonds in the ODD community, whether or not you’re interested in a teaching career. The next info session with the program’s knowledgeable architect, Cindy Godell, is March 5th at 7pm in Echo Park, and it will be your last chance to join until our fall session.
This weekend is all about having fun and making connections of all kinds. These unique events are filling up fast, so save your spot in advance!
- - HEAD OVER HEELS | Partnered Acroyoga Workshop: Saturday, February 22nd at 1:30pm in Echo Park w/ ODD’s strength guru, Audrey Guedelekian
  - FLOW AND FLIRT | A Mindful Mixer: Join ODD x Necterine for a fresh take on speed dating that will help you go beyond swiping and awkward conversation to spark genuine connections over a shared love of yoga. Sunday, February 23rd at 3pm in Echo Park w/ Lani Engstrom and Asia Martin
Also this weekend, if soothing sounds and chakra vibrations are what you need, Dylan has you covered with a monthly sound bath featuring a gong tuned to the frequency of Venus, planet of love and beauty. The perfect way to keep the love flowing from Galentine’s and Valentine’s season!
- - SOUND BATH: Sunday, February 23rd at 7:30pm in East Hollywood w/ Dylan Wallace
Coming up in March, we have more opportunities to connect, build confidence, and find moments of joy and respite:
- - RUN SALUTATIONS | Yoga For Run Recovery: Whether you’re about to run the LA Marathon or just enjoy a good jog, join Lani Engstrom for a workshop that will aid in endurance-run recovery through targeted stretches focusing on your lower half, a guided massage ball roll-out, guidance for future training support through yoga, and more opportunities to connect over the shared love of running and challenging oneself. Saturday, March 8th at 1:30pm in Echo Park.
  - HIKE & HIDE | Community Hike and Gift Card Hunt: Connect with ODDfam in nature at the Griffith Park Trail #1 and snatch up goodies along the way, like gift cards for yoga classes and workshops, as well as gift cards from awesome local partners, like Not Another Pottery Studio and Couplet Coffee! Thursday, March 20 (Spring Equinox) at 10am. Be sure to reserve your free spot now, so we can keep in touch about the meet-up spot, where to find gift cards, and other the other fun details!

Something to Look Forward To (aka ODD Adventures)

Book an adventure and have something to look forward to: there are still a few spots left for Dylan Wallace‘s Summer-Solstice-inspired journey through the chakras at an idyllic Tuscan retreat, Step Into the Sun. If your vibes are more tropical than Tuscan, we also have spots available to activate your inner power in a Costa Rican paradise with Cindy Godell and Audrey Guedelekian. Email adventures@onedowndog.com to learn more about the teachers, itinerary, accommodations, payment plans, excursions, and more.

Playlist of the Season

Emotional depths! Daydreams and delulu! Creative distractions! Dance through the revolution! Dive in to our Pisces Themed Playlist

Asana of the Season

Matsyasana or “Fish Pose" is a bit advanced, but the joy is found in the playing around with this shape in your body and finding new things about yourself in the process. Repeat after us: I am strong. I am fluid and flexible. I am enough. Here’s what you’ll get from this playful total-body heart opener:

Enhances breathing
Improves posture
Strengthens neck, abs, thighs, and glutes
Relieves stress and tension in the shoulders and upper back
Stimulates endocrine glands and parasympathetic nervous system
Improves digestion
Boosts metabolism

Here’s a Quick Guide to Getting into Matsyasana:

Start in a comfortable seat, like Sukhasana.
Lean backwards and slowly, intentionally lower your body to the floor with your elbows and forearms supporting your weight and head tilted back (maybe touching the ground)
Grasp your thighs or feet with elbows remaining on the floor.
Lift your chest to the sky, creating an arch in your back, ensuring your neck isn’t strained.
Hold for a few breaths.
Release your hands and push them into the ground to lift your head and come back to Sukhasana.

Pranayama of the Season

Just remembering to breathe can be a challenge in itself when we’re balancing our emotional needs with the needs of our most vulnerable community members, so we’re keeping it simple this seasons with abdominal or belly breathing. Abdominal Breathing (Adham Pranayama) is a pranayama practice that is aimed at teaching students how to breathe from their bellies. The word ‘Adham’ means low, and the practice aims to encourage air to the lower lobes of the lungs and the abdomen.:

Arrive in a comfortable seat.
Exhale completely through parted lips.
Close the lips and inhale steadily for a count of 4.
Hold at the top of the breath for a count of 7.
Exhale again through parted lips for a count of 8.
Repeat.

Sutra of the Season

Here in LA, we watched humans show up in beautiful ways to support neighboring humans in a dark time. It’s not the first time our city of angels has been challenged, and it certainly won’t be the last. Rather than give in to the suffering, we banded together to move through the pain with grace, understanding, and support for one another. We lived the sutras, and it paid off! For a bonus entry in the Practice Feeling Human February Class Challenge, take to social media or reply to our newsletter and let us know how you’re finding joy right now!

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#ODDBeats: ODD YTT Alums

caitlin — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 04:49:06 +0000

So I’m sure you remember all the awesome ODD YTT trainees that we featured on this very blog just last week. Well those people each gave us a few songs that they’re really digging right now during their yoga practices. We put them all together on this nifty Spotify playlist for your listening pleasure. Please be sure to shake all the booties and down all the dogs to these tunes.

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#ODDbeats – Yoni Berk’s Spotify Playlist – Influences from 90’s to – ’08.

caitlin — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 18:42:18 +0000

Being a well playlisted yoga studio brings us pride. But we don’t make those playlists. TEACHERS DO! Yoni teaches Monday and Tuesday nights in Silverlake. He’s a pretty classic teacher, with O.D.D. on brand bad jokes, and AMAZINGLY DIVERSE PLAYLISTS! Take a listen and check us out on Spotify –

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On Rotation: September Yoga Playlist

oddfam — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 14:00:21 +0000

Music has always been a huge part of my life. As a child I could be found wandering around the playground singing The Little Mermaid. In elementary school I played piano and clarinet in the school band. In middle school I sang in choir and musicals. In high school I took voice lessons and taught myself guitar. As an “adult" I’ve performed in bands(we played our first show at one down dog!) and go to see other bands play as often as I can. And if I’m being completely honest, I can still be found singing The Little Mermaid from time to time. When I was in teacher training, I couldn’t wait to learn about structuring a sequence and creating yoga playlists. Needless to say, music is a huge part of the experience on the mat. That’s why I take time to create yoga playlists that have a life to them. I like to being practice with a few moments of silence, allowing time to check in, connect with the breath and set an intention. The first few songs are usually pretty mellow, without lyrics, to set a chill tone which is perfect for warming up and starting to loosen up the body. Then the songs pick up a little bit and help to provide energy as we flow. Towards the end of class, the songs start to mellow out again and provide a comforting type of atmosphere that allows for chilling out and melting into a relaxing Savasana. Check out what I have on rotation in my flow classes this week:

I think it’s safe to say that everyone here at One Down Dog loves music, too. Check out some of the other music we’ve shared. Want to suggest some awesome tunes? Feel free to share them with us here in the comments, on twitter, facebook or email.

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