Monday, September 19, 2011

Wendy's Experience at Wanderlust Tahoe







The Wonderful World of Wanderlust....

Wanderlust is a Yoga/Music festival that is becoming a movement. The main festivals are happening in Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas, and Vermont. Wanderlust is like a trip to a health candy store for conscious yoga and fun lovers of all ages from around the globe. At Wanderlust there are endless classes to choose from, taught by you from your favorite yoga teachers or teachers you’ve always wanted to study with. Your class may just be outside with fresh air and amazing views of the majestic snow peaked mountains as your Dristi. (Yogic Focal point for non yogi readers) You can share this class with 600 other great energy yogis with musicians like Michael Franti, Mc Yogi or Dj Drez playing or spinning live to you. This experience is like nothing else out there in the yoga world. Its fresh, its fun, and feels like a new wave coming up in the yoga world.

I got Wanderlust in my blood last year when I attended. The yoga roster is stellar, with an equally impressive music line up.
I am now a Wanderlust junkie. I know where ever it is, I will be. One thing I will never forget about my first experience with Wanderlust was the people who were there. They looked like they were glowing. It’s so refreshing to be in a group of people who look vibrantly alive, joyful and happy. Here people have found a place to be totally themselves, get re-energized and revitalized while having an absolute blast.

As a 25 year yoga studio owner, I find in wanderlust a refuge. A place I can go and study with some of the best yoga teachers of our time. Not only great teachers, but fresh fun and out of the box instructors. Which is so refreshing.

This is the exact outcome desired for Wanderluster’s. In an interview with Wanderlust co-founder Schuyler Grant; Grant states “I think of Wanderlust as a filling station, I want people to leave juiced up and inspired, both physically, intellectually and with pleasure.” (I found Wanderlust absolutely fulfilled on all of those accounts.) Grant emphasizes the importance of taking care of yourself and keeping yourself feeling good. She says “you can’t do good if you don’t feel good.” Schuyler further emphasizes “we can get so ‘tapped and sucked dry‘ it’s so important to do what you need to do to fill up and keep you psyched as a mom, a partner, a yoga teacher, or whatever you do.” She wants Wanderlust to do that for people.

Schuler, also the founder Kula Yoga Project is dedicated to ensuring that Wanderlust offers the highest caliber of teachers. Her husband and co-founder Jeff Krasno is in charge of the awesome music at Wanderlust. Jeff worked for RCA Records before co-founding Velour Music Group, (a record label and artist management company). Wanderlust is in partnership with C3 Presents who are the creators of Lollapalooza. This partnership of “yogis meet - big time music world” was a great blend making this event immensely fun and extremely well run.

Another inspiration I am left with came from my time spent at Wanderlust with renowned Yogi Jonny Kest. In our interview Kest’s humanness and passion for vegetarianism and family shines thru. Kest is a true real family man and is frequently seen after during and after class carrying his daughter on his shoulders. During the interview he politely stepped away to change a diaper. (Being the mom of a four year old, I absolutely loved that). Kest says that his wife and family are what lights him up, and inspires him, you could really see this.

The Kest family are devout vegan’s passionate about animals and their treatment. During a class I attended taught by Kest he asked “now you all have worked up a big appetite you are hungry. If you had a dead chicken in one hand, and fresh fruit and vegetables in your other hand which would your rather bite into? Just use common sense, what would nourish you more?” A powerful question for all of us. His wife Milla and children choose not to eat animals and dairy as a matter of kindness. Milla says it is a shame how cruel humans can be to the animals. They follow the “World Peace Diet.”

You can see that Kest is a truly grounded person which he credits his daily practice of Vippasana meditation. Kest recently sold his yoga studios to Lifetime fitness a publicly traded company. They have over 100 locations. Getting authentically trained yoga teachers into over 100 locations is a pretty good move to increasing the quality of yoga delivered. This will surely set a higher standard for “gym yoga”.

Kest’s conscious and mindful way’s of living in the world was a consistent theme at the festival. Wanderlust organizers took great lengths (and costs) to reduce the impact of the 16,000 attendees gathering. Composting, sourcing food from local producers and farms, providing free filling stations were just some of ways Wanderlust showed its environmentally conscious side. They joined forces with zero hero

The “Perfect” day at Wanderlust

If yoga just isn’t your thing... there are plenty of other things to keep you busy happy and “juiced” at Wanderlust. You can play with acro yoga, hooping, and slack lining (or just hanging at the pool watching the slack-liners). If you feel so inclined, you can even try your luck at “circus camp”, where you can play in the free form zone. There are expert practitioners who are more then happy to teach you a trick or two. They even teach you various forms of circus arts including juggling, ariel dance. I saw some of the most incredible naturally athletic and talented bodies doing remarkable things!!!

Having tried Areal fabric and finding it incredibly beautiful but slightly out of my reach. I was excited to find “Fly Inspiration” created by Karen Andes it is a soft stretchy hanging apparatus for designed for yoga, fitness, rehab, and circus training.” With this apparatus I was able to get inverted with no stress on my body it feels amazing and is so much fun.

Wanderlust is a great opportunity to unplug from the world for a few days to become one with nature, be surrounded by immense beauty and inspiration. You can pick your speed, from practicing your butt off, to doing nothing but hanging out in the sun, eating good healthy food and listening to great music. Either way wanderlust will leave a “juiced” and happier person better equipped to take on and “do good” in your little slice of the world.




Written By:
Wendy Gross-Pinto
Founder and Creatrix
Peace and Blessings

Photos By:
Dana PhotoZen Nollsch

Day 3!







Yesterday was the final day of the festival, but we tried to put that out of our minds and set out to enjoy the day. I think this was the hottest day yet (music and temperature!).








More bands today we discovered include
MilkDrive, Seth Walker, Yellow Ostrich, Pernikoff Brothers, Nick 13, and Empire of the Sun.

The bands known to us who we saw were The Airborn Toxic Event, The Head and The Heart (pictured on the right), Joseph Arthur, Elbow, Fleet Foxes, Social Distortion, and Arcade Fire!




Aunt Debbie enjoying the music in sweltering heat!


We made a new friend, Dennis Ayotte, a reporter. and photographer. We spent a lot of time chatting with him in the Media tent, and he gave us some tips since we are newbies! He also gave us some insight on some new and upcoming bands who we will be looking for!

Check out his report of ACL at Laprensasa.com! He also has a blog called I Have MAN(y) Issues, so check that out as well!



So then it was time to go and it was a little sad, but we have awesome memories of discovering so many bands we've never heard of and will look up and follow in the future.

What a great festival Austin City Limits is. It's all anyone talks about anywhere you go in the city of Austin. Everyone is so proud of it, and what a great city Austin is. We loved it!!! We hope we can return next year and do it all again!

Thank you for reading this blog!

Aunt Debbie and Uncle Todd :)

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Day 2!

Day 2 brought more rain for a little bit...there must be something about the festival and rain! Texas is in a drought...hopefully some of this rain will help.

Today brought more bands we never heard of before, including Twin Shadow, Cowboy & Indian, Federico Aubele, The Antlers, and Patrice Pike. There is so much talent in Austin this weekend!

More well known bands we heard included Iron & Wine and My Morning Jacket, two of my favorites! Oh, and I can't forget City and Colour, one of my son's favorites and I love them too. Stevie Wonder also performed.


AUSTIN KIDDIE LIMITS:


77 Kids by American Eagle:

This is an organization which gets kiddies all rock starred out -- hair, makeup, costumes. The kids looked so excited as they were getting glitter in their hair and major doses of hair spray! They then they jam out with karaoke and are given a free DVD of their awesome performance! Here is a pic of the kids getting all decked out by the volunteers doing hair and makeup!

Alex's Lemonade Stand: For pediatric cancer research...such a great cause!

Tag a Kid: No child will get lost here!





Rock & Recycle:

People attending the festival volunteer to collect cans and bottles on the ground, and if you fill up a bag you get entered into a drawing to win a new bike!

Here is one of the many recycling piles at the end of the night. There are so many volunteers who keep Zilker Park clean for all the festival guests!

Friday, September 16, 2011

Day 1


Today was Day #1 at Austin City Limits and we took it a little slow...this was our first festival ever! Here I am (Aunt Debbie) enjoying the fan misters on this pretty sweltering day, although it was down to 93 from the 103 of yesterday! A big gust of wind blew my hair out of control as Uncle Todd took the picture!

It was nice to be treated extra special in the Media area. This included being able to charge up my cell phone and Porta-Potties which had sinks with running water! I have no fear of the Porta-Potties anymore!

A miracle happened...it rained! Texas is in the middle of a long drought, there are wildfires, and it's dangerous! The festival brought some much needed raindrops and excellent music!

It was great to experience some unknown bands (to us, at least)... we saw An Horse, Reptar, Bobby Long, The Cave Singers, Pretty Lights, and Sara Bareilles, and then the known bands
(to us) - Ray LaMontagne, Bright Eyes, and Coldplay! It was a super hot day, and these bands made it even hotter!

Many of the people running the show are volunteers. It is amazing how many people are available to assist us to find our way, picking up garbage, and making sure everyone has a safe and fun day.

Our sons have given us a list of bands for which they would like shirts...so I guess tomorrow will include a little bit of shopping!

Tomorrow I plan to visit some of the booths...I will be working hard to find some entertaining info to share :)

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Austin is a friendly place!

Such a friendly town is Austin that as we were making our way from bar to bar, we bumped into a chatty cab driver who gave us a quick drive during the day named Artie. He was so excited to see us and offered to buy us drinks at a bar with a blues band that had no customers but loud music, as we struggled to hear his tale of his girlfriend in Oklahoma whom we never met. Although we enjoyed his company, and the beer was good, cold, and delicious, it couldn't go down fast enough so would could bid Artie adieu so we could be on our way and continue our journey. After all, we do have a little festival to attend tomorrow!

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Here is a pic of us at our first Healthy Hippie Event in Austin - This was a launch for Muve Music from Cricket at Maggie Mae's. Cricket has the first wireless plan with unlimited music! They offer unlimited nationwide talk, text, web, and MUSIC for $65.00 per month. Go play with one today! Uncle Todd sure thought it was cool! P.S. Notice our media tags...we felt famous! So now I know how my niece Taraleigh feels at all times!


Next stop was dinner at Stubb's Barbecue for some fantastic authentic Texas BBQ.

Live music was next on the agenda, so we went to Friends Bar on 6th Street. We loved that we got carded so they are #1!!!! The band Swamp Sauce has a funny name but they were awesome!

One more stop at Chuggin' Monkey. I knew I loved this band when they started playing Ozzy Ozbourne and then Santana. Now I was told the singer/band was John Travis; however, i can't find any info on him! This band was the best I've heard so far in Austin! Another plus, they had a huge TV with the Yankee game in full view!

Now tomorrow we are taking a Healthy Hippie break, but Friday kicks off the Austin City Limits Music Festival that we've been waiting for! So stay tuned!

Healthy Hippie Reps, Aunt Debbie and Uncle Todd

The Healthy Hippie's Aunt Debbie and Uncle Todd!

Austin, Texas

Hi HH Fans---Just a quick note to say--- Hello...I am Aunt Debbie, Taraleigh's aunt...i am here in Austin, Texas getting ready for the Austin City Limits Music Festival this weekend. Taraleigh's Uncle Todd is my assistant who will be holding my pad and pen! He's also my favorite husband! I may not be as young as Tara, but I am enthusiastic and love music! Be on the lookout for my contribution to the HH Blog!