Homeless in America – Ep 4 – Tola Talks Texas

Today we’re talking about the 580,000+ homeless people in America, most of those individual males and the rest single moms with children. That’s way too many, and with the help of those of us who are not homeless – including my bodybuilding idol from 1979 and seven time Mr. Olympia champion, Arnold Schwarzenegger, we need to end this epidemic now. Plus a special RIP shout-out to Man’s World Gym owner and mentor from my childhood, Joe Dodd, as well as the legendary football coach turned world-class TV broadcaster, John Madden. Not to mention more weightlifting tips from my workout today, and of course, some inspiring talk about holding the line when it comes to your cryptocurrencies…like I’m doing, even as they plunge even further.

Thank you Seattle…until we meet again!

Top of Denny Way in Capitol Hill looking West

Thank you Seattle, for a wonderful six months of teaching yoga to well over 1,000 students in exactly 136 classes. Because as you may already know, I’ll be returning to my beloved Los Angeles (aka Home) where I first began teaching my fitness style of yoga in 2007 before it was even known as Tola Yoga.

And who says you can’t have a blast walking around and exploring Seattle in the rain? Plus, you never really get those torrential downpours like Chicago does, so who needs protection? Seattleites with an umbrella, that’s something you rarely see. I guess that’s why people would always ask, “You’re not from around here, right?” With my black leather jacket and biker boots and carrying a red umbrella, go figure. Or maybe it was just my California tan 🙂

Relaxing in Martin Luther King Jr. Park looking North

And what a great place to stay in shape and to keep moving forward, or I shall I say, upward…on the plethora of hills that traverse the Emerald City.

No doubt your butt works overtime in this town. I should know, I’ve walked more neighborhoods than Oprah has houses (well, maybe not) and loved every minute of it!

But what I’ll miss most – other than my yoga students, especially Charisma, Jodi and Sallie who never missed a class – are the amazing views of downtown Seattle you get just by walking around or lounging in Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park, including my three favorites you see here.

40th & Stone Way in Fremont looking South

So thanks Seattle, and until we meet again I wish you the very best. Continue growing and providing your good citizens with more great buildings, parks, restaurants, culture, grunge-free fashion and of course, a Tola Yoga studio in the near future.

Hey, ya neva know!

Peace – R

 

Remember “the Eighties”?

Who can forget “the Eighties”, right?  Ronald Reagan and the end of the Cold War, Nancy Reagan’s Just Say No to drugs campaign, Dallas, Dynasty, Seinfeld and Miami Vice, Pac-Man and Nintendo, the Walkman and the Boombox, the arrival of Halley’s Comet, the Mount St. Helens eruption, MTV, Madonna and Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the Yugo and the DeLorean, “Big hair” and Ray-Bans, the Cabbage Patch Doll, famine in Ethiopia and the Live Aid concert, the Chernobyl diaster, the Lockerbie disaster, the Bhopal diaster, the Tiananmen Square protests, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the NASA Space Shuttle Challenger’s disintegration, the Exon Valdez spill, the beginning of the AIDS pandemic, the Apple Mackintosh, Wayne Gretsky, Michael Jordan, Mike Tyson, Donald Trump and Michael Milken, Chariots of Fire, Platoon, Top Gun, The Breakfast Club, Rain ManTerms of Endearment, Beverly Hills Cop, The Terminator, Die Hard and Rambo, the death of Bob Marley, and the assassination of The Beatles John Lennon, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi, and Marvin Gaye. For those of us who experienced the go-go Eighties, it was quite a decade.  Now it’s time to enter the Fat Burning Eighties, i.e., today marks our 80th consecutive 5 Minute Fat Burning Workout.  So enjoy today’s Killer Kalves as we reminisce about the Eighties.  – R