Joining a yoga class once or twice a week will increase your focus and agility in other sports, by stretching your muscles and tendons and increasing your flexibility.

Below are the steps to Dancer's pose (Natarajasana). This pose helps you develop concentration and balance, strengthens and tones your leg muscles, and opens your shoulder and chest muscles.

Maintain steady inhaling and exhaling throughout the pose. Remember to listen to your body, and stop if you feel any pain.

step one

Begin by standing comfortably with your feet together and your arms by your sides. Take a deep breath, and shift your weight to your right foot. Bend your left arm at the elbow and hold your hand with the palm up.

step 2

Lift your left foot behind you, and reach back with your left hand. Grab the inside or outside of your left foot.

step 3

Raise your right arm up towards the sky (or the ceiling of the arena), and slowly begin to lower your right arm so that it is parallel to the ground. At the same time, kick your left foot into your hand, and extend your left leg.

step 4

Keep looking forward while you balance on your right leg with your right arm extended straight and hold for about eight breaths.

To release the pose, let go of your left foot, bring your right arm down, and return to standing pose. Repeat these steps on the other foot.

To find a complimentary yoga class near you, check out your nearest store's event calendar: http://www.lululemon.com/stores/

At the beginning of a yoga class, teachers will often ask you to choose someone or some thing to devote your practice to. The importance of setting your intention is the same as setting a goal: without defining what it is you want, how can you get there?

Set your intention and improve your yoga practice, be a better runner, strengthen your relationships, and get what you want out of life.

Here's what Carlson, yogi and member of the lululemon ecommerce team, had to say about setting your intention. P.S. He is the one in the red shirt in the image above!

Setting your intention, whether it is on or off your yoga mat, places meaningful focus and context in whatever you are doing in the day-to-day of that big ol’ concept we call life.

Many of us are guilty of being so caught up in the granular and the details that we tend to forget why we are doing what it is we are doing in the grand scheme of things. For example, sometimes during my store shifts I am asked to train and be shadowed by our new educators on the floor; after going through the operations, the technical, the functional and the lingo I’ll always, ALWAYS, tie it back to why lululemon exists and why there’s so much meaning behind what we do.

Some may see the role of the educator as just to introduce features and highlight the amazing fit and function of our pieces; however from my perspective I like to see how those pieces tie back to our communities. Perhaps those run shorts will lead our guests to be more comfortable and have fun training for that run they want to do around the neighbourhood; which feeds ambition and the creation of a goal to train for the next half marathon or sign up for a local fitness or yoga class.

Acknowledge, live, and breathe your intent on and off the mat – it’s one of the greatest takeaways I have from the practice of yoga to the practice of life.