There’s lots we don’t know about Hillary Clinton’s e-mail cache from her days as secretary of state. But one thing we do know: She was a diligent yogi!
Clinton claimed in a Tuesday news conference that among the e-mails she deleted from her private account were the typical fare about planning her daughter’s wedding, family vacations, and her “yoga routines.”
E-mailed yoga sequences are pretty standard practice for VIP clients, says Washington-based yoga instructor Adeoye Mabogunje, who often provides students — who are frequently too busy for regular sessions with a teacher — with yoga poses to do on their own.
Clinton’s sessions probably take place in her home, or even her office, says Mabogunje, who often connects with high-powered clients through the luxury on-call service Veluxe.
Yoga experts agree that it’s most likely that Clinton, 67, is practicing Hatha yoga, the most common form of yoga, and easier than, say, the physically demanding Vinyasa, or hot yoga, which would be difficult to pull off outside a studio. “I would assume” it’s Hatha, says Jessica Sandhu, who teaches at upscale venues around town, including the White House Fitness Center. “It’s focused on building strength… but there’s just one pose at a time and it’s not too fast-paced.”
We reached out to some of Washington’s top yoga instructors to the stars (no, really, that’s a thing), and none would ‘fess up to coaching Clinton through her downward dogs — but of course, discretion is the name of that game, so who knows?
The former first lady had already talked publicly about her burgeoning yoga commitment. In a splashy spread in People magazine in June, Clinton talked up her yoga and water aerobics. And a September New York Times story quotes “friends” as saying that she was full of energy from working out with a trainer and getting into yoga.
So her Warrior poses are on fleek. Good for her. But what about the political implications of her relatively new workout routine? First, talking up her time on the mat may be a way to dispel concerns about her age or health, typical fare for any candidate but one that a Republican candidate is likely to raise.
And it makes her “more relatable,” says veteran Democratic strategist Joe Trippi. Gone are the days when yoga was seen as some kind of exotic, vaguely cultish pursuit. Now, it’s something the potential presidential candidate might have in common with moms down at the YMCA.
“Yoga is to 2016 is what jogging was to, like, 1990,” Trippi says. When voters saw former presidents Bill Clinton or George W. Bush jogging, he says, “they would think, ‘Hey, I like to jog, too.’ It’s the same thing now with yoga, for women in particular.”
From: The Washington Post