Welcome to this renewed and rebooted daily Bon Jovi blog!
Since Friday, this is also the complementary blog for  #dailybonjoviyoga on YouTube.

Every day you get:
(1) a story
Ranging from anywhere between
– a 2000 word blogpost, lavishly wrapped under, over and around, all things yoga and Bon Jovi;
– to refreshingly missing!

The blog is always three parts, with the story as the closer, at the bottom of this post.

Today’s post is called
The Performer; The real secret to Bon Jovi. And #dailybonjoviyoga.
And this is the type of talk we’re probably gonna have on repeat here.
And that you’re not going find anywhere else, because it is one of the great Misconceptions Of The Universe.

And next to the story, every post also brings you: 
(2) a Bon Jovi concert, a soundtrack for today
Which is then also added to the YouTube playlist
Bon Jovi concerts on this day

+
(3) a yoga practice you can do, based on the day of the week.
Pulled straight from day-by-day Rock Star Yoga/ #dailybonjoviyoga blueprint
And yesterday I ve also picked up yoga for YouTube!!

So today is July 31!
Let’s dive in: What is the yoga for today?
What is the Bon Jovi concert or concerts, on this day?

🧘🏽🤘🏽#dailybonjoviyoga 

As of Friday, there are 3 different options, which firstly in helicopter view are:

option 1.
do yoga on your own, themed day by day

This is the only option where you get a “freestyle” (do yoga on your own) option, which means you can do yoga with Bon Jovi music.
The two other options are guided practices only.
Which would be hard to follow along, if you have Saturday Night Gave Me Sunday Morning blasting through your speakers simultaneously. 

option 2.
pick one of the programs

option 3.
New! Do yoga with me on YouTube, or get inspired by my other yoga plans today, if I know I won’t be creating a new video.

Three options to kickstart, reboot or rock, your yoga.
Let’s go!

option I:  themed day by day

Every day of the week, the Rock Star Yoga/ #dailybonjoviyoga is themed differently:

Monday: Find What Feels Good
do yoga with:🥤 Yoga with Adriene channel
or playlist 1: 🍭 Yoga with Adriene – selection
or playlist 2:🌱Yoga with Adriene Yoga for New Beginnings
or do hatha yoga with 🚧Slippery When Wet album🚧 or 🏟️Slippery When Wet tour🌎

Tuesday, showtime! New Jersey Syndicate Tour
do yoga with: 🕉️Ashtanga Yoga and  🏹 Rocket Yoga playlist
or freestyle with 🇺🇸New Jersey album🫐🟦 or 🏟️New Jersey Syndicate tour🌎

Wednesday:  🌵🏜️🏍️Santa Fe Day 🦅🏜️🌵
choose a yin yoga/ relaxation video from the yoga playlist
or do relaxing yoga with 🏜️Blaze of Glory album🏍️
OR (new!) do yoga with the live Dry County and Santa Fe playlist!

Thursday, showtime! Keep the Faith/ I ll Sleep When I m Dead Tour
do yoga with: 🌊Shiva Rea playlist
or buy her 1999 double album 2h practice, Yoga Sanctuary
or freestyle with 🛐 Keep the Faith album✝️ or the 🏟️KTF tour🌎

Friday: 🍻 An Evening With Bon Jovi🎤
do yoga with: 💃🏽 Tara Stiles playlist
or do hatha yoga with a few songs from the Cross Road album or An Evening With Bon Jovi

Saturday: Showtime! Cross Road/ These Days Tour
do yoga with: 🌶️ Meghan Currie Playlist.
or freestyle with 🎸These Days album🚑 or the 🏟️ CR/ TD Tour🌎

Sunday: Vintage Yoga
do yoga with: 📺 Playlist Vintage Yoga Videos + tv 
or hatha yoga with 1⃣Bon Jovi- Bon Jovi album💘, 🌋Fahrenheit🔥 or concerts 🎛️1984🎴🏮-🦂🦂🦂-1985🌎

Or, choose the fast lane to enlightenment, with Guns N’ Roses Yoga.
Full story here: 
->  Free yourself. And have breakfast with the other guests.
| A Day or a Lifetime, of Guns N’ Roses Yoga

💀🌹🎸  Guns N’Roses Yoga
do yoga with: 🕉️Ashtanga Yoga and  🏹 Rocket Yoga playlist
or freestyle with a 💀🌹🎸 Guns N’ Roses album,
or a concert, for example: 💀🌹🎸 Guns N’ Roses – Paris 06.06.1992 
Or my playlist: Guns N’ Roses Groningen 2022 06 23

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option II: week & month program

Dive in with the above schedule, or pick one of the two programs, which are designed in the same Monday to Sunday rhythm. So for example, every Sunday you get a Vintage Yoga video:

4 Week Program (15-30 minute videos)
🕉 🎬 yoga playlist:
Rock Your Yoga: 4 Week Program {❤️🤍💙 est. July 4th, 2022}
Monthly playlist, with practices from 15-30 minutes.

Week Program (1 hour videos)
🕉 🎬yoga playlist: 7 Day Yoga Schedule | 1 Hour per day
Ongoing 7 day playlist, with practices of one hour.

Individual videos may be replaced when the original drops out or a better alternative is available, but the lists have a permanent status and you can count on them to stay up. 

Playlist Update  { Sunday }

Because I am going to talk about JANE FONDA’S YOGA
in this blogpost, I changed the one hour practice of 7 Day Yoga Schedule | 1 Hour per day to her vintage yoga video (1994).

Every Sunday these two programs (28 day and 7 day) suggest a video from the vintage yoga playlist.
You can also have a look at this playlist separately:
📺 Playlist Vintage Yoga Videos + tv
It’s a great trip down in memory lane!

option III:  Do Yoga With Me
(reboot yoga channels)

Friday was my long awaited return to the mat, as I decided to move my yoga from a personal practice (which I wasn’t doing anyway) to in front of the camera.

We all have other things to do during the day, right?
And in my case, I’ve realized I need the connection of creating for YouTube, more than I need introspection and solitude.
Being a writer, I’m already maxing out in the introspection and solitude department.
And don’t we all crave for connection at the end of the day?
This is your open invitation to join me and other Bon Jovi fans, on the mat.

#dailybonjoviyoga planning
Sunday 31 July 2022

I failed to record Saturday’s Meghan Currie inspired practices last night.
I did almost successfully burst out in tears at 11 PM in front of the camera, about how miserable I felt. So I cleared the set and went to bed.
Which is why today, I will be shooting the 2 videos I had planned for last night.

🌎 international: create #dailybonjoviyoga video for my English YouTube
🇳🇱 Dutch: create first #dailybonjoviyoga video for my Nederlandse YouTube 

Subscribe to those channels to see the videos once they’re posted!
NOW is the best start – entry level, Bon Jovi inspired yoga, for all new to the mat.

—🤘🏾🧘🏾 🎶🎸 that was your practice for today 🤘🏾🧘🏾 🎶🎸—

The concert part!
What concerts were played on July 31? 

 

🗓️🎶🎸Bon Jovi July 31.

There is an amazing 1993 recording for this day! 

🏟️ Keep the Faith/ Sleep When I’m Dead Tour
31 July 1993, Darien (Buffalo), New York 🇺🇸
Darien Lake Performing Arts Center

YouTube upload by hAnD90:
Bon Jovi | Live at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center | Pro Shot | Darien 1993

The recording is usually labeled as “Buffalo 1993”, because Buffalo is the nearest city, but mostly because Jon addresses the crowd like that.
This way all shows ended up being attributed to the first big city.

New York refers to the state of New York, which is about the size of Ireland.
So this does not mean Darien is close to New York City, to European standards.

The show on 31 July 1993, is a pro-shot video and not a handheld camera by a fan, which definitely contributes to why this show makes such a powerful impression!
And 1993, right?!
Inspired by the grunge of the era, the band always played dressed fully in black (for starters), but there is just a genuine juiciness to the Bon Jovi performances of this year, that in my opinion is reminiscent of the 80s.
But better.

Playfulness, professionalism, spontaneity, joy, a fan request (Never Say Goodbye, encore II), and the profound seriousness that marked the times;
They’re all there.

31 July 1993, Darien (Buffalo), NY🇺🇸
Bon Jovi | Live at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center | Pro Shot | Darien 1993
is the soundtrack for today

.
The show is added to the playlist 
“Bon Jovi concerts on this day”
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06ScAo9UN4GyhtQWYfl3d6jMT
at 31 July.

The Performer; The real secret to Bon Jovi. And #dailybonjoviyoga.

👩🏼‍💻 the story July 31

One of the reasons it took me until the longest of times to recraft my second career in yoga, and to also find a way to get back to the mat and enjoy my own practice, is because back in the late 90s, I had failed to see WHY I had felt attracted to doing yoga, and to teaching yoga.

And that it had little to do with yoga.

And because I didn’t know this, I ultimately “lost” yoga, or at least my connection to the yoga.
What remained were the memories of those late 90s, earliest of 00’s when I did still have it…
I knew it had been there, and with a little effort I could reproduce the feeling, and the meaning yoga had had for me. At that time.
But the moment I opened my eyes so to speak, I lost it.

And was once again left with the sadness of having this “thing” in my life that was not the profession I had envisioned, and the daily yoga I was “supposed to do” because I was a yoga teacher and you have to practice what you preach, absolutely did.not.spark. anything even f** remotely resembling the enigmatic vision I had had, about what DOING yoga meant!

I loved my work and the people in my classes, and I was a good teacher (and still am), but there wasn’t a day without the realization;
“This, is not what I set out to do.”
And also:
“And I have no idea what is.”

As present as the yoga vision had been, in those first years, the vision of the yoga practitioner me and of the yoga teacher me, as obvious became its  total absence.
Like an idea or inspiration that leaves you and moves on to the next person, because you fail to bring it to life.

One pandemic and one closed yoga studio later;
It’s coming back.
“She” is coming back.
And I can tell you exactly why I missed the mark, and that it’s the same thing why people fail to understand what the magic is of Bon Jovi, and try to find it in the quality of individual albums.
In fact, it could be the “way out” for Jon Bon Jovi suffering from voice problems, just like Axl Rose made it HIS way out!
Did you notice?

When Axl Rose started suffering from voice problems, during the European tour, he became very open with the audience he was going to start singing differently, in a different key.
There was an understanding that he was there to PERFORM, and that performing meant more than hitting the original notes.
And in fact, had little to do with it.

The reason Bon Jovi, Guns N Roses and the Rolling Stones are bands to outlive all others, is because their bandmembers are PERFORMERS.
When you see Melissa Reese on stage, who joined Guns N Roses in 2016, you can’t take her eyes off her, because she has a stage present to die for.
She performs in what seems like a low key way, often sitting on her stool behind her keyboard/ computer instruments (she’s like an on-stage sound engineer), with her feet dangling down or sitting on them.
But her presence is phenomenal, and of course she also stands up and throws in big gestures too.

Back to Bon Jovi: If you look at the video from today’s concert, Darien 1993, you will see that all 5 members:
Jon, Richie, Alec, David and Tico, have an incredible stage presence.
You can see it with every move and every look, that technically, is not necessary to produce the music.

But most of all, it is an energy.

A PERFORMANCE is an EXPRESSION.

Bands that are made of performers, are recreating their own songs night after night. Like stage actors and concert pianists, they are breathing life into their music, much more than reproducing whatever is on paper or on record.

And it is that aspect, about yoga, I had overlooked.
That I had never been inspired by a yoga practitioner, nor by any real life yoga teacher:
I had solely, and exclusively, been inspired by PERFORMERS.

By Madonna showing up with her ripped 1998 yoga body, that breathed life into the idea of yoga for me.
An idea I had thrown out with the trash, because the community center yoga I had settled on as a child to do for my posture was just too not-hip to ever be touched again.
Until Madonna brought it back to me 15 years later. 

The two moments, before Madonna in 1998, that I felt kind of a tiny pull, a tiny curiosity, towards yoga, had been when Jane Fonda released her Yoga VHS.
And the other moment was when my mother told me of her 70s yoga teacher, a woman who had been a professional ballet teacher.
Both Jane Fonda as well as this mystery yoga teacher, were of course firstly performers.

In 2000 Madonna played a yoga teacher in the movie The Next Best Thing, and that became the teacher I wanted to be.
That became the yoga studio I wanted to have.

In 2007 Tara Stiles, who studied dance in Chicago, started making yoga videos for Ford model agency, and the way she moved her body through the poses, was simply magnetic.

Meanwhile Californian yoga teacher Shiva Rea, who studied Dance Anthropology at UCLA and completed her masters with the thesis “hatha yoga as a practice of embodiment”, had risen to fame within the yoga world, creating cds and dvds, with yoga that had a sense of rhythm and grace.
Even on her works that did not cover the dance aspect, like her first cd Yoga Sanctuary (1998).
But you cannot hide the dancer in you, even if you try.

You cannot hide THE PERFORMER in you.
And if you feel attracted to Bon Jovi (or Madonna, Guns N Roses, Rolling Stones) I can guarantee you, it is the performer in them, that is reeling you in.
It is not their music, to the level that you think it is.
It’s something else.

And in the same way, my love for yoga was never about yoga.
It was about these dancers (Madonna is a professionally trained dancer too), who ultimately became known for their music or their yoga, and then we remember them by that.
But their magic is not in there.

The magic of performers is that they are expressing themselves through the artistic or professional skillset they possess, but that their real expression is through their BODY.
Their BEING.
That is what had clicked with me in yoga, late 90s, early zeros.
And that I had lost because I had betted on the yoga being the key element, when the magic had been something else entirely.

And it had also been the performer’s element, that had clicked with me in 1986 when I got to know Bon Jovi.

And if you resonate with Bon Jovi, I bet my far-too-little used yoga mat because I was so darn confused about the whole thing;
That performance art, is your true love.

And one that maybe, just like me, you managed to miss for the longest of times.
And that if you take on yoga?
Will be the key force driving your love for it.

The performer in you, will be who shows up on the mat.
And the one who will flat out refuse, the moment you treat them like a yoga practitioner.

So treat your inner yogi like you would treat a performer:
Give them a costume, a stage, a set, a voice.
Give them props, a purpose, and give them the craft of yoga.

Yoga can be your instrument.
But never forget YOU, are the star.

.
 ~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer
☕️ Buy me a coffee
🥳 PayPalMe 
🇳🇱Tikkie van de week 

#dailybonjoviyoga planning
Sunday 31 July 2022:
🌎 international: create 30 minute yoga video for my English YouTube
🇳🇱 Dutch: create first #dailybonjoviyoga video for my Nederlandse YouTube 

Subscribe to those channels to see the videos once they’re posted!

Sources! 
 🎶🎸 A brand new, on-this-day playlist of Bon Jovi concerts!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06ScAo9UN4GyhtQWYfl3d6jMT
updated daily, most recent show on top
+ 🤘🏾🧘🏾 Rock your yoga, 7 days a week!
Check the yoga “touring schedule” 😉
https://dailybonjoviyoga.com/practice-materials-and-schedules/

+ On my Dutch YouTube channel you can find all my playlists,
including beginner friendly yoga videos, made by yours truly,
all other playlists and international teachers.

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This Daily Bon Jovi Yoga blog is an element of “Rock Star” [phase 2]