Support for your yoga practice.
Sirsasana, king of the asana! Sirsasana and Sarvangasana (shoulderstand) have gotten a bad rap in the past few years. Teachers have become worried about placing pressure on the head and neck – and with good reason! The neck is not meant to bear the weight of the entire body, and certainly not when it’s crooked […]
Yoga is good for the hips! Yoga gives us a unique opportunity to take our femur on a complete circumnavigation of the hip socket. In the yoga practice, we take the femur into extension, flexion, external rotation, internal rotation, abduction and adduction; in other words, we get to explore the full range of motion of […]
It’s not what happens during your practice that matters. It’s how it impacts your life that counts. ~ Gloria Latham We sometimes have this idea that yoga should feel good. I remember a few years ago, I was chatting with someone who found out I was a yoga teacher. She sighed wistfully, “Oh that’s so […]
I’ve worked in the yoga “business” for about fifteen years. In addition to being a teacher, I’ve managed teachers, administrated studios, and run teacher trainings. So I’ve seen a lot of personalities. And some yogis are assholes. Sweet as pie at the front of the classroom, dark as an eastern storm behind the scenes. And […]
I stick my butt out. I don’t mean to, but somewhere along the way in high school, I learned to stand up straight by lifting my ribcage up and forward rather than actually find axial extension. (You rib poppers know you who you are, my brethren).) My lumbar curve became more pronounced, my sitting bones […]
At the yoga center where I sometimes teach in New York City, a woman called wanting to register for a four-week introduction to yoga course. She asked to speak to the manager. She wanted to know if it would be okay for her to come to the course because she was blind, and she had […]
Managing a love-hate relationship with wheel pose Wheel was always one of the poses that came easily to me in yoga. Despite my internally rotated hips limiting me in hip openers, I could do wheel and I could go as high as I wanted. However, as my yoga practice progressed through the years, I began […]
You’ve probably attended a yoga class. Practiced prenatal yoga while pregnant. Maybe you even took your baby to a “mommy & me” yoga session or two after your little one arrived. But then they got older and your yoga practice once again became a solo activity – if you even managed to squeeze it back into your […]
I’m sorry my yoga offends you……. There is a divide in the yoga community right now and I feel like I have one foot on either side of a great valley. The teachers, gurus, and practitioners who are seasoned and rooted in the traditional and classical styles of yoga stand on one side. The newbies […]
In order to practice yoga, you don’t need much in terms of equipment or space. Enough room to lay down a mat is more than sufficient. But the environment that you practice in does matter. Ideally, it should be airy, filled with light, energizing and calming in ambiance at the same time. Or in other […]
You feel heavy, dull, tired. Maybe it’s gray outside (or, if you live in the pacific northwest, maybe it’s been gray and dark for weeks). Perhaps a life event (sickness, heartbreak, lethargy, indecision) has you feeling the terrible weight of emotional gravity. I get it. Having struggled with bouts of depression since my early twenties, I […]
I honestly don’t know where I’d be if the practice of yoga hadn’t entered into my life when it did. I was unknowingly walking around in a perpetual state of fight-or-flight for years. Unaware of what was at play within me, I believed it was perfectly normal, and necessary…to be afraid of everything, and everyone, […]
Gil Hedley has been leading instructional and inspirational human dissections for over twenty years and is a thought leader in integrative human anatomy. A self-described “somanaut” who helps others to “explore the inner space of the body, and discover there the rich terrain of themselves,” Gil has also completed a “What’s the Fuzz,” tour through […]
It’s US Thanksgiving, time for turkey and thankfulness! But you don’t have to be slurping stuffing (or even be celebrating the holiday, oh my Canadian brethren) to take this as an opportunity for a moment of appreciation. Here are five poses to celebrate the day and connect more deeply to a sense of gratitude and […]
Yoga is a low-impact form of exercise that still gives you an excellent workout. It helps you to relieve tension, build strength and relax your mind. Wondering whether to take up a yoga class? Here are seven signs you should get on the mat: You’re Feeling Stressed All the Time We all feel stressed from […]
Crow pose (bakasana) is the entrance to more challenging arm balances. (Check out this video on my favorite way to get into the pose.) When practicing crow pose, you need a few key elements: aware and educated hands cat back core and inner legs squeezing hip flexion The combination of these four component parts will […]
As many of you know, I took a yoga retreat to Bali recently. In fact, this was my first yoga retreat ever as a practitioner! Part of the reason that I took this yoga retreat was because the folks at Book Yoga Retreats gave me a shout and asked me to review their services. Me: […]
The Yoga Barn has a wall that displays posters of its workshops. The teachers are predominantly white. Travelling to Bali brought up mixed feelings. Happy to be there, certainly, but also confounded by the rampant yoga tourism. Who can blame the people here for giving us what we want? Whether it’s cheap massages (which don’t seem be frequented […]
Hey new yogis, many of you have asked me about insurance and why you need it. Check out this guest article from Canopy. They cover some important points and – for my yogis in the States – I wanted to hook you up with this really great rate! – Rachel Have you ever thought of what […]
“Don’t turn your feet out.” “Never drink water during practice.” “Flex your foot to protect your knee.” “Don’t invert when you’re menstruating.” I love it when a teacher tells me what to do. When a teachers sounds confident (or even better – arrogant!), some deep doggy pack instinct in me goes, “Follow this alpha. They […]
Shopping cart
