To master an arm balance, you must master your booty. Seriously. Your pelvis is heavy, and knowing where to put it during an arm balance will make a big difference in your ability to distribute your weight effectively and ultimately find lightness and ease in your pose. Balancing in an arm balance is about: hands […]
Top Ten Life Lessons from my students
1. Practice. We all reach plateaus in our practice. “I’ll never get handstand.” “I’m afraid of bakasana.” But with every class, their sun salutations get a little stronger, their bodies more integrated, and their feet a little lighter. Then one day, we have the a-ha! “I’ve never done that before!” Watching my students inexorably progress […]
Spring into Spring: Handstand!
Spring into Spring! Flowers are blooming, sprouts are sprouting, the sun is out in Vancouver, which means that it’s time to do handstand! Inversions are asana of marvelous integration, asking us to stabilize our mobile shoulder joints and connect all of our moving pieces together – no small task while we’re all topsy turvy. The […]
Are we teaching yoga?
The Times recently wrote an article about the 2012 yoga competition held in New York City. Yoga competition? As in prizes? Seriously? Founded by Rajashree Choudary, the wife of the famous Bikram Choudary, the competition is open to all asana practitioners but is primarily attended by those who practice the Bikram style. Competitions like this […]
Sit your ass down, already…and other thoughts on meditation
Today, or this morning rather, I was eating piece toast with cashew butter (homemade, even, dee-lightful). And I decided to make a little agreement with myself. To self: I will eat this toast with homemade cashew butter, and endeavor to do just that, and only that. No checking email, no reading the paper. Just simply […]
Freeing the Shoulder: quick tips for creating space
What exactly is the shoulder? And why do they get so freakin’ stuck when we try to lift our arms overhead? Two Joints of the Shoulder The shoulder is actually two joints in one: the gleno-humeral joint (the ball and socket joint where the upper arm connects to your shoulder blade) and the scapulo-thoracic joint […]
Karma Chameleon! What is Karma anyway?
I heard this great podcast from the guys at “Stuff you should know.” An accessible and interesting primer on the history of karma from Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant.
Alchemy! The secret roots of hatha yoga.
Did you know that alchemy is part of the roots of hatha yoga? The desire to transmute the body into a worthy vessel was inspired in part by the alchemical explorations of turning lead into gold. “The siddha is a spiritual alchemist who works on and transmutes impure matter, the human body-mind, into pure gold, […]
Protect thy neck: further thoughts on yoga injuries in headstand and shoulderstand
Tonight in class, one of my students asked me to expand on the response article to “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body,” particularly as it relates to two asana: shoulderstand and headstand. Headstand and Shoulderstand – labelled the King and Queen of Asana by Iyengar for their therapeutic properties – got a bad rap in […]
When the muse stops talking: how to teach when inspiration doesn’t strike
A yoga teacher and galpal of mine recently emailed me about the proverbial drying of the creative yoga well. “Last Wed I feel like I taught the WORST yoga class of my life: it was so vanilla, last minute sequencing on my feet (which sometimes I’m good at, but this time I lost the muse), […]
“How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body”: A Response
The New York Times recently ran an article, “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body,”that has a rather sensational and silly title and a fairly simple point: doing yoga can cause injuries. The article, citing the musings of yoga teacher Glenn Black, references the medley of yoga injuries that have been developing through the West over […]
Sugarcane in the moonlight: Ardha Chandrachapasana
Who doesn’t like sugarcane in the moonlight? De-lish. But let’s face it, getting into this variation of Half Moon (Ardha Chandrasana) can test your balance, flexibility, and coordination as you reach back and grab your lifted leg. Never fear, here are some tips that help make this elusive pose more accessible. Component Parts First, to […]
The Elegant Wheel
Urdhva Dhanurasana (Upward Bow, also known as “Wheel”) is one of the most delicious and expansive of yoga asana, inviting a full opening of the “Eastern,” or front, side of the body. As in all yoga asana, the stability (sthira) of the back body is essential for supporting the full expansion and sweetness (sukha) of […]
Headstand: a lesson in patience
Headstand is like the grandpappy of inversions. Unlike the 5-year old exuberance of handstand, or the slightly more moderated enthusiasm of forearm stand, headstand evokes a deep seated patience and – dare I say – necessary dignity in the practitioner. Kicking up into headstand is a big ol’ no-no, primarily because the head is rooted […]
Why everyone should do a yoga teacher training
By Rachel Scott From YYoga’s blog You catch sight of it out of the corner of your eye. There’s a perky little splash of red on one of the YYoga Events Boards. You look closer. It’s the announcement for an information session for the upcoming 200-hour teacher training. Something inside of you starts buzzing. Teacher […]
Sutra II.i chants by Rachel
This chant is inspired by my intrepid teacher trainees up here in Whistler, who asked me to figure out a chant to the first sutra of the second pada of Patanjali’s yoga sutras. (For those unfamiliar, the Yoga Sutras are a 2,000 year old text with tons of good tidbit on how to make your […]
Feel more. Do less.
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of taking a therapeutics training with Susi Hately Aldous. On the basis of that training, I want to propose a crazy idea. Work less. Rather than working our way into poses that “look right,” how about we invite your bodies into pure movement…and leave it at that? […]
Vinyasa Krama – bring the present into practice
“Vi” = in a special way “nyasa” = to place “krama” = step by step Change is challenging. When confronted with change, it’s easy to get swept up in anxiety, discomfort, depression, or panic. We distract ourselves, or seethe as we create a million contingency plans. We cling to our “creature comforts” – those small […]
The Hard Work of Letting Go – call out to Kali!
Why is it so hard to let go? Of habits, relationships (healthy or toxic), of expectations, of dreams? Even when we know we’re hurting ourselves by hanging on, what drives the compulsion to keep gripping? What do we do when old behavioral patterns no longer serve our life? First of all, don’t beat yourself up. […]
Why Bell Mobility is good for my Yoga
I got disconnected three times. Three times. In a row. “Just hold one moment while we transfer you to confirm,” they’d say sweetly, just before I heard a strange sound. The sound of silence. The vacuum of a disconnected phone line. The sound of my impotent, mediocre frustration growing to a boiling point of irrational, […]