Stillness, breath, reflection, knowledge, gratitude. These are my working words, the ones that today I am calling upon to deepen my daily practice. Do I repeat them, listen to them, or roll them around in my body through each yoga pose? Am I meditating on them before, after, or during? Or perhaps I am just thinking too much of how to “think” about them?

How do we use meditation in our practice? (more…)

“After a while, this Yoga gives us control over ourselves. It helps cut through those feelings of not knowing who you really are.”
- Pat, Y.O.G.A. for Youth

Our young people today are fearlessly and enthusiastically seeking alternative solutions to their concerns through yoga. The above comment is an example of their willingness to try something new and is outside of the options that are typically available to them.

So why are we seeing a rash of news stories about parents, religious communities or school boards that are trying to keep yoga out of churches and schools? Why are they equating the practice of yoga with religion? (more…)

Just before dusk on a drive through Los Angeles a fierce amber sun hung in the skies that had become overcast with soot and ash. All around us was a dry and thick aroma of settled embers that lay across the cities north and south of us. We drove towards it as it moved into the sea and each of us let out a gasp of reverence. (more…)

Sometimes it takes courage to laugh, to set aside our judgements, and doubts and to just allow ourselves to experience the humor in our lives.

According to Dr. Madan Kataria in Bombay, he has been able to merge the benefits of yoga and laughter into one practice. In an article by Alex Perry, Dr. Kataria was observed in central Bombay at sports area with a group of yoga students expelling rounds of laughter and yoga stretches. Although it may sound intrusive to the average yoga practioner, this movement, according to the article, has now become popular throughout the world in 700 locations with an overwhelming number of them (1,800) located in India. (more…)

The way I learned it, “maya” was the veil of illusions that keep us from the Real. “Real” meaning the knowledge that all is divine and therefore we are divine and because all the “stuff” of the physical, material world, like our houses, our relationships and even our dreams fluctuate, we become distracted away from this deeper knowing.

But maya has many more dimensions. In a sense, we need maya to function and fulfill our lives in this world. (more…)

Since I had to return home before completing a full 10 days of Anusara thought I’d just complete my comments with some follow-up notes — about one of my favorite puzzles in yoga practice- the male authority body (as renown teacher “expert”) instructing female student bodies. (more…)

That’s what the yoga instructor said as he called my name in class, “puff your kidneys!” I am still capable of quipping back in a New York minute – “say WHAT?”

Developing a heightened sense of where your kishkas are may come after many years of yoga practice and study, but that instruction had me puzzled for the rest of the class. It’s not the first time I’ve heard it in an Anusara class either, so I’m guessing it’s part of the language learned by all Anusara instructors. (more…)

A yoga class can be a place where students, especially female students, may experience issues around authority, self-authority, and their bodies. Certainly I have, when stepping into a class and placing myself onto my yoga mat in front of a yoga teacher I do not know, whom, I hope, will know how to work with my limitations. (more…)

Yesterday I was having a casual conversation with a friend about the different schools of yoga. Well, as casual as any conversation can be on this topic with me right now! I started explaining the different approaches and what each school seems to emphasize in the physical postures and he asked, “How do they come up with this? Why would Bikram be all about building strong thighs and Anusara all about standing on your hands?” (more…)

So I get that there is no set yoga sequence in Anusara Yoga. Although they seem to favor the upper body balancers and rotating thighs – somehow – still not clear about which direction we’re spiraling.

The yoga teacher is then responsible for choosing the order of the yoga postures and deciding how long students hold the pose and when to allow rest breaks. So if the teacher has something on his mind, you will be the recipient of it. (more…)