When a “slightly overweight, curvaceous, rounded” woman or man first considers a yoga practice, they pause with concerns. Most are what every other new student asks, “How will I bend like that?” “Do I have to be in shape to take a class?” But what continues in their mind is the reality that their extra girth will be a challenge in even the simplest twist or bend. (more…)

Continuing with our resources for a lasting yoga practice, here are a couple of books considered to be staples for an advancing yoga practice.

In Ojai, California we find Suza Francina and her updated and upcoming release of her book entitled The New Yoga for People Over 50. As a certified Iyengar yoga instructor she has extensive experience working with senior communities as well as in home health care for convalescing people. With 30 years of practice and experience she has transferred that knowledge into several publications ranging from healthy aging to menopause. (more…)

While we’re on the subject of our menfolk–the most common complaint I heard from middle-aged male students coming in to try yoga was lower back pain. (more…)

The focus of my work, in yoga, creatively and academically, has been with women. Having grown up in a household of 5 females, I have always been most acutely aware of the circumstances that girls and women have to contend with in order to survive and thrive.

I can only hope that my work as a teacher, writer and theater artist has helped to alleviate some of the emotional, mental and physical turmoil that still cripples women in our life’s work. (more…)

This week I am attending the national Amercan Academy of Religion (AAR) conference in Washingtion DC. I am swimming in a sea of religious studies scholars – what’s a yoga teacher like me doing in a place like this?

When I began teaching yoga immediately after completing my teacher’s training in 1990, I also began formulating many questions about what and how I was teaching that could not be answered within the yoga community. It required reading multiple translations and interpretations of sacred texts, commentaries, historical analysis and critiques – materials not usually offered in a yoga training program which focuses on the experience of the practice – usually as explained by one guru. (more…)