Back when I was just a just a youngster in my Iyengar yoga training, I attended six weeks of classes at the Yoga Institute in Poona, India. People seldom go to study with the Iyengars without the experience being life-changing; there’s so much to learn.
On one occasion, Mr. Iyengar’s son, Prashant, taught us in a general class. We warmed up for about an hour with standing poses, with special attention paid to tadasana (mountain pose). […]
I don’t usually study with other yoga teachers and here’s why: I live hours from any major city centre and tend to stay close home. I like doing my own practice in the Yoga Shed. And, well, okay, I’m a bit of a snob. I want to study with the best when I take time to travel long distance and spend time with a teacher.
Recently, when the opportunity to study with Donna Farhi arose, I leapt at it.
She and I go back. […]
Hey it’s a brand new week. Maybe this is going to be the week when you are finally going to start doing home yoga practice. I know you’ve thought about it. All it’s going to take is getting yourself organised. Here’s a suggestion that’s worked for me and others. Spend a little time at the beginning of the week, say, Sunday evening or Monday morning, and think out what you want to do in your practice over the week. […]
If you know me as a teacher, you probably also know that I am the Prop Queen. It would be a rare class where I taught without the students using props. I find they are beneficial for beginners to advanced students for a variety of reasons, and they work great for me in my personal practice.
I wasn’t always like this. I learned hatha yoga originally like a lot of people do in a community hall with a hard wooden floor, well before the advent of non-skid mats. […]
Source: themotherhuddle.com via Katharine on Pinterest
Part of how we’re wired up as humans is that we are meaning-making machines. And part of how we create meaning in life is identifying with religion, God or a Higher Power.
Me, I avoid using the word spiritual or divine to describe myself. I guess I subscribe to the idea that if someone speaks of him/herself in that way that they are big-noting** themselves. […]
I’d be hard-pressed to tell you what I mean by the term spiritual. Maybe I mean soulful. Maybe I mean the stuff in my life that invisible but vital to my happiness. In defining the word, a distinction is often made between physical, material things and things of the spirit. That is such a broad umbrella that it’s almost impossible to hold it up. More confusion occurs when individuals talk about how they understand what spirit or spirituality is, and there is also such a wide range of experience we humans have. […]
My desk is covered with books. It looks disorganised but I can put my finger on any one of them in a moment. The six sutra scholars who have been sitting on the desk advising me for the last seven weeks have been joined now by Donna Farhi and Godfrey Devereux. They are making special appearances for today’s post.
Why? Because these authors are so accessible.
Are you an action person? Well, then Chapter Two of Patanjali’s Sutra is for you.
Yogis travel the yoga path through action (kriya in Sanskrit). […]
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How does a person who is completely body-oriented take on the intellectual study that is Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra? Is it in any way possible for me to comprehend such abstract concepts as karma, kaivalya, kundalini, or kushalata?Today, in my search for meaning in Sri Patanjali’s I-50 aphorism, I am left scratching my head, wondering what to write.
Yes and no is the answer, or, as T.K.V. […]
I jokingly call myself the Prop Queen. Partly I started using these yoga tools because my teacher did. […]
Recently I’ve become enamoured of a social media site called Pinterest. It does two things for me: 1) connects me with other lovers of images, and also (2) with lots of interesting, striking images. When I look at the Pinterest section devoted to yoga images, I see a majority of perfect bodies doing perfect poses. The practitioners’ postures are truly works of art. […]
Does one student equal a yoga class?
I know it’s sort of a silly question, but it’s one beginning teachers commonly face for many reasons.
One problem is that newbie yoga teachers are often given timeslots that are hard to fill, so they are unlikely to generate big attendances. Or, the new teacher is standing in for a more popular teacher, and then as the weeks go by, they watch class sizes dwindle. Or, the small class numbers and lack of experience erode confidence and, as a result, one’s teaching ability is shaken. […]