For the seventh time this year, and over past years, too, I’ve been featured in the media.
Is this because I’m a celebrity yoga teacher? Not at all… Even though one of these media exposures was a full page interview of me in Focus Magazine to promote the upcoming Ekam Yoga Festival.
Most of my renown has happened because my housemates and I have become the darlings of how-to-do-retirement-better media coverage.
Finding the Right BalanceThere’s a problem I face when developing a new workshop: I don’t know exactly how much material to put in. Typically, I get excited and create too much. Fortunately I’m experienced enough to calibrate how much I can teach in a workshop as I go along.Still, I get attached to the sequence of poses I’ve created, to having it flow seamlessly and to being able to include interesting variations.I ran into this too-much-material problem when I was teaching a new workshop called ‘Yoga: A Lifelong Companion’ at The Yoga Shed in Richmond, NSW this last weekend. […]
Every day of the week except Sundays I do a yoga practice in The Shed from 7:30-9 am. You can pretty well set your clock by me.Lately, and in anticipation of a workshop I’m leading this next weekend, I’ve been mixing up the usual practices I do of a morning.Instead of a strict physical practice which I love–standing poses, inversions, backbends, forward bends–I’ve been doing more meditation and pranayama. […]
The first time I went on a meditation retreat, I could not for the life of me imagine how I could find the time for it. Between teaching, running my yoga studio, and doing my own yoga practice, it was never going to happen. Then it dawned on me. I could just take out my diary (this was well before google calendars) and mark out the required days. So, I did. I drew a line through the ten days that the vipassana retreat was scheduled for and made a mental fence around those dates. Subsequently, everything fell into place. […]
I’ve been away for a couple of weeks, visiting family in the U.S. When I came back to Australia, I went on retreat for 8 days.I want to share with you a few things I learned on this hiatus. These are insights that I might even categorise as spiritual practice.Gifts From My FamilySpending time with my family is sometimes the toughest test of my life commitment to be kind and non-reactive. However, in the company of my family, when I reacted in a non-loving way, this is when I got to practice forgiving myself. […]
Sitting at the airport in Los Angeles, my two and a half weeks in the USA is about to come to an end. It’s been intense. I’ve been to the Sonoran desert of Arizona, attended a heartfelt family wedding on Ohio’s Lake Erie, stayed in the Golden Gate Park neighbourhood of San Francisco, enjoyed Napa/Sonoma’s wine country, bathed in the mineral springs of Harbin, and spent a night in the severely bushfire-ravaged region of Lake County.When I began this trip, I was feeling sorely in need of a change, a shake-up of a low winter mood. […]
It’s been a long time, nearly six years; but I’m thrilled to let you know that I will be teaching a yoga workshop in the greater Sydney area on Sunday September 20th.The topic of my day-long workshop is the power of yoga — particularly relating to the practices that support us through all of our lives. The poses and practices that we do in yoga support us now and prepare us for the yoga we do in the future.I’ll be leading two full sessions that include vinyasa flow, inversions, pranayama, meditation, and special needs sequences. […]
I don’t have to tell you it’s winter in Australia. On the east coast we’ve experienced mild weather, then bitter cold, and even snowfall where there isn’t meant to be any. No matter what the winter weather is like, Australians have a habit of fleeing our island continent for tropical paradises as the chilly temperatures bite.In a short time, I’m leaving for a sojourn in the U.S. […]
What are we doing when we practice mindful yoga asanas?The sun was shining this morning, the temperature chilly, but thankfully there was not a hint of a breeze. […]
Over the years, I’ve played with ways of creating practices. The ones I present here are cyclic, i.e., they are based on a week, a month, or the season of the year. They cover every possibility I could come up with. If you happen to think of others, I’d love to hear about them.
These cycles function well for teachers and students. As a teacher, you might use these as sort of ‘coat hangers’ to structure your group classes or one-to-one sessions.
Fitting in Personal Yoga PracticeI had a stimulating conversation with my friend and student, Alexa Nehter last week. We discussed an age-old problem: how do yoga students and teachers fit in a regular yoga practice? We are all so busy! I’m semi-retired, and even though I don’t have a job to go to each morning, I’m too busy, too.Sadly, busy is a cliche. So is the expression, ‘Everyone has the same twenty-four hours in the day.’ While it is undoubtedly true, we have careers, kids, relationships, mortgages, and HOUSEWORK. […]
Let’s not talk about the ‘D’ wordWhen I was growing up, it was the ‘C’ word that was unspeakable. Thankfully, we can now call cancer by its name. Those who are afflicted with cancer don’t have to be ashamed any more of having a disease that is often life-threatening. They can openly seek comfort and support from friends and family.This is not always the case with another serious condition – depression. Those who suffer with depression may feel the stigma of a mental disorder. […]