Standing poses give fairly immediate feedback about how a student is travelling at any given time. Is the sense of balance shaky? Are the legs dull? Is the mind overactive? Because the poses make one feel more open and free in the body straightaway, the student is more likely to want to persevere in practising yoga.
evolve wellness via pinterest
Stretching the sides of your body, particularly hips, waist, rib cage, shoulder blades and arms, has benefits for your inner and outer body. In almost any yoga workout, you’ll find simple poses like triangle pose (trikonasana) or side flank stretch (parsvakonasana) enjoyable just because they open up the sides of your body so well.
I’ve heard the notion that the sides of our bodies are lonely parts. I get that. […]
via pinterest
I’ve recently heard of a few people who have suffered falls related to various medical conditions: vision impairment, alzheimer’s, faints, and cancer.
While younger people might pick themselves up, dust themselves off and move on, falling can lead to more serious problems in the aged population. Some will suffer bone fractures and breaks but also the gradual diminution of confidence. This may lead to loss of independence and perhaps the eventual need to move into an aged care facility.
Yoga is often touted as beneficial for improving the sense of balance. […]
Benefits:
Stretches your shoulders and improves the flexibility of your upper back.
Calms the brain and nervous system
Improves digestion ans massages and stimulates the thyroid and parathyroid glands.
Flushes mucous from your lungs.
Helps relieve the symptoms of menopause.
Here’s a youtube video to help you find your way into the pose (easier than you think):
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Sirsasana is known to be a beneficial posture for dozens of reasons. One of them is that it’s a mood enhancer for many people: it can make you feel happy and uplifted. But not everyone can do it with ease.
A few years ago a student who attended one-to-one sessions learned to do the above version of headstand. Until he found a supported way of doing the pose, he couldn’t do it at all because of his excessive weight. […]
The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Since being on an extended overseas holiday, I’ve been contradicting Emerson’s opinion of the civilized person. Rather, I’ve been experiencing what author and philosophy professor Frederic Gros calls ‘a life scrubbed bare’ and an affirmation of the simple life: walking.
Certain cities of the world are made for walking. I’ve just spent three days in one of them, Old Quebec. […]
Headstand: Weddings, Anniversaries, Birthdays… Anything
The above drawing was done by Soo Balbi on the occasion of our wedding in 1994. I like the message that the card proclaims: this is a non-conformist marriage. It also says that yoga is an important part of Daniel and Eve’s lives, and it can also be done anywhere.
A few years ago I created the YogaAnywhere practice cards. My mission was to encourage people to do yoga wherever and whenever they wanted. ‘The more personal practice the better’, I thought. […]
My way or the highway
The way I learned yoga was according to strict rules. […]
I’d like to invite you to two workshops with me on Sunday March 22nd from 10am to 3:30pm.
There are several places left in this full day devoted to a close look at what is needed to do inverted yoga poses with ease.
The first one is suitable for beginners, but yoga teachers might want to attend to learn a few new tricks. […]
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.
Recently I taught an ‘intensive’ week at the Yoga Shed. I based my teaching on the abstract concept of Beauty. I wove in poses that I considered appropriate to the theme and developed a sequence for each day. The first day we followed a sequence of standing poses. The aim was to experience the beauty of being grounded.
What’s not to praise?Legs up the wall is a favourite with many people because it’s a pose that’s guaranteed to sort you out. With a minimum investment of energy, the pose will return you maximum benefits. It is restorative, regenerative and reviving.Even non-yogis seem to find their way to this pose. I’ve seen bushwalkers take a break, lie down and put their legs up a tree. […]
