Jul 15, 2017 | Climate, Restorative, Yoga practices |
(Everyone’s talkin’ ’bout it: the USA summer heatwave. I’m experiencing some blistering heat in Tucson, Arizona at the moment. I thought it would be a kindly gesture to my compatriots to republish this hot weather yoga post. It was generated by...
Apr 10, 2017 | Uncategorized |
I don’t pretend to be enlightened in any shape or form. The fact that I am a yoga teacher doesn’t mean I am immune to frailties and suffering. In fact, I may be more sensitive to them. I end up paying attention to things somebody else might sweep under the...
Jan 23, 2017 | Climate, Restorative |
Regarding yoga practice, when the temperature is hot in the extreme, do you go to ground? I’ve learned that you don’t necessarily need to skip your yoga practice. Just do cool yoga. In Australia now, we are experiencing a summer where the atmosphere is...
Jan 16, 2017 | Yoga Teacher Training |
Decision time: yes or no? This is the exciting time of year when you might be considering learning something new. Cuban dancing, contract bridge, an on-line undergraduate course…. Or, you may have been thinking about deepening your understanding of a subject...
Dec 25, 2016 | Restorative, Stomach Stretches |
Supta Virasana: Your Stomach’s Friend Supta Virasana, reclining Hero Pose, is just what I need today after experiencing the Big Xmas Lunch Indulgence. No doubt it will be followed by the Big Boxing Day Seafood Extravaganza. And then, a few days of clearing our...
Nov 28, 2016 | Menstruation, Yoga Sequences |
Yoga for Menstruation Fosters Well-Being There’s a theory that yoga students fall into an age bracket that is between ten years older or younger than their teacher. I’m sure that this happens because the students want to share life experiences common to...
Jan 18, 2016 | Families of Poses, Standing Poses |
I often think about the beauty of yoga practice, the many ways that doing it enhances my life. So, for the recent yoga ‘intensive’ week at the Yoga Shed, I based my teaching on the abstract concept of Beauty. I wove in poses that I considered appropriate...
Nov 30, 2015 | Climate, Restorative, Yoga practices |
In the heat, keep your brain cool One of the definitions of the word ‘flop’ is to fail at an endeavour. Another meaning for the word is to crumble or collapse. Flop-asanas are not poses that you do and then you fail; nor are they done simple by flopping...
Nov 9, 2015 | Community, Yoga practices, Yoga Retreats |
There’s a lot of controversy in the yoga world about the quality of yoga teacher trainings right now. It was inevitable. The explosion in the popularity of yoga has meant that not only do more people want to do yoga but more want to teach it. So, we see the...
Nov 23, 2014 | Yoga practices |
Regarding your yoga practice, when temperatures start rising, do you go to ground? I’ve learned that you don’t necessarily need to skip your yoga practice. In Aussieland, we are experiencing a summer where the atmosphere is heavy with humidity and heat....
Sep 15, 2013 | Dhyana, Mindfulness Meditation, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Wisdom, Yoga practices, Yoga teaching |
via pinterest Have you ever notice how we humans get hypnotised by time. As we mature into being adults, it’s as though we develop an internal clock, something like an invisible heart pacemaker. For instance, when I go for a 30 minute beach walk, I know pretty...
Apr 17, 2013 | Healing, Health, Philosophy, Wisdom, Yoga practices, Yoga teaching , Yoga Therapy |
In this morning’s yoga class there were six students: one with a pinched neck nerve, one with a strained rotator cuff, one with dodgy knees, one with an arthritic ankle and elbow tendonitis, one with a sore back, and one ‘normal’ (at least for the...
Sep 18, 2012 | Philosophy, Wisdom, Yoga practices, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali |
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...
Sep 14, 2012 | Philosophy, Wisdom, Yoga practices, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali |
Source: google.ca via Liliana on Pinterest There are yoga concepts which people gravitate to more than others in the same way that we like certain star signs more than others, or colours, or authors. The notion of santosa is one of these. Who wouldn’t be...
Sep 10, 2012 | Health, Philosophy, Pleasure, Wisdom, Yoga practices, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali |
Source: fuckyeahyoga.tumblr.com via Heidi on Pinterest The ancient sage Patanjali comments on the topic of sexual energy in Sutra II:38, and his writing has been variously interpreted to recommend abstinence (Brahmacharya) – but also, moderation or continence....
Aug 27, 2012 | Health, Philosophy, Wisdom, Yoga practices, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali |
It’s diet time again in our household. If you knew me well, you’d know I don’t need to diet to lose weight, as my husband Daniel and my housemate Rick are attempting to do. However, we have just come through a week-long period of my step-son’s...
Jul 16, 2012 | Wisdom, Yoga practices, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali |
Source: crystalized-bliss.tumblr.com via Tina on Pinterest One of the main things that gets me out to the Yoga Shed early each morning is the fact that doing practice helps soothe my mind. The mental benefits of practice never interested me in the beginning. I...
Jul 10, 2012 | Wisdom, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali |
Source: Uploaded by user via txell on Pinterest 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,...
Jun 20, 2012 | Philosophy, Yoga practices, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Yoga teaching |
Sometimes I feel left behind. Someone will ask me if I know so-and-so yoga teacher and more often than not these days I have to say ‘no’. It doesn’t help if I say, ‘Well, I know the old yoga teachers.” Some of the newer kids on the block...
Jun 1, 2012 | Yoga practices, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Yoga teaching , Yoga Therapy, YogaAnywhere |
The air this morning was clean, fresh and cool from last night’s gentle showers. A good time, I thought for practising pranayama. I thought of another goal when I went out to the Yoga Shed to practice. I wanted to incorporate the poses that I will teach in one...
May 31, 2012 | Yoga practices, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Yoga teaching |
A strange thing happened this morning, a disturbing thing for me. Yesterday we had a house guest who was travelling north to Queensland and wanted accommodation overnight. After her arrival, we shared a meal, chatted, and then I set her up in a comfy bed. I suggested...
May 29, 2012 | Yoga practices, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Yoga teaching |
I’m sometimes embarrassed to say that I do weights workouts a couple of times a week. I guess I perceive that, in the yoga world, the tools of the practice are meant to cater to the care and keeping of our body/minds on every level. We don’t necessarily...
May 2, 2012 | Wisdom, Yoga practices, Yoga teaching |
I’ve been on a gentle roller coaster ride. Early in the morning, I cleaned the Yoga Shed and it sparkled with sunny energy. Then, I did my yoga practice in the shimmering space. I don’t know why it happened; I just got caught in the ruminating jaws of my...
Apr 20, 2012 | Yoga practices |
The sun was shining this morning, the temperature balmy, and not a skerrick of a breeze – a respite from the hard rain we’ve had over the last few days. In the Yoga Shed, I felt inspired to do surya namaskar and included all the standing poses I could...
Jan 11, 2012 | Wisdom, Yoga practices, Yoga Sequences |
I’ve never done a Power Yoga class even though one of the most popular expressions of this style is home-grown in Australia. Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga and Power Yoga have a well-deserved reputation of being physically demanding. There’s an emphasis on strong...
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Sep 24, 2011 | Healing, Philosophy, Wisdom, Yoga practices |
Anyone who regularly reads “Yoga Suits Her” will know that I speak glowingly about my life in the beautiful surroundings of Mitchells Island.You can also read the story of the small, intentional community we’ve set up here.) Usually I’m a...
Jan 5, 2011 | Gardening, Healing, Nature, Pleasure |
Lots of people ask me what the best thing is about having moved to the country. Maybe they are trying to build a case for doing the same? Every time I get this question, I make it up. I don’t have a pat answer. I also don’t remember what I said the last...
Dec 24, 2010 | Wisdom |
Loosely speaking, I do celebrate Christmas. But, to be honest with you, I don’t believe in Christ. Notwithstanding, the birth of Christ is a great story – just the very idea that a child could be born unto a virgin, for one thing. And then the image of...
Dec 8, 2010 | The World at Large |
Recently I’ve been in the throes of a new writing project. I was swept along in the early days by enthusiasm and euphoria. But today I noticed that I have a mountain of work ahead of me, and I started to procrastinate and figuratively shuffle papers. A decade...
Dec 3, 2010 | Healing, Health, Hip Surgery, Wisdom, Yoga practices |
I stumbled out to the Yoga Shed this morning having had fewer hours sleep than I wanted. The reason? I was up late racing to finish “Nomad”, this month’s selection of our book club, which was scheduled to meet this afternoon. I have to admit I...
Nov 21, 2010 | Healing, Humour, Yoga practices |
Last night I went to a celebration. A friend had just successfully completed a property settlement on the house she and her daughter live in, all part of the process of her husband becoming her “ex”. She was staging a bonfire-lighting and had recommended...
Oct 29, 2010 | Gardening, Nature, Pleasure, Yoga practices |
Ever since returning from the U.S. last week, I’ve been happily ensconced in the Yoga Shed each morning around 6:30. My body is remembering the grooves it used to slip into with ease before holidays and even before major surgery through up barriers to progress....
Oct 3, 2010 | Nature |
Nestled among four mountain ranges, Tucson Arizona is beloved to me as I went to high school and university way back when. I formed my tastes for the desert, country and western music and mouth-watering Mexican food here. I misspent part of my younger years drinking...
Aug 16, 2010 | Health, Nature, Yoga practices, Yoga teaching |
…no. If anything my cold is worse (mucous, hard to write that without the “yuk”) and now something else is happening, a sort of southerly movement of scratchiness down into my chest. I found myself apologising to Daniel this morning for my libido...
Mar 31, 2010 | The Life we Lead |
Incense and oriental bells are time-honoured instruments to nudge us back into the present if our minds have gone elsewhere. Meditators know that if they don’t have a strong focus they will drift, probably often. An even more powerful device for making us aware...
Mar 5, 2010 | Healing, Hip Surgery, Yoga practices, Yoga teaching , Yoga Therapy |
These are terms that a keen student or teacher might run across with increasing frequency these days. They represent a specialised area of yoga that offers a holistic approach to treating chronic or acute ailments. What sort of treatment? A range of approaches:...
Jan 27, 2010 | Yoga practices |
I was practising yoga out in the Shed this morning with my friend and housemate Heather. What ecstasy to have our own yoga studio a few steps from the house! Pretty much we just roll out of bed and onto the mat, more often than not still in pyjamas. On some mornings,...
Jan 12, 2010 | Yoga practices |
This afternoon things really hotted up at Scotts Road, Mitchells Island. 35 degrees, brains coddling and bodies steaming. A visit to the local beach is a often a reliably good solution, but we’d already done that earlier in the day. A siesta is, of course,...
Jan 1, 2010 | Yoga practices |
A very long time ago, 25 years to be exact, I started to personal yoga practice, and pretty much since then, I’ve kept it up. My zest for it has ebbed and flowed along the way – that’s only natural – but I’m very grateful to have made...
