If you love yoga and have thought about enrolling in a training so you could dive deeper into this discipline that has infinite depth, just do it.
Yoga teaching
Sequences for "Intensive" Week: Day 6
The purpose of this particular sequence is to soothe and quiet, and the props that are used help keep one’s brain passive so you don’t overwork. The trick is to discover how to work from your “inner body” by tuning in, listening to your breath, and surrendering to each posture.
Sequences for "Intensive" Week: Day 5
I remember hearing a well-known yoga teacher say, “If you can do forward bends easily, you probably can’t do backbends; if you can do backbends easily, you probably can’t do forward bends; and, if you can do both easily, you probably will have difficulty with pranayama.”
Well, usually we do have our strong suit. Forward bends were never mine, but over the years I guess I’ve surrendered myself to them more. […]
Sequence for "Intensive" Week: Day 4
The great thing about doing abdominal exercises is, if they are done properly and pitched to the right level, they make you feel fabulous.
Sequences for "Intensive" Week: Day 1
Standing poses, and especially the ones which require physical balance, are symbols for stability and firm foundations.
Now I've Done It – I'm a Yoga Entrepreneur
I didn’t mean to. From Nov. 2009, I really intended to be just a semi-retired yoga teacher in my rural bailiwick. But that wasn’t meant to be. I had so much momentum from 30 years of teaching in a major city that it wasn’t likely I’d disappear off the map. In fact, I had a great 2011 with invitations from various associations, schools and individuals to teach yoga. Writing for and being interviewed by the Australian Yoga magazines, plus almost daily posting on this blog , kept me busy, too. […]
Important Yoga Practice No. 4: Tenacity
Who knows how long it takes to not only be a good yoga teacher but to be yoga?
Important Yoga Practice No. 2: If You Can't Say Anything Nice….
I’m sorry to say that I love gossip. I know that I’m not alone in this. I’ve been out to coffee after yoga class too many times and shared tittle-tattle-laced-caffeine with colleagues and students. Gossip can range from “what’s the buzz?” to outright scandal. It’s fascinating to me to hear what other yoga teachers are up to and how their schools are going. […]
Yoga Fellowship
After spending yesterday evening and part of today with my yoga friend Nick, I was reminded of what a blessing our yoga friendships are.
As a yoga teacher or student, you may have had the experience of meeting extraordinary people through the vehicle of yoga. Many of my best friends are people I’ve met through yoga. […]
A Dog Pose a Day Keeps the Chiro at Bay
Tonight I really wanted to write about one of the most important poses in the asana lexicon, Adho Mukha Svanasana – Downward-facing Dog Pose. But I also wanted to acknowledge the excitement in the air with the near passing of 2011.
So, I think I can combine the two with a little story of a New Year’s Eve dinner I had with an old beau years ago in the Sydney Opera House district. We were dining early, dressed in party gear, enjoying the ambience of an elegant restaurant. […]
Head to Heels Stretch – Paschimottanasana
Forward bends can be the bane of some yogis lives, especially if you are in a class and you see supple-bodied people seemingly fall into these sorts of poses with the utmost ease.
In my book, Teach Yourself Yoga, I talk about how my difficulties with forward bends eventually helped me understand what yoga is about:
When I started yoga, I experienced great waves of frustration and sadness, whenever I performed a sequence of the seated forward bends. Sometimes I would finish a session crying. No one had explained to me that emotional discomfort could arise while doing yoga. […]
Legs Up the Wall is Heaven Sent
I was trying to remember when Viparita Karani, colloquially known as legs-up-the-wall, first burst onto the scene. […]
Upside-Down Bow – Arcing the Spine in Urdhva Dhanurasana
Symmetry in action, Urdhva Dhanurasana is a challenging pose for most yogis. If we could only get the backbend arc to be even from the top of the spine to the tip, then the experience would be pleasurable and gratifying. Anything less, we feel heavy, pinched and sometimes defeated. Like many adults, by the time I came to do yoga, it had been many years since I’d done backbends. The first ones I attempted in a yoga class made me feel exhilarated. My teacher was a hard task master. We students did 25 Urdhva Dhanurasanas, followed by 10 “easies”. […]
Stomaching the Holidays with Supta Virasana
Supta Virasana is a terrific stomach stretcher. Just what I needed today after experiencing the Big Xmas Day Indulgence, followed by the Big Boxing Day Seafood Extravaganza. My stomach was a tight as a drum head in this morning’s practice, and I didn’t even know it until I did the pose.
Stomachs are special organs and need to be well-catered for. Think of all the great expressions that relate to this organ: butterflies in the stomach, gut feelings, armies marching on their stomachs. We who are health-oriented know that stomachs need to be well-exercised, too. […]
Ardha Chandrasana
A friend and colleague of mine said that the standing pose Ardha Chandrasana went from being a nasty pose to a nice pose for him when he finally mastered it. As postures go, it will test your balance and equanimity to the hilt. However, once you meet the challenge, it’s going to be a lifelong friend.
When I was struggling with hip arthritis, Ardha Chandrasana was the pose that could realign my femur in its socket when it went out of position. […]
Rotating, Revolving and Reclining – All in One Pose
Parivrtta Janu Sirsasana is balletically beautiful, in my view. I love the way movement into the pose takes me into unfamiliar territory. Think about it. How often in the course of a day or even a week would you rotate your spine, and after having done that, then revolve around that axis and bend laterally. The complexity of the pose means it can’t be done perfunctorily. Its path is always going to be uncharted.
The drawing above shows an advanced version. […]
The Meaning of Trikonasana
An avid reader of Yoga Suits Her posts has made this request:
I’d be interested in a series about the poses, particularly the better known ones. Not about how to do them and not about how to do them better or any details, but what they mean to you, what they seem to represent and how they relate to your life.
So, in the 12 days leading up to 2012, I’m going to look at the meaning, intention and implications of some poses we all do regularly and give them their due.
Trikonasana jumps out at me. […]
Light On the Acharya's Book
In 1976 I was shown a book by my then yoga teacher that had photos of a man doing such extreme poses that they almost turned me off taking up this method. Indeed, it took me three years to get myself along to a class taught by a senior Iyengar teacher, and then I got hooked for many years.
I’m a very slow learner, and it’s taken me years to get back to reading B.K.S. Iyengar’s ground-breaking tome, Light on Yoga. […]
Feedback
The more resilient we are in ourselves, the easier it is to take feedback.
When I was first teaching (1980), I lacked confidence and instead of being humble about that, I adopted an air of bravado and carried on. I didn’t really ever solicit feedback about my teaching because I feared I might be told something negative.
In retrospect, I think I could have grown more quickly in my teaching skills had I not been afraid of criticism. […]
Finding Your Teaching Voice
Newish yoga teachers worry about whether they are doing a good enough job in their early days of teaching. This is perfectly natural and, if anxiety levels are not too high, their concern may contribute to making their best effort possible.
Part of the making of a good teacher is finding one’s own voice. We tend to imitate our teachers because we need role models; we copy mannerisms, words, and technique. […]