Today I visited and participated in a Satyananda style class led by the director of Yoga Directions in Taree, Peppa. The dreads-coifed Peppa is something of a local household word – that is, if the conversations in your home run to yoga.
The 15 or so attendees in this morning’s session were all females, ranging in age from upper 20’s to upper 60’s. […]
I was just heading to bed, my body not quite knowing what the “real” time is since we have just gone off daylight savings last night.
Of course, I know the real time. The clocks have been set back. […]
One of the things that you just have to surrender to when you move to the country is travelling huge distances. (Other things to let go of: seeing art house films near-by and having interesting eateries to choose among. The solution – subscribe to Netflix and eat at home!)
When I lived in Sydney, it took me 30 min. at peak hour to travel from Mosman to Crows Nest, a distance of 5.5 km. It takes me about 10 min. […]
I wanted to share a couple of items relating to our YogaAnywhere practice cards.
First off, here’s a testimonial from a happy customer/practitioner:
Dear Eve
I just wanted to let you know I have received your YogaAnywhere cards and have been using the Managing Back Pain consistently over the last week with some real benefit. Thank you. […]
A yoga teacher who is a reader of “Yoga Suits Her” asked a very good question regarding progressing beginner-ish student through their postures when they are challenged by injuries or other restrictions.
Say, for instance, the pose you ultimately wanted to teach to students or learn yourself is the backbend Urdhva Dhanurasana (pictured above), you would start by understanding what sort of flexibility or strength is required of you. […]
Anybody in the education game should know about ways of learning. They should also know their preferred way.
These styles of learning can roughly be presented in three categories: auditory, visual and kinaesthetic.
Sometimes the styles overlap. It’s possible to be an auditory/visual learner, or any other combination.
As good yogis we are meant to practice the precepts set forth by Patanjali in the Yama and Niyama. One of the “thou shalts” that I needed to work with today is called Aparigraha – the practice of non-greed.
I’ll just say that I fall from yoga grace not infrequently. When I do, I try to remember two things.
1. The reason it’s called yoga practice is because I’m still working on it.
2. […]
Thursday night I attend my community choir. It makes me happy to go along and sing with a whole group of people who enjoy joining together in harmonies.
The dedicated choir director, Telly, lets me lead some yoga stretches at the beginning of the 1.5 hr. session, so the group follows along as I demonstrate and instruct.
I think about what will prepare us best for singing, so we do stretches that open up the lungs, loosen the rib cage and release tension from shoulders. […]
Sometimes on our communal property we have big jobs to do…like this one today. The excavator dug out a long swale with the turf left thrown up on the side for us to unroll and replace it. Simple but backbreaking work, made for stocky and stalwart labourers, not for sexagenarians whose exercise mainly consists of clicking away at keyboards. We survived. Heather and Rick came to yoga class tonight, not needing standing poses, but rather inversions and restorative poses. Fortunately I have those in my teacher’s tool box and they were utilised. […]
The asanas can be grouped into families: standing poses, seated poses, abdominals, forward & backward bends, inversions, restorative poses. And, finer tuning might include: lateral forward bends, standing forward bends, passive backbends, prepatory poses, and so on. It’s certainly handy to have a coat hanger to help organise the huge miscellany of yoga postures. The style of yoga called Iyengar, is often taught in a monthly schedule where week one emphases standing poses, week two, forward bends, week three backbends, week four inversions/pranayama/restorative. Standing poses are a stand-out group among the clans of asanas because of their all-round utility. […]
Oh my, it’s been hot here! This extreme humidity feels like it stacks on tons of degrees to the temperature.
I tell the yoga students who venture out on sultry days that they get extra yoga merit points in heaven for attending class when our brains are feeling like they’re simmering in their juices.
Here’s 5 Tips on What to Teach…when it’s 30 plus and 90% humidity.
1. Chest openers of any passive variety – You can’t go wrong with something that promotes breathing when the lungs are approaching pneumatic apathy, block pose, for instance:
2. […]
I’d like to give a plug to the very deserving work of Yoga Australia, and encourage you to meet an extraordinary person who will be presenting YA’s conference in April.
Yoga Australia, formerly the Yoga Teachers Association of Australia, has done amazing work in this country to create a high standard of teaching for experienced and new teachers’ compliance. […]
There’s nothing as energising as hanging out with people who are passionate about what they do in life. Many yogis who are drawn to deepen their involvement with yoga decide to do teacher training and then become even more enthusiastic about this age-old discipline. Would that the love affair could last forever, but sometimes the original passion pales, for various reasons: it’s hard to make a living, the physical work is too hard, self-doubts arise. Something else can happen. A yoga teacher can get jaded after some years and, as a result, her teaching becomes dull. […]
In teaching a class today, one of the students got muddled between the right and left side of a pose. Years ago I worked out a little joke to correct this problem: I’d just say, “Try the other left side.”
Words are vital in communication, and especially so as a yoga teacher. […]
Have you done workshops, been on retreats, or attended “intensives” where you received a real boost for a short time…then lost the focus or inspiration you received? Soon, it’s business as usual, and you’re hanging out for the next gee-up, but maybe it’s not going to happen again for another six or 12 months.
I had this concern about the Off the Mat, Into the World weekend I did earlier this month. We 26 participants were very enthusiastic and connected with each other at the end of just 2 days. […]
We’ve had big rain storms this week on Mitchells Island, but there’s a much bigger storm going on out in the yoga world.
The brouhaha seems to stem from the December 2011 article in the N.Y.Times discussing how yoga might be responsible for injuring practitioners. The link to the article has been sent ’round the world thousands of times on the Internet, along with responses, counter-arguments, blog posts, and YouTube clips. […]
Over the years, I’ve seen that the people who get most out of yoga are the ones who take on the challenge of doing home practice. A teacher worth her salt is the one who encourages her students to do a little practice at home.
I feel hugely fortunate to have had nearly 20 years of partnership from my husband Daniel in my journey along the yoga path. Perhaps some of the yogis out there have that sort of sentiment regarding their spouses.
Daniel doesn’t in any shape or form consider himself a yogi, although he has been practising the discipline with me for these last two decades. […]
I was very privileged, to participate with 30 other individuals, in the inaugural weekend workshop of Off the Mat, Into the World.
I drove down from our rural paradise on Mitchells Island with the intention expanding my yoga community and discovered that the course delivered that goal and so much more.
The experienced, professional course leaders came over from New Zealand to introduce the work of the organisation to Australia. […]
It may be for you a different kind of stretch to learn the Sanskrit names of poses, but it is a worthy use of your time and brain power.