Discovering the Living Body: A Yoga Teacher's Revolutionary Insight on Fascia
What if everything you thought you knew about your body was too static? In a thought-provoking conversation, renowned yoga teacher Paul Grilley challenges one of yoga's most persistent misconceptions: that certain styles of yoga are uniquely suited to working with
Yoga Practice Tips: Why Listening to Your Body Might Not Be Enough
If you practice yoga, you’ve probably heard the entreaty, “Listen to your body.” It’s good, sound advice. When you embark on any physical practice, it’s important to know and respect your body’s limits. Those limits can change over time, of
Pranayama: Expand Your Life Energy
Breathing is the process of moving air into and out of the lungs to facilitate gas exchange with the internal environment, mostly by bringing in oxygen and flushing out carbon dioxide. Pranayama in yoga is the regulation of the breath
Nyasas: Turn Your Body into a Temple
Mudras are specific hand gestures that have symbolic, energetic, and healing qualities. Most mudras are static gestures. But you can also make them dynamic when the actual act of moving into a mudra is infused with symbolism. How to Practice Yoga’s
Yoga for Back Pain: Are Your Tech Devices Ruining Your Posture?
Tech devices are a great blessing of modern life, but increasing evidence shows they can also wreak havoc on your body and lead to serious back pain issues. Physical therapist and yoga teacher Stefanie Foster offers insights into the damaging
The Fascia Connection: Tom Myers on How Postural Habits Get Locked into Our Fascial System
Can our postural habits damage our wellbeing and even health over the long term? In this article, Anatomy Trains author Tom Myers charts how postural habits slowly become lodged in our fascial system and structure. Once this happens, we get
Icicles and Gratitude
"There is a knowing that by purely being, I know how to become." ~ Lana Reed The last day I was at my self-initiated (not so silent) retreat at Springwater Center, I awoke in time to practice yoga in the
Eight Practical Tips to Make Yoga Home Practice Really Happen
In researching my book Evolving Your Yoga: Ten Principles for Enlightened Practice several years ago, I interviewed 25 longtime teachers to find out how their yoga practice has evolved and deepened over time. While the specifics of their answers differed, they
Axial Extension for Better Posture- Learning to Lengthen the Torso in Forward Bends
One of the keys to maintaining an upright posture is not just to "stand up straight" or doing reps to strengthen your back extensors and stretches for tight pecs. Fundamentally, improving posture is something that happens from the inside out.
Judith Hanson Lasater: Keys to Enriching Your Yoga Practice - Understanding the Five Kleshas
Our home yoga practice is the most valuable form for practice says renowned yoga teacher and author Judith Hanson Lasater in this interview. To enrich our practice, it is important to understand the five common obstacles to practice, or the
Struggle with Tight Hamstrings? Take This 60 Second Hamstring Test to See How You Stack Up
Struggling with tight hammies? You are not alone. Tight hamstrings affect a surprising number of people - as many as 7 out of 10 by some research estimates. And unless we regularly stretch our hamstrings, the problem only tends to
Do Tight Hamstrings Hamper Your Yoga Practice? Julie Gudmestad Offers Tips for Happy Hamstrings
Making friends with your hamstrings is key to a rewarding yoga practice. But that is easier said than done. Whether you're a beginning or experienced yoga student, chances are that you've faced off with your hamstrings in one way or
How to Start a Daily Gratitude Practice - 6 Useful Tips
Want to sleep better, enjoy more fulfilling relationships, experience more positive emotions, greater life satisfaction, and lower levels of depression and stress? Introduce a daily gratitude practice. Gratitude has a powerful effect on our health and well-being, research shows. In
Yoga Asana for Hip Mobility, Part 2: Spotlight on Adduction and Abduction
In Part 1 of my hip mobility posts, we took a look at mobilizing the hips in flexion and extension in the sagittal plane. Remember the hips move in several directions. So let’s talk about the next ways that we can
How to Make Your Forward Bends Comfortable and Soothing
I have always known that yoga’s seated forward bends are considered quieting poses, but it wasn’t until I interviewed Shari Ser about baroreceptors several years ago that I discovered that forward bends are quieting for the same reason that inverted poses are