Yoga Philosophy

Yoga first became popular in the U.S. in the 1960s. While I was not privy to the practice back then, several friends did practice during that...

For my first 10 years of yoga teaching, I followed popular alignment orthodoxy. In standing poses such as Trikonasana (Triangle Pose) and Virabhadrasana II (Warrior II...

In 1988, I attended my first silent Insight Meditation retreat. I noticed one thing right off—how incredibly out-of-control my mind is. But as my mind began...

If you engage at all in social media, you’ve probably noticed a pattern. There seems to be permission for reckless abandon in the way we engage...

There’s a lot of debate in the blogging/social media world about what yoga is and is not. Popular yoga is often seen as a sped-up version...

Not long ago, I found a link to a short autobiographical account of B.K.S. Iyengar’s journey into yoga. He began his journey into yoga at age...

I come from a musical family. My parents were both classical singers and my sisters and I all grew up playing piano and other instruments. I...

The yamas and niyamas give us guidance about living our daily lives. But they can also provide a framework for our asana practice and teaching. A...

When I was in college, my roommates and I listened to music non-stop. We studied to Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell and cleaned house to the...

Every living being breathes. This includes all animals—even single-celled ones—and all plant life. Human beings take an average of 23,000 breaths each day. Our breath is,...

Asana, the physical practice, is the most recognizable of the eight limbs of yoga. If you mention “yoga,” most people will automatically picture a person in...

Many years ago, I read an interview with Rajiv and Swati Chanchani in Yoga Rahasya, an Iyengar Yoga publication from India. In the article, they shared...

In a recent post, I wrote about the Eight Limbs of Yoga. The Eight Limbs are a framework for practicing all aspects of the system of...

A few weeks ago, I posted a blog that sketched out a very basic outline of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Of course, the sutras can’t...

What is yoga? A couple weeks ago, I attempted to summarize the different aspects of yoga. But I stated the caveat that yoga is not so...

What is yoga? Good question. And you’re not likely to get a concrete answer. When a philosophy has been around as long as yoga has, perhaps...

Walk into almost any yoga asana class and the first thing you’ll notice is that the overwhelming majority of students are women. For at least some...

Mindfulness for a New Year I want to say at the outset that I’ve never been big on New Year’s resolutions. It’s not that resolving to...