Yoga Practice

Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga provide a scaffolding for the comprehensive practice of yoga. As the third and fourth of Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga, asana (posture practice) and pranayama (breathing practice) create the bridge to the more internal, meditative practices of the fifth through eighth limbs. In the yoga tradition, Hatha Yoga is the combination of posture practice and breathing practices. Linking body positions with breathing creates the “steady and comfortable” or “firm and soft” balance described in Sutra 2.46, one of the three sutras—out of 196 in all—that address asana practice. In physiological terms, the combination of posture...

Gravity is responsible for keeping us from floating off the surface of the Earth. It is also responsible Earth’s orbit around the sun and the moon’s orbit around us. It is partly responsible for the tides. Yes, there are some who get to play around in anti-gravity environments, and there are yogis who reportedly levitate. But these numbers are small. For most of us, gravity is a given. Despite gravity’s inevitability, we often seem to invest a lot of energy into struggling against it. I see it a lot in yoga classes—muscles hugging bones, chests and shoulders heaving upward, all...

If you look at the appendix of Light on Yoga, you’ll see that going upside down is central to BKS Iyengar’s system of asana practice. In many of the listings where Iyengar “prescribes” specific poses to help alleviate conditions of imbalance, Sirsasana (Headstand) and Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand) are the first poses listed. The preponderance of evidence suggests that inverting our bodies is helpful to combatting the negative effects of gravity over time. Because our bodies are 60 percent fluid, in particular, our fluid systems become more efficient when they’re not pooling in our lower extremities. This includes the venous blood, lymph and...

Whenever I ask my students to go get a yoga bolster, the happiness in the room is palpable. They know that yoga bolsters mean they’re going to get to lie down. And knowing my prop shelves are stacked with Hugger Mugger bolsters makes me happy. Hugger Mugger yoga bolsters make me happy because I know I can trust them to support students of all body types. I know that these bolsters won’t bend or collapse when we slant them on blocks. This is not the case with other brands. I sometimes teach workshops and teacher trainings at other studios. While...

If your ideas about yoga come from Instagram, you might want to reconsider. While there are beautiful photos published every day, most of them depict either extreme poses or the most extreme versions of more common poses. Most of the people who practice these poses were born with structures capable of extreme range of motion. So the logic is, they should be practicing in a way that capitalizes on this. Actually, people who are born bendy may not be doing themselves a favor by practicing extreme poses. Yoga asana is about balance. Sutra 2.46 says: “The physical posture should be...

The cervical spine—the section of the spine that goes through the neck—is the most mobile part of the spine. Unlike the other sections, the sacral, lumbar and thoracic regions, the neck is capable of movement in all planes. This means the neck can flex, extend, rotate and bend laterally. No other section of the spine can perform all these movements. The vertebrae in our necks are quite a bit smaller and more delicate than those in the rest of the spine. In addition, when you compare the size of the pelvis, abdomen and thorax to the size of the neck...

Shoulder pain seems unavoidable these days. We spend so much time hunched over keyboards and our other various devices that it’s quite common for our shoulders to take a hit. We’ve all heard the expression about “carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders.” Our shoulders are a place where many of us hold tension, even if we don’t spend our days hunched over devices. Next time you’re in a stressful situation, check in with your shoulders. Are they hunched up around your neck? Are they hunched forward in a protective position? For most of us, these positions are...

I first came to Utah in 1982, planning to stay a couple years. Like so many best-laid plans, my life proceeded to go its own way. What first caused me to forget my intention to leave Utah was the landscape, both the ever-so-accessible alpine beauty of the Wasatch and the otherworldly landscapes in the south. As time passed, the community I’ve come to love solidified my roots here. In the ‘80s, I hiked every single weekend in the spring, summer and fall, and camped a dozen times a year. I especially loved hiking on slickrock and hopping boulders. In my...

The holidays are a mixed bag. On the one hand, they’re fun. We get to turn our focus to reconnecting with friends and family. On the other hand, adding lots of extra commitments into our calendar can create feelings of stress. It's not always easy to fit more commitments into our schedules. Then there’s shopping, wrapping, mailing, etc. All these things can add up to a feeling of being overwhelmed. Yoga—including asana, pranayama and meditation—can help. Here are some ways to use your yoga practice to relieve potential holiday stress. I call it developing holiday presence.   4 Ways to Develop...

More than 25 years ago I decided that I would ingest only foods that would contribute to my health and well-being, and avoid “non-foods” that have no nutritional value. Things like chemical-ridden processed foods and zero-nutrition soft drinks were officially off my food list. I haven’t eaten meat since 1978, and spent about 12 years on a vegan diet before returning to eating occasional eggs and goat or sheep cheese. I eat local, organic and homegrown foods whenever possible and always cook from scratch. Fortunately, I love to cook. There are times when I enjoy eating sweet treats at friends’...