Teaching Yoga: Keeping a Beginner’s Mind Last weekend I guest taught for a local yoga teacher training. In the 300-hour training, I gave a talk on Iyengar Yoga and offered thoughts and...
Stretching Fascia: Advocating Slow, Gentle Yoga Practice More than Muscles In yoga classes, we hear and talk a lot about muscles. Which muscles are stretching or contracting in a certain pose, how to...
The ACLU: Fighting for Freedom In 1920, a committee of idealists (including Helen Keller) decided to start an organization. They named it the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and they had...
Yoga 101: Dharana – The 6th Limb 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...
What is Normal Range of Motion? Range of Motion is Different For Everyone Have you ever wanted to get into an intermediate or advanced yoga class and been told that you had...
Are Yoga and Western Medicine Incompatible? A few years ago, a yoga teacher posted a blog about the evils of Western medicine and the healing powers of yoga. I’m in complete agreement...
Set Up Your Home Yoga Space As winter nears, it’s natural to hunker down. This year is unique in that for many of us, doing anything other than hunkering down isn’t an...
Slowing Down: The Power of Pausing Years ago I took a vacation to Baja, where some friends had relocated. One morning when the beach was completely deserted, I decided to take a...
Cultivating Appreciation – Knowing You Have No Toothache A while back some nasty bacteria set up camp around my lower right wisdom tooth. The sensation was one I’d never felt before. Swollen gum tissue...
Beware the Yoga Voice What is a Yoga Voice and How is it Different From Your Authentic Voice? For almost three decades, the outgoing message on my home voice mail...
What is Body Positive Yoga? “It is through the body that everything comes to the mind. It is through and with your body that you have to reach realization of being...
Yoga 101 – Saucha 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...
Finding Balance This Autumn with Ayurveda Ayurveda looks at health and balance as a dynamic, ever-changing set of qualities that can either increase or decrease with our environment, foods and behaviors. These...
Yoga Teaching: Beginner’s Mind One of the most frequent questions students ask in my classes is, “What should I be feeling in this position?” I always give a non-answer to...
Mindful Yoga for Changing Times 2020 is the “gift” that keeps on giving. It started with the rise of COVID in March. Even if you have stayed healthy, chances are the...
How Do You Find a Yoga Mentor? Until the 20th century, yoga—the whole system—was always taught one on one. An aspiring yogi studied with their yoga mentor often for decades. Over the years,...
Yoga 101: Pratyahara – The 5th Limb 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...
Alignment vs. Continuity in Yoga My 35-plus-year yoga practice is rooted in the Iyengar system. For decades, I studied with Iyengar teachers, almost exclusively. The non-Iyengar teachers I’ve gravitated to have...