Every yoga practice must have purpose, order and meaning
Yoga sequencing is a strategy of arranging different elements of yoga practice into a logical integrated whole; it is an essential part of any yoga practice design. Here we explore some of the fundamental principles of yoga sequencing to maximize the effect of the practice and minimize the risk.
Since most mudras are simple hand gestures, they are pretty easy to integrate into one’s yoga practice. What we try to avoid is making a mudra an afterthought, something that[…]
I was educated as a school teacher, and in the past I had written my fair share of lesson plans that usually started with “By the end of the class[…]
With 2016 soon coming to a close, let’s take a moment to look back at the ground that we’ve covered. This year we focused on three major topics: axial extension[…]
One of my older yoga students gets mildly irritated every time she hears a yoga teacher say: “Listen to your body and don’t do anything that doesn’t feel right”. She[…]
One of the readers commented on the last week’s post: “Chair yoga is not passive stretching – it’s challenging, strengthening, spiritual, and fun! “ This is an excellent description of[…]
I remember hating Latin in college. Unfortunately, it was required for my degree, so I had to endure. For example, translating a Latin sentence takes a lot of work because[…]
A number of years ago a friend of mine went to a new yoga class. At one point they did a Camel pose and my friend couldn’t quite reach her[…]
A few months ago one of the teachers in my yoga teachers Facebook group posed a question: would it be a good idea to go straight from Camel pose to[…]
Most yoga teachers are aware of the idea of compensation (pratikriya, which literally means counteracting). It basically means that in the course of the practice we challenge the body, breath,[…]
When I was on vacation few weeks ago, I did my first SUP yoga session (yoga on a stand up paddle board). Practicing yoga to the gentle rhythm of the[…]
For the past couple of weeks we’ve been talking about Forward bends and how to use them to stretch the posterior (back) structures of the body (along the Superficial Back[…]
When I get new students with some experience in yoga, I like to ask them: What is this pose for? What are you trying to accomplish here? And I am[…]
Let me tell you a secret – many claims that yoga teachers and yoga publications make about benefits of yoga poses are not true. I know, I know, this is[…]
According to viniyoga tradition, our aging process is represented by the movement of the sun throughout the day. Sunrise represents childhood, midday represents adult life, and sunset represents old age.[…]
A fellow yoga teacher confided in me once: “I had quite a scare in my class yesterday – one of my students had dislocated a shoulder. Luckily, there was a[…]
If you google “neck stretches” or “neck stretching” you will get a number of variations of the following two options: Clearly, Option 2 is not the kind of stretching we[…]
Not long ago an acquaintance of mine said to me: “I saw a picture of this cool pose on line and I tried it – man, my back hurt afterwards!”[…]
That is a funny thing about a yoga practice – it doesn’t work if you don’t do it. 🙂 Yes, we are all busy and making time for a 90-minute[…]
Leslie Kaminoff brings up an excellent point in his video: yoga sequencing is not the same as choreography. In choreography the goal is artistic expression and choices are dictated by[…]
Many yoga teachers have had an experience of a student stepping into a class and immediately plopping up into a Shoulderstand (or a Headstand, which is even riskier). It always[…]
