“Is Ashtanga Yoga Hard?” I am asked this question often and it’s asked a most common internet search. Well, as always, it depends on what we mean by hard. For, all styles of yoga are simply a tool to build awareness in the end. The question then, is how we approach this tool in order …
The trouble is, from every angle in the modern-world these days we are given to believe that more is, indeed, always, more. We have been encouraged to think that value in life can only be found as to degree. Whether this is in the amount we can accumulate or the visible amount we can seem …
Quality Over Quantity in Practice – Less is More Read More »
Developing a home yoga practice can feel daunting but it does not need to be so. The Mysore style of Ashtanga self-practice can however, be a real challenge to some. Developing this style of home yoga practice demands a personal level of commitment quite unique in the modern yoga world. Normally, most classes gain their …
Every season has a quality; both metaphorically, to do with the changes in life, but also, literally, as embodied in the yearly cycle. Yoga is not about setting the rules, but learning how to act appropriately to them. For, in the Gunas- laws of nature, the practitioner is already provided with a ready made source of guidance…
When the body has become accustomed to a level of health through careful and persistent effort, at a certain point something else has to happen. If not, we simply fall into a rut; producing the same movements everyday in maintenance alone.
There’s a myth going on now that stretching and being flexible is an unquestionable goal. Somewhere along the line, the ability to touch your toes, or even put your leg behind your head, all got confused with our general health, fitness, even goodness.
In the early days of practice it’s enough to just do the asana. Then, when we’ve finally struggled into it, it can take all our effort just to bear the discomfort for the required number of breaths. That is at least how I approached yoga for my first year. Although it was a start, and, …
Almost every day in the shala in Mysore you will hear Sharath say ‘free breathing’, it’s not ujayi breath that we’re asked to practice during yoga-asana or physical performance of posture.
It’s been clear to me for quite a while that if I want to sell a workshop, the topics on the flyer are jump-thru/back or backbends. One Saturday afternoon after class, one Sunday, and that is always the advert even though I submit many other subject titles for my hosts to consider.
“Just primary today”, or, “I’ll only do primary” I hear this all the time from students. Like, any seasoned teacher, you learn to hold your tongue, but want I want to say is primary series, IS the series. Later sequences are an elaboration on these fundamental essential openers. If you’re not bored with these, then, …
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