Lessons in Flexibility
It has been an interesting week. Ever hear of “yoga butt”? Well, I think I had it. And I don’t mean a super-toned derriere. I mean the one where there’s pain in the sit bones. It started after a very...
View ArticlePracticing with Intention
I have been practicing yoga daily for about three weeks. Before, I had a regular practice but not a daily one. What change does a daily practice make? How does it change you? How do you change it? I...
View ArticleDevelopments in the Balances (and my first 15-minute meditation)
I bumped up the length of my meditation practice this morning from 11 to 15 minutes. A quarter of an hour! I was so close to it already, so how would it feel? I couldn’t resist trying, How it feels is,...
View Article“Our own little variations on the theme of life”
After going for 15 minutes of meditation I went back to 13 and increased the length gradually over the last week or so. By yesterday I worked up to 15 minutes again and it seemed quite easy, a natural...
View ArticleUmbrella
A thunderstorm is moving across the sky as I write this post. I walked home in it too, avoiding open spaces, with an umbrella offered by the grocery store manager who saw me standing at the edge of the...
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Sweet Anatomy
Yoga teacher training begins with anatomy. I can tell you right now that I wish I had learned more about anatomy years ago, and that if you have any long-term interest in yoga whatsoever then take a...
View ArticleRespond to any call that makes your soul happy
Well, I completely failed to post throughout the teacher training. Not because it wasn’t amazing. But it was intense. Two hundred hours in about 8 weeks combined with all the usual commitments...
View ArticleHappiest on your hands
I have looked askance at handstand. I have been sceptical: a show-off’s pose. Yet another showcase for upper body strength, for the male body’s natural tendencies. I get so sick of that in yoga. So I...
View ArticleIn a plane
In a plane you are even more anonymous, more could-be-anyone, from anywhere, than on a train. This of course need not be true, you could be trekking across the world by rail and ship, but somehow...
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December Textures
You walk past things every day and then … there’s a day when you just have to photograph them again.
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Daily Practice Commitment Anniversary
Nearly one year ago I committed to a daily yoga practice. It has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I had a regular practice for years, but not a daily one. The frequency and intensity...
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Adjustment Adjustment
I’m posting this from Yoga International because it’s something I’ve been struggling with. For most of my yoga experience over the past 30 years, adjustment was minimal. It was rare for a teacher to...
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Perfect
Perfection is a misleading word. Its etymology is Middle English, from the Old French perfet, from the Latin perfectus “completed,” from the verb perficere, from per “through, completely” + facere...
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Lightness
Practice lately has been marked by sensations of lightness, of feeling bouyant. It’s mostly in the torso, in the upper body – which makes sense, that’s where the lungs are. And yet it doesn’t feel...
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Backbends done lying on the stomach
Practice in class yesterday was backbends, the kind with lots of chest opening while lying on the stomach. The Ashtanga influence is so predominate in my practice that whenever we do this kind of thing...
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Yoga & Writers
When you’re writing and it leads you somewhere wholly unexpected, it feels magical. You begin with one idea, a set of ideas, maybe even a structure, and as you write this changes. The act of writing...
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Time
Meditated 15 minutes. My mind was very active. Maybe because I practiced later in the day than I usually do? So that by the time I was meditating, I was wide awake and my mind ready to do its thing....
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Balancing the mind is not all that different from balancing the body
Another 15 minute meditation. This time did not sit in lotus, so legs did not fall asleep. Again, the mind very active especially at first. Then it calmed down somewhat. At a certain point I had the...
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Moons and half moons
I’m practicing holding ardha chandrasana ( half moon pose, see here, here and here) without the hand touching the ground. I.e., balanced on the standing leg. It’s an interesting practice, finding...
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On not looking down
It seems absolutely crucial that, whatever you do, to not think too much. Thinking too much is the life equivalent of the roadrunner running past the cliff edge and looking down. He’s fine until he...
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