An anatomy student of mine recently took a yoga (asana) class that tested her notion of what a safe and productive yoga class can be. Her observations painted a picture of an approach to yoga that tests my understanding of what yoga is. Let's call this yoga style "Studio X". Here's how my student described […]
Somewhere I got the number 80% as the percentage of our communication that is nonverbal. I haven't found a reliable source that can verify that the breakdown is as cut and dry as that, or that that number is even at all accurate, but I am happy to make use of it to point out […]
I use yoga for self study, but it's not the only tool I have. What makes one tool more fitting than another? Why choose yoga, not gyrotonic, not pilates, not some other mode of movement? When I started this post with the above consideration, I didn't finish writing immediately because I wanted a bit more […]
How do we stay present when we don't feel like the time we're in is our own? When my alarm went off at 4:50am this morning, I couldn't remember why I was being waked... I felt a little like my sleep, my dreaming was being robbed from me. So when I lumbered out to my […]
This morning I was introduced to 'The Fuzz Speech' by anatomist Gil Hedley. Gil describes, in layman's terms, a lesson we can learn from our cats + dogs: after sleep, stretch. When our bodies are full of fluidity and movement potential, there's often an instinct to stretch upon waking --just like we see in our […]
The name Adho Mukha Vrksasana means upside down tree... When you think of a tree upside down, on its branches, what comes to mind? Delicate balance? In the wrong set up, it crumbles. Handstand is kind of like that. But even though our bodies didn’t evolve to take our full weight onto our hands, completely […]
Remember how well my yoga + ayurveda cold remedies worked last week? I was pretty proud of that, in a humble and amazed kinda way. Well, those remedies weren't much of a match for the flu that hit me two days later. Talk about lousy cold-season luck! I spent all of last week in bed […]
Friday I spent most of my day propped up on bolsters or pillows of one kind or another. I woke up with a cold, so I cancelled my two evening appointments and hunkered down into rest and recuperate mode. When I'm sick, I generally still can't sleep during the day, and so I watch movies […]
You know those times when you get motivated (like the Monday after Thanksgiving!), finally, to do something good for yourself? And then you do that something and it feels great, the stars align, and life starts to move a little more smoothly? And then after the initial high of doing it, the challenge of sticking […]
Look at your hand. What size is it? Unless you're glove shopping, your answer will be relative -relative to the proportions of your body, relative to the sizes of other people- or you might be stumped by the absurdity of the question and hem and haw around as accurate an answer as possible (that would […]
Today I watched a very dear friend squeeze all of her belongings into every last corner of her new (used) car and drive off to her "new" (continuing) life in a new house in a new state, with new friends waiting to be made. It wasn't easy in the slightest (but I'm still posting a […]
Today, one of my students seemed surprised to learn that I, like she, am working through knee and back pain. Yes, even yoga teachers walk around with aches and pains. We are pretty darn human 😉 Why is it that being human causes us physical pain? Why are we sooo susceptible to habits that hurt […]