Restorative yoga is kinda like napping --but better! I mean, I've always been a lousy napper. I would never fall asleep which, being the point of a nap, used to bug the bejeezus out of me. I'd give up on the nap, now feeling tired and frustrated, and turn to a short-term energy spike provided by the […]
What is stress? Is it some mystical force out to get us? (Feels like it sometimes.) In truth, stress is simply a category for events that evoke an emergency response from your nervous system. Stress is a very real thing and how you "deal with" it makes a world of difference to your nervous system […]
Alignment is a bit of a buzz word in yoga these days. More and more styles and studios teach "alignment-focused" asana classes, and yet the physical practice of yoga still varies widely. So what is alignment? Is it whatever a particular teacher or lineage says it is? Well, to put it simply, yeah, it kind […]
I'm not one for New Year's resolutions. I've noticed over the years that when I want something to shift or grow in my life, it happens with greatest fruition before I'm compelled to write it down or dwell on it, but instead just believe it and do it. If there's even a smidgen of doubt, […]
When I first started studying the Alexander Technique, I overdid everything. AT helps students discover unconscious postural habits and then gradually and through a teacher's help, "undo" those habits by not doing them. AT students don't learn to "do" some new thing to correct their habits and they aren't taught how to "fix" their habits, […]
2014 I hunkered down. I worked tirelessly at my teaching and much has transpired! As a result, my dedicated readers, friends, and even family were not kept up to date. I would promise to post on facebook more often, but I doubt I will manage it. Just once this year, kiddos, that's all I got for 2014! So, as we […]
Weeks ago my husband told me about this new show that he thought I'd like, that he'd heard good things about. A time travel show that uses the travel as a pretext for a historical fiction. I wrinkled my nose at it. "But it's got a strong female lead! and romance!" No, thanks, I don't […]
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 […]