A yoga practice should complement your physical health, emotional temperament, and intellectual interests. Yoga can be practiced by reading books, or volunteering, or meditating, but the physical exercises are a popular place to start. Here are a few aspects to consider.

There’s an event worth attention this Saturday. Ashtanga Yoga New York is holding a benefit for Odanadi, an organization in Mysore, India, that fights human trafficking (forced prostitution and modern-day slavery) and helps rehabilitate its victims with education, housing, and yoga. YOGA STOPS TRAFFICK is a one-day global yoga event to raise awareness about human [...]

Do you remember your first yoga class? The questions, the perceptions, the expectations (or lack thereof)? Yesterday’s Times had a nice first-time-to-yoga narrative: Ignoring the warning bells deep inside my brain, I grabbed a book, thinking that if the class got too long for my limited physical capacity, I would just slip outside and read. [...]

Here’s another view of a Jump Back, in super slow motion: It’s a Crow pose, almost a Tripod Headstand, in the beginning. Great video. I think this guy is overusing his lower back. It looks like he collapses into his low back a little when he lands. And watch the curve of his spine from [...]

I quit Ashtanga because I hated the jump backs so much. Obviously I wasn’t doing them like this: So graceful! No “thunk” sounding right into the lower back. (Ok, there’s no sound in the video. I can pretend he’s perfect, though.)

I just had to make a quick post about the open house I attended Wednesday at The Breathing Project. Leslie Kaminoff gave an amazing lecture on breathing and anatomy in yoga, I’m seriously considering signing up for his anatomy classes instead of heading for the Iyengar Institute. His approach is less detail-oriented than Iyengar’s; he [...]