“If you make a rule [or tell yourself a story], be prepared to stand by it with conviction. Also be prepared to change it at any moment.” ~ Will Duprey My brain is growing exponentially. I’ve been practicing yoga, mostly at home, for 11 years. I read about it, write about it, talk about it, [...]

Last week I dropped by Sankalpah Yoga to take a class with Isaac Peña. He used to teach at Exhale, and I remembered his classes being nice and firey. (My favorite story about Isaac: He’s teaching at Exhale, and tells the class to come into a Squat. “If your heels don’t touch the ground, put [...]

Yesterday I taught a workshop for Internet Week NY. I’d randomly decided their schedule of events needed “yoga and teatime” in addition to the lectures and cocktail parties. I set up an RSVP form, so I could gauge interest and experience levels, and had 40 people “interested”, and 14 people RSVP. Nearly all marked their [...]

The last couple days, I’ve returned to Sun Salutations. They are a perfect practice in and of themselves. I used to hate them. Always forced myself through them, knowing I needed the warm up. Finally I realized: if you hate a pose in yoga, you’re doing it wrong. There is some other alignment, variation, or [...]

This came from some notes for a class I recently gave — thought I’d share. What does Bliss feel like? Is it extreme pleasure, or is it (as Swami Satyananda Saraswati, among others, says) more accurately defined as the absence of pleasure or pain, a state beyond mere pleasure and pain, a pure merging with all that is. So, [...]

In these chilly winter months, it’s good to remember that the root of flexible is FLEX. When you’re tugging away in a yoga pose, remember to support whatever you’re stretching by FLEXING the opposing muscles. This creates heat, which is essential for safe stretching. For example, in a Forward Bend, the more you flex the [...]

If you’ve had low back pain, you know how incapacitating it can be. One wrong step, and some mysterious stranger stabs a knife between your vertebrae. If you haven’t, and you’re practicing yoga, please read this article from My Yoga Online: The Threats of Twisting The one thing I would add is an insight from [...]

I just went to a new (for me) class (at Greenhouse) and loved it. Even though I had decided to do a Pilates routine today so I could work more, the teacher’s bio won me over: Molly’s yoga class is known for it’s [sic] intelligent Hatha flow in a vigorous and dynamic style that heals, [...]

I had such a bad week last week. For various reasons I was in a fog and didn’t practice for six days. Friday I finally took class, and my appreciation for each pose was enormous, almost worth the stiffness. The risk of daily practice is getting into a making-myself-do-it mindset, where I’m at war with [...]

Whew! I headed to a 60-minute pilates class at Greenhouse that turned out to be a 90-minute vinyasa class with 20-second holds on most poses. It was “basics”, but I left with wobbly legs and a happy head. Leigh taught this class, and I was really impressed with its arrangement. First of all, she had [...]