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Level Up Your Yoga FAST!

A few months ago, my Hard Reset blog post racked up thousands of views, easily surpassing any of my previous YOGAthletica blog posts to become my most popular one to date. Since then, I have received a lot of questions about fasting and intermittent fasting for weight loss. You can find out all about that…

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Anxiety Relief

It shouldn’t come as news to you that asana practice is a fabulous tool for quelling anxiety. Deep breathing and meditation, movement and mindfulness all work together to calm your nervous system and tame your brain. But sometimes even the best of us succumb to stress and anxiety. Whether it comes in the form of…

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Making an Exit

So, you know how to make a grand entrance, but do you know how to make an exit? One of the big “missing pieces” of so many people’s yoga practice is the lack of follow through. The not waiting until the fat lady sings. The premature evacuation of a pose. Keep in mind that a…

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Self correcting…

By Shana | August 26, 2019

I was wrong (or at least only half right). When I wrote about Svadhyaya about a year-and-a-half ago, I did reveal the big yoga truth about this elusive Niyama. (You’ll have to read the blog to find out…but it’s not what you think. Really.). Within the concept of Svadhyaya lies the practice itself and in so…

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mental override

By Shana | July 18, 2019

it seems that every yoga studio on earth has made the (odd) decision to install air conditioning units that require three master degrees in engineering (and perhaps a doctorate or two) to make them work. people are always asking me to set the temperature and, as hard as i try, i just sit there punching…

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yelp me out here!

By Shana | June 28, 2019

sorry for the rant, but yelp hates me. and if you are a small business, chances are that they hate you, too. i am not talking about the reviewers (they love me! all five stars!). i’m talking about the actual app and how it is nefariously and deliberately aligned against small business. very un-yoga-like. it’s…

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Westside Walky-Talky by POEMliving

By Shana | May 28, 2019

What is Walky-Talky? Well, it’s pretty much what it sounds like. We walk together and we talk: honest companionship that helps you transcend the isolation of the digital age. Too commonly, we lose ourselves inside our tech, work 24/7, and completely miss out on the broader spectrum of living. Human interaction has largely disintegrated into…

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POEMliving

By Shana | April 27, 2019

It’s been a while in the making and today I officially launch POEMliving. Personal Organization, Empowerment, and Motivation. A perfect complement to any yoga-minded lifestyle, I started POEMliving because so many people come to me from so many walks of life, just walking in circles, lost, confused, frustrated. I guess it’s the Virgo in me…

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spiritual but not religious

By Shana | February 22, 2019

if social media is any indication, most “yogis” under about 50 years old consider themselves “spiritual but not religious”. i find this equal parts depressing and hilarious. depressing, because it seems like there is no place for God (however you like to identify and name him, her, it…) in today’s world. even in the yoga…

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Why Me? 10 Great Reasons.

By Shana | January 8, 2019

So, you’re considering YOGAthletica Teacher Training. Awesome! Oh…and you’re considering a bunch of others, too. Okay. Here is why YOGAthletica 200-Hour Teacher Training Intensive is your best training option: 1. Shana has been teaching yoga full-time since March 2002. Her extensive experience and proficiency with the practice is almost unparalleled in the industry. 2. Shana…

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the truth hurts

By Shana | January 4, 2019

i’m 47. i know it’s generally not smiled upon for a woman to shout her age to the hilltops, but smile away. there are things i can control in this life–my attitude, my diet, my practice–and there are things i can’t. aging is way up there with the things i can’t. honestly, i wear my…

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how to love your job (even if you aren’t a yoga instructor)

By Shana | December 29, 2018

does the acronym “tgif” mean anything to you? do you live for the weekend? hate mondays? if so, i have some bad news for you. you’re wasting 5/7th’s of your life. and that sucks. life is short enough as it is. let’s assume–like 98% of the world (according to my own very unscientific survey of…

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the new yoga competition

By Shana | November 1, 2018

i remember when i first heard about bikram’s asana championship (was it in 2002?). i was absolutely appalled. how could there be an asana championship when asana is a state of mind far more than a state of body? were they going to attach electrodes to competitors’ heads to see who was the calmest? fast…

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instant karma’s not gonna get you

By Shana | October 5, 2018

bad news. instant karma is not gonna get you. worse news. there’s no such thing as instant karma beyond the beatles. as my mom always told me, “life is not a meritocracy.” and as an adult, i can now attest (excuse my french), “no shit.” i say this by way of justifying the karmic concept,…

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what would bob do?

By Shana | August 29, 2018

when i started yoga–around the turn of the century–each asana had two names. one was the sanskrit name and one was the translation. bhujangasana, cobra. dhanurasana, bow. natarajasana, king dancer. these days, it seems every pose has a hundred names. none in sanskrit and none in translation. classic asana nomenclature has transformed into modern slang.…

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love. yoga.

By Shana | July 21, 2018

the other day, i was asked the simple question, “what is love?”. though, of course, there is no simple answer. i may love yoga, my husband (the imaginary one), my cat, and my iphone, but each manifestation takes a completely different form than the other. i’m not going to have intercourse with yoga, my cat,…

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we are not yogis (or yoginis)

By Shana | June 24, 2018

hey ho, all ye seekers of truth and bliss! ye journeyers upon the yellow brick road to samadhi! o’ enlightened ones! have you picked up your copy of the yoga sutras of patanjali? you’ll want that one. it’s the roadmap for all good little yogis and yoginis. here are the cliff notes, in case you…

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top 6 reasons NOT to come to YOGAthletica teacher training

By Shana | May 31, 2018

so, you’re thinking about getting your yoga certification. good for you! great for you! spectacular for you! there are ten million teacher trainings out there. perhaps mine is one you are considering. terrific! i’m here to help you make the best possible decision…and offer the top five reasons why you should NOT come to YOGAthletica…

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losing the game

By Shana | May 3, 2018

oh, wow. i’m blogging about instagram again. the beast. it seems that instagram holds the whole yoga world captive in its far-reaching facebook-y tentacles. as hard as i have tried, it seems i have been fighting an uphill war of attrition. i keep my eye on other people i know with skyrocketing numbers of followers.…

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the satya superpower

By Shana | April 2, 2018

if you have ever read the yoga sutras of patanjali, you may be a bit cynical about some of its claims. for example, you may not actually believe that through the practice of perfect meditation and mindfulness you can make yourself invisible (3:21), read minds (3:19), or levitate (3:39). (then again, you might…and i would…

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it’s not what you think…really.

By Shana | March 1, 2018

Let’s talk about svadhyaya, shall we? Svadhyaya is the fourth of the niyamas (which are the second anga of the ashtanga) and certainly the most misunderstood. Literally translated: self-study. People bandy this word about in very fancy ways. On Facebook, on instagram, in blog posts. Very profound. They go on and on about deep, deep…

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your strongest muscle

By Shana | February 3, 2018

2017 was, well, crappy. Let’s not mince words. Among other things, I spent the entire second half of the year with excruciating tendinitis in both elbows (golfer’s AND tennis elbow in each)…and knees…and in my right biceps. Add to that two bad shoulders (that I have lived with for over a decade) and a neck…

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the yogi in my trashroom

By Shana | December 29, 2017

there’s a yogi in my trash room. ask patanjali. he’ll tell you all about it. in the astanga of the yoga sutras, there are eight limbs. the first two are yama and niyama…the code of conduct for living. and the culmination of the niyamas is ishvara pranidhana, submission to a higher power. the final limb…

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i will make you sing!

By Shana | November 17, 2017

i consider myself a pretty competent human being. i can at least sort of do everything i set out and try to do. that was until i tried making a singing bowl sing. 😆 thinking this would be another fabulous skill to add to my vast repertoire (think yoga, eating and sleeping), i got this…

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