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yoga and addiction
it’s no secret by now that yoga is a fabulous tool for overcoming addiction. in fact, you can find “yoga for addiction” or “12-step yoga” in studios all across the globe. a large part of any dedicated yoga practice, in fact, is the overcoming of our habits and addictions (no matter how big or small),…
Read Morei admit it! i’m guilty! guilty! :(…
i love asana. inversion asana. standing asana. twisting asana. balancing asana. any kind of asana asana. and i love alignment. knees bending, arms straightening, heart lifting. the whole thing just gives me purpose. but i’ve been in class lately, listening to teachers, taking themselves way too seriously, preaching fire and brimstone about the “traditional” way…
Read Moreis john friend just being a good yogi…?
Brahmacharya—literally, under the tutelage of Brahma1—is the one of the Yama, or codes of Universal Conduct, found in Patanjali’s “Yoga Sutra”. As BKS Iyengar defines it, Brahmacharya “means the life of celibacy, religious study and self-restraint.”2 When examining the true meaning of Brahmacharya, it is interesting how divergent the published interpretations of this precept really…
Read Morewait! don’t go!
i can pretend it doesn’t bother me, but it does. i hate it when someone leaves my yoga class early (unless, of course, they warn me before class). okay, maybe it’s my ego getting in the way…i promise i’ll work on that…if you promise not to leave my class early. here’s the thing. i’ve taken…
Read Morethe best yogi alive!
think of who you perceive as the best yogi/ni alive. and then let me guess. is it that guy who can stand on his head without any hands? or that girl who can press up to handstand…even in her underwear? ooh! ooh! i know! it’s that guy who can stand on one hand, with one…
Read Morewait a minute!
time is relative. i know it seems concrete. a minute is sixty seconds, is 60,000 milliseconds, 1/60 of an hour. pretty definitive, right? and when someone (say, me) asks you to hold a yoga pose–let’s say a handstand–for a minute you think, “no! that’s forever! i can’t hold that long! you’re just being cruel!” but…
Read Morehold the applause…
i can do some funky stuff. i love arm balances and inversions and i work really hard on them. so, when my teachers need a demonstrator, i’m often the one who’s asked to demo. and i’m totally cool with that. in fact, i enjoy it. but somewhere in the past five years or so, it’s…
Read Moreyoga…the most dangerous activity on earth!!!
in the last 24 hours, i’ve been inundated with clients, friends, family, and strangers emailing me this link: How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/magazine/how-yoga-can-wreck-your-body.html?emc=eta1> By WILLIAM J. BROAD and if you teach yoga in the western hemisphere, i assume it’s come across your email a time or thousand as well… but on the off-chance…
Read MoreTHAT guy…
you know when THAT guy comes to your class…? he’s handsome in a just-the-way-i-like-it kind of way… he’s got on the harvard business school sweatshirt…and you confirm that he’s a grad… you ask what he does…yes, successful… he at least looks like he could be jewish…but his pants are on… every time you say something…
Read More$#!+ some very famous yoga teachers have told me…
my classes have always been small…one or two handfuls of dedicated and very hard-working students. yogathletica classes are unique, unlike most any class out there (definitely way unlike the popular classes), and egotistically ungratifying. my classes are for people who want to work on some seriously tough challenges, regardless of the outcome. i’ve never been…
Read Moreconfessions of a yoga douche
so there’s this picture going around the internet of a guy doing a modified pincha mayurasana (forearm balance) in the middle of a bikram studio with a bunch of indignant girls sitting around, utterly unamused. on it is the caption “don’t be a yoga douche”. it’s gotten hundreds of “likes” on facebook, followed by hundreds…
Read Morebuilding core strength for handstand
in my last video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPEuNlDQ2eM&feature=share), i showed you how to do a freestanding handstand in the middle of the room. consider this the prequel, showing you how to build and utilize your core strength specifically for coming into these slow, controlled handstands. we will work with the wall as a tool for learning how to…
Read Morethe only person who wants to hear me sing…
i have this one client. she’s 44 years old and has severe down syndrome. i’d say she has the mentality of about a one-and-a-half to two-year-old and she is purely incredible. we’ve been working together for two-and-a-half years now. she can hold half-moon longer than just about any of my students and–even better–she tells me…
Read Morepaying the yoga bills
i know a yogini who had $30,000 in debt with target. yes, target. please don’t ask me how…i can only imagine. anyway, seven years passed and the debt still wasn’t paid. target was still knocking down her door for payment and she was indignant. according to her, if seven years have passed, the debt should…
Read Moresex sells!
so, there have been some comments about my incredibly glamorous hairstyle in yesterday’s youtube video. perhaps i should reshoot with something more fabulous. afterall, sex sells, right? i’m sure the yogis thousands of years ago would never have shot a video like this without at least a stylist and some strategic make-up! what was i…
Read Morefreestanding handstands! happy christmukkah!
for your holiday gift, i spent hours if not days looking for the perfect present. it basically came down to a candle shaped like jesus, a latke doorstop, or this…a video on how to do a freestanding handstand (adha mukha vrksasana) in the middle of the room. yi-ha! right? check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPEuNlDQ2eM&feature=youtu.be
Read Moreholiday aparigraha
forget about the list of things we want during the holidays–the jewelry, the cars, the houses in the hamptons–and let’s talk for a second about the things that we need. any day of the week, you can hear yourself with that list. it’s a great topic of conversation. “i really need a new pair of…
Read Moreshoulderstand ballet
what is it about supported shoulderstand (salamba sarvangasana) that people go into it and they suddenly think they are in the bolshoi ballet? they start doing twists, splits, little air plies. this is a phenomenon that continues to mystify me. all yoga poses are termed “asana” because of the stillness (mental and physical) they are…
Read Moreyoga for everyone and his mom…as long as his mom wants to work her ass off.
when i left the world of hard-core athletes ten years ago for a life of yoga, it wasn’t because of the workout…even though it is an amazing workout, for sure. the term “yoga” means “yoke”. yoke what? yoke together. yoke together what? yoke together mind, body, and spirit. honestly, you don’t have to be doing…
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