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How I Hurt My Shoulders. Every. Single. Day. (And It’s Not From Yoga…)

Ladies (particularly my yoga friends), I have a question for you, because I CANNOT be the only one! Sports bras… Is there something wrong with me or does it hurt your shoulders every time you try to pull off your sports bra? No joke. I’ll be the first to admit that I do not have…

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The Insecurity Blanket

For years before I was a freestanding handstander in the middle of the room, well…I wasn’t. I was utterly stuck to the wall, petrified to practice my handstands in the middle of the room. Funny thing is that this love affair with Paul (The Wall), was fairly loveless, indeed. Before I finally ventured to the…

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Unintended Side Effects

My mind has been going nonstop lately. Yeah, I know, not very yogic. But sort of human, you have to admit. A couple weeks ago, I went to visit my sister in Israel. For those of you who don’t know Danni (The Dodo does!), she runs The Tiny Pet Rescue out of her home. Her…

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wait! don’t go!

By Shana | February 28, 2012

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…

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the best yogi alive!

By Shana | January 20, 2012

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…

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wait a minute!

By Shana | January 19, 2012

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…

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hold the applause…

By Shana | January 9, 2012

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…

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yoga…the most dangerous activity on earth!!!

By Shana | January 6, 2012

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…

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THAT guy…

By Shana | January 4, 2012

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…

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$#!+ some very famous yoga teachers have told me…

By Shana | January 2, 2012

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…

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confessions of a yoga douche

By Shana | December 30, 2011

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…

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building core strength for handstand

By Shana | December 28, 2011

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…

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the only person who wants to hear me sing…

By Shana | December 28, 2011

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…

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paying the yoga bills

By Shana | December 27, 2011

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…

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sex sells!

By Shana | December 26, 2011

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…

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freestanding handstands! happy christmukkah!

By Shana | December 25, 2011

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

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holiday aparigraha

By Shana | December 24, 2011

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…

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shoulderstand ballet

By Shana | December 23, 2011

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…

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yoga for everyone and his mom…as long as his mom wants to work her ass off.

By Shana | December 22, 2011

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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