The Magic of Sun Salutations, or what I learned on my summer vacation
I had three months off teaching this summer, mostly because I spent June in India, studying at the Iyengar yoga institute in Pune. Anyone who has studied at RIMYI knows that a month there doesn’t really qualify as a holiday. Not with a two-hour class and a three-hour practice six days a week, along with […]
A relaxing way to think about yoga and belly fat
Belly fat has been more than usually on my mind for the past few weeks. First Style Craze, an Indian style and beauty blog, asked me for my “Three Best Yoga Tips to Lose Belly Fat” for a yoga expert roundup. My purist side wanted to say: “don’t practice yoga for anything, especially not for […]
Strengthen your abdominals in seated forward bends: Five-Minute Yoga Challenge
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say, “Wow, I’m really going to feel my abs tomorrow,” after taking a yoga class that concentrated on seated forward bends. And that’s a shame, because they can be great abdominal poses. When I first started to take classes, I loved seated forward bends and practiced them at […]
Take a Seat in Utkatasana, the Yoga Chair: Five-Minute Yoga Challenge
Ever felt like a bottom-heavy Daruma doll when you were squatting? Utkatasana can help.I disliked Utkatasana the first time I tried it. Wende’s demonstration made it look simple enough: raise your arms, bend your knees and sit back. Simple yes. Easy, no. I was shocked by how hard it was, and how at sea I […]
Strengthen your abdominals: Five-Minute Yoga Challenge
For some time now I have suspected that there might in fact be two kinds of people in the world: those who have a natural connection to their core, and those like me, the tap-dancing star on the left, who don’t. I dug that picture out just to confirm that yes, even when I was […]
Five minute yoga challenge: strap your thigh bones and explore a forward bend
In a forward bend with the legs parallel, the front thighs roll toward each other, the skin and muscles of the back thighs spread away from each other, and the sitting bones widen. But while all this widening occurs, the tops of the thighbones, deep in the hip sockets, pull toward each other. This should […]