Cool it: rest your head on a chair, then put your feet up
A few weeks ago I promised to fill in the blanks of the cooling yoga sequence I’d suggested – the poses that hadn’t already made it onto this blog in the form of a Five-Minute Yoga Challenge. I meant to do it, really I did. Then we lost our summer, temporarily. At about the same […]
Sadhana: the practice for day two
The first day of Sadhana went off without a hitch. In fact, from where I sat, it felt comfortable and familiar. I know I wasn’t the only one. On her way out the door, Rosaria said: “It feels like we just picked up where we left off last year.” Savasana was short, and for reasons […]
Sadhana starts tomorrow: here’s the first day’s practice
I’ll be laying out my clothes tonight, hanging them on the hook in the bathroom in reverse order of putting them on. I’ll set my alarm clock, and then, if tradition holds, wake myself up three or four times during the night. It’s Sadhana preparation. Wouldn’t have it any other way. This year’s practice is […]
Where Do You Find Your Inner Teacher?
I went to Saskatoon at the end of May, to the Iyengar Yoga Association of Canada’s conference and AGM. What I found there, along with the aforementioned magpies, gophers and lilacs, was friendly people, good conversation, and something more: another piece of the Inner Teacher puzzle. The Inner Teacher is the innate intelligence that, among […]
Five-Minute Yoga Challenge: meet Chaturanga at the wall
For more than 25 years, I’ve felt bullied, oppressed and pushed around by Chaturanga Dandasana, the yoga push-up. I’d watch other people push up off the floor, or lower themselves from plank pose, and wonder why I was such a weakling. Yes, it’s a hard pose. Yes, after looking through a few hundred photos on […]
Use a strap around your hip crease to free your groins: Five Minute Yoga Challenge
Anatomically speaking, the groins are the folds that mark the meeting of the lower abdomen and the inner thigh. In Iyengar yoga, those would be the inner groins. Iyengar yoga also identifies middle groins, outer groins and back groins, making a circle of awareness all around the meeting place between legs and torso. Lately I’ve […]