Morning yoga practice: if it’s so important, why is it so hard to do?
Google “images for important and urgent” and you will be rewarded with an unbelievable 3,200,000 results, many of them featuring the four quadrants made famous by Stephen Covey in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. On the off chance that you’ve been living under a rock, or shun self-improvement books on principle, here are […]
When it comes to yoga practice, how much is enough?
First let’s agree that the day will never come when you’ve spent enough time practicing friendliness, compassion, joy and equanimity, and can just put them aside until tomorrow. For that part of a yoga practice, “never enough” is a given. But even in asana practice, there’s no possibility of doing it all. You can’t practice […]
Resolve to be Content: Five-Minute Yoga Challenge
It’s a new year. The clean, precise energy of January has replaced December’s animal urge to fight the darkness by drinking sparkling things and eating After Eight mints. Now we’re in the season of setting goals. For years, my yoga goals went like this: I will practice every day. I will do headstand in the […]
Practice Buddies: my secret weapon against sloth
Since last Thursday, when I announced my holiday break, I’ve learned that some readers thought it was time off from yoga in general. Oh dear, no! I’m only taking time away from teaching. We all go on practicing, don’t we? Perhaps we’re a little less diligent when the parties and holiday errands come on full […]
5 good reasons to let a timer be your practice buddy
My timer, and constant practice companionI love my timer. It’s no longer handsome. I dropped it once, and the face came off and had to be glued back on, and the glue shows. But that’s just the aging face of a friend, who is no less lovable for a few wrinkles. It has the excellent […]
It’s not all bliss: how to work with poses you don’t like, part one
Most of us come to yoga from one of two directions. We are flexible but weak, or we’re strong but stiff. After our first few classes we already know the poses we love. They may not be effortless, but we understand their logic and find them exhilarating to practice. Then there are those other poses, […]