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TEACHING YOGA

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Design effective yoga practices for yourself and your students using stick-figure images

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BECOMING A YOGA THERAPIST

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LATEST POSTS

Holiday sale: Unlock your body’s potential and get a bonus yoga workshop

Are you happy with how your body feels and performs lately? Is there a need…

How to use Āyurvedic clinical assessment to help yourself and your yoga clients

When I was studying to become a yoga therapist, our training included a brief foray…

Feeling agitated? Relieve stress and settle your nervous system

In this short standing yoga practice, we do particular actions to help us relieve stress and decrease agitation.

YOGA FOR CHRONIC PAIN

Learn to listen within: Body appreciation practice

Many years ago, I took an anatomy and physiology course in college. I went in…

How to work with chronic pain on the level of intellectual mind

According to Walter Freeman, one of the great neuroscientists, “All the brain can know it…

Is there a difference between pain and suffering? Insights from Patanjali

When it comes to dealing with chronic pain, we have to differentiate between pain and…

How to work with chronic pain on the level of physiology (part 2)

When you are in pain, the body gets stuck in a loop of emergency stress…

How to work with chronic pain on the level of physiology (part 1)

Some days, when I begin my yoga practice, I can feel the entire physical history…

Pain vs sensation yoga practice

Your brain interprets your bodily sensations based on context and experience. If you feel a…

How to work with chronic pain on the level of physical body

There is a heated ongoing debate in the yoga community about the difference between a…

Active listening and pain assessment in a yoga session

One of my clients is currently shopping for a doctor. She has been trying to…

Why yoga is effective for chronic pain management

In our digital world, technology experts continuously come up with solutions to make our everyday…

How the brain can interpret other signals as pain

One of my clients has recurring knee issues. For her, there is always a low…

Why do we tend to expect the worst when it comes to pain? Negativity bias

If you accomplish ten great things today and make one mistake, what will you more…

How does pain become chronic?

A former client of mine, let’s call him John, bent over to tie his shoes…

When you are hurt where does the pain come from?

A few years ago, my family moved from one house to another. On the moving…

Recent guidelines about dealing with back pain: do they make sense?

A recent article in the New York Times discussed the updated guidelines by the American…

TEACHING YOGA CLASSES

How to set an intention for a specific group of students

When my son was about five years old, I made a point of finding some…

Ten Common Mistakes Yoga Teachers Make

One of my clients, let’s call him Ben, ended up with hip surgery because of…

Insta-yoga-studio: practice wherever possible

Recently, I had the opportunity to teach Yoga in a studio. Like, in a room…

PRACTICE VIDEOS

How sturdy do you feel on your feet? Train your balance with yoga

Last week, a blast of cold weather moved across the United States. Here in Portland,…

Yoga Boosts for strength: Strengthen your hips and create a sense of spaciousness

There is a particular group of poses within the side-bending category that is useful for…

Yoga Boosts for strength: Bend sideways to feel spacious and free

Yoga poses are meant to be “prana pumps”, because the ultimate purpose of asana is…

Work your core to take the load off your back

Are you planning on lifting suitcases anytime soon? Shoveling snow? Hauling a Christmas tree? If…

Stretch and strengthen your hamstrings and back

Our contemporary sedentary lifestyles are not kind to our backs (weakening them) and our hamstrings…

Yoga Boosts for Strength: Twist your body to rinse out tension

The amount of twisting we do in our daily lives is minimal, yet spinal rotation…

Yoga Boosts for Strength: Core strength and integration

To have a strong body, we need a supple spine, stable skeletal structure, supportive core,…

Put a spring in your step: Strengthen your hips and legs

Would you like to feel a spring in your step? When our hips feel stiff,…

Soothe your back and sense the reasons for back pain

Oftentimes our bodies try to get our attention through physical pain and discomfort. The messages…

Release tension in the hips and integrate your brain hemispheres

Your right and left brain hemispheres approach the tasks you do throughout your day a…

How to do the Brain Huddle to find inner peace

How do you feel when you are at peace with yourself? Inner peace (or peace of…

Listen to your heart and improve your circulation

Your heart is small but mighty. For an organ that could fit into the palm…

Issues in the tissues: What are you carrying in your body?

According to the yoga tradition, there are three qualities, or three energetic forces, that are…

Find your inner stability when you feel depleted and uncertain

When did you last feel like a superhero: strong, confident, capable, and vibrant? Try this…

Stretch out and make space inside when you feel contracted and stagnant

Do you ever feel so overwhelmed that you have to guard yourself with a stiff…

Connect to your inner goddess when you feel frazzled and lack self-confidence

Are there certain qualities or character traits that you would like to strengthen within yourself?…

Release head tension and lighten your load

We get headaches for a variety of reasons. They can be related to muscular tension,…

Dealing with anxiety: Get curious and discover your inner wonders

Yoga is uniquely positioned to be very effective for dealing with anxiety because it addresses…

Align your spinal curves for better posture and stronger core

Your spine and all the surrounding structures function best when the spinal curves are stacked…

BENEFITS OF PRIVATE YOGA SESSIONS

How dreaming helps us get over traumatic experiences (or not)

Have you ever had this experience when you get worked up about something one day,…

Five kinds of sleep disturbances and how to identify them

Sleep impacts every aspect of our physiology, so it is not surprising that we always…

AI in yoga: Can AI create personalized yoga practice plans?

Since the beginning of the last century, reporters have been taught that the lede should…

Why do students come to yoga? Surface vs under-the-surface needs

When students arrive at our yoga classes and private yoga sessions, they usually have a…

What we need to know about a student with osteoporosis when we work with them one-on-one

When a new student starts private yoga sessions, we usually ask many different questions about…

Seven steps we can take to help students get through difficult times

About a month ago, one of my students had a knee replacement surgery. We planned…

How patient-practitioner relationship impacts the healing process

When my son was little, he used to freak out every time he fell down…

What to include in a yoga program for students with osteoporosis

Some months ago, I met with a new student who’s been recently diagnosed with osteoporosis.…

Case study: What we can learn from working with complicated cases

A new client showed up to our first appointment a few years ago with a…

Six sure ways to ruin your relationships with your yoga students

In my yoga teacher training, we used to have Observation clinics, where we would observe…

FEATURED AUTHORS

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