How to plan a yoga class
I was educated as a school teacher, and in the past I had written my fair share of lesson plans that usually started with “By the end of the class[…]
Yoga sequencing is a strategy of arranging different elements of yoga practice into a logical integrated whole; it is an essential part of any yoga practice design. Here we explore some of the fundamental principles of yoga sequencing to maximize the effect of the practice and minimize the risk.
I was educated as a school teacher, and in the past I had written my fair share of lesson plans that usually started with “By the end of the class[…]
With 2016 soon coming to a close, let’s take a moment to look back at the ground that we’ve covered. This year we focused on three major topics: axial extension[…]
One of my older yoga students gets mildly irritated every time she hears a yoga teacher say: “Listen to your body and don’t do anything that doesn’t feel right”. She[…]
One of the readers commented on the last week’s post: “Chair yoga is not passive stretching – it’s challenging, strengthening, spiritual, and fun! “ This is an excellent description of[…]
I remember hating Latin in college. Unfortunately, it was required for my degree, so I had to endure. For example, translating a Latin sentence takes a lot of work because[…]
A number of years ago a friend of mine went to a new yoga class. At one point they did a Camel pose and my friend couldn’t quite reach her[…]
A few months ago one of the teachers in my yoga teachers Facebook group posed a question: would it be a good idea to go straight from Camel pose to[…]
Most yoga teachers are aware of the idea of compensation (pratikriya, which literally means counteracting). It basically means that in the course of the practice we challenge the body, breath,[…]
When I was on vacation few weeks ago, I did my first SUP yoga session (yoga on a stand up paddle board). Practicing yoga to the gentle rhythm of the[…]
For the past couple of weeks we’ve been talking about Forward bends and how to use them to stretch the posterior (back) structures of the body (along the Superficial Back[…]
When I get new students with some experience in yoga, I like to ask them: What is this pose for? What are you trying to accomplish here? And I am[…]
Let me tell you a secret – many claims that yoga teachers and yoga publications make about benefits of yoga poses are not true. I know, I know, this is[…]
According to viniyoga tradition, our aging process is represented by the movement of the sun throughout the day. Sunrise represents childhood, midday represents adult life, and sunset represents old age.[…]
A fellow yoga teacher confided in me once: “I had quite a scare in my class yesterday – one of my students had dislocated a shoulder. Luckily, there was a[…]
If you google “neck stretches” or “neck stretching” you will get a number of variations of the following two options: Clearly, Option 2 is not the kind of stretching we[…]
Not long ago an acquaintance of mine said to me: “I saw a picture of this cool pose on line and I tried it – man, my back hurt afterwards!”[…]
That is a funny thing about a yoga practice – it doesn’t work if you don’t do it. 🙂 Yes, we are all busy and making time for a 90-minute[…]
Leslie Kaminoff brings up an excellent point in his video: yoga sequencing is not the same as choreography. In choreography the goal is artistic expression and choices are dictated by[…]
Many yoga teachers have had an experience of a student stepping into a class and immediately plopping up into a Shoulderstand (or a Headstand, which is even riskier). It always[…]
I remember in my first teacher training program we had “alignment clinics”, where we were told exactly where to place the feet, knees, shoulders and hips in each pose. Was[…]