Goodbye 2020, hello 2021!
This year certainly turned out to be like no other. At times it felt like it was dragging on, yet it’s somehow surprising that it is almost over. Faced with[…]
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Learn to listen within: Body appreciation practice
Many years ago, I took an anatomy and physiology course in college. I went in hoping to learn more about the muscularskeletal system and came out fascinated by this infinitely[…]
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The three-pronged approach to healing: Befriending the sensations in our bodies
I used to have a student who would quickly bounce his knee up and down when seated. The first time he caught me looking at his knee, he said: “I[…]
Breath control options in yoga
There are many ways to control breath in our yoga practice. I put them into a comprehensive chart to remind you of all the options you have and to help[…]
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Fundamentals of working with breath
If you want to learn to play Mozart on a piano, you need to learn the musical notes first. The same applies to your breath. Before you can begin experimenting[…]
Breathe to Live: Yoga for Energy and Vitality
There are two feelings that I keep coming back to throughout this pandemic. The first one is the feeling that my world had shrunk a lot. Previously my life felt[…]
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The magic powers of Kapalbhati: Are they real?
Kapalbhati (Skull shining) is one of those interesting techniques that can either help you or harm you, depending on how you do it. Many articles on Kapalbhati tout its perceived[…]
Purify your body: Six yogic cleansing practices (shat kriyas)
I did my first 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training course at Mt Madonna Center in Santa Cruz, California twenty years ago. Mt Madonna center is a residential community that was established[…]
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Three yoga models that describe different aspects of prana flow
The Western medical tradition has adopted a “zoom in” approach to our health and wellness. It divides the body into organ systems that have specific missions and perform coordinated activity.[…]
What is prana and why we need to harness it
In yoga, breathing is closely linked with the concept of prana, or life force. Prana is said to be the force that animates all living things. Prana is a manifestation[…]
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Yoga practice with humming: Feel your inner resonance
At the beginning of a class, I often ask my students to close their eyes and sense the quality of their energy. Then I ask them to show me their[…]
Hum your way to health: How to naturally increase nitric oxide in your body
With COVID-19 still wreaking havoc around the world, the race for the treatment is on. Different organizations use different strategies to combat the virus. Just last week a biotechnology startup[…]
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To hold or not to hold? Is breath holding detrimental or beneficial to your body?
Do you hold your breath while typing, emailing or texting? Apparently, this is such a common occurrence, that Linda Stone, a writer and speaker, had coined a phrase “screen apnea”,[…]
How to combine breath and movement in your yoga practice
Time and time again I see new yoga students being confused about whether to do a certain movement on the inhale or the exhale. “How does it go?” – they[…]
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The mechanics of exhalation and the preferred way to exhale in yoga
The normal unconscious exhalation is a passive process, as one simply relaxes the muscles that were engaged on the inhale. However, in our yoga practice we purposefully augment the natural[…]
What is your optimal breathing rate and why it matters
Many of your body’s physiological processes have a rhythmic nature: your heartbeat, blood pressure, digestive peristalsis, breathing rate and many others proceed in pulsating (or wave-like) fashion. Each system has[…]
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Gas exchange within the body: Don’t rush to get rid of carbon dioxide
Two years ago, my family and I went to the beautiful San Juan Islands. The San Juan Islands are an archipelago of about 170 islands in the Pacific Northwest between[…]
The mechanics of inhalation and the proper way to inhale in yoga
In college I majored in Russian literature, and I remember being fascinated by the sheer number of heroines in the Russian classics who would faint at the slightest sign of[…]
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Exercise your diaphragm yoga practice
Your diaphragm is the primary muscle of respiration; it contracts like any other muscle and can be controlled voluntarily. It is important for your diaphragm to maintain tonicity, so that[…]
Dual roles of your diaphragm and why they are essential in your yoga practice
A diaphragm is the primary muscle of inhalation; it is responsible for about 75% of the air movement in normal breathing at rest (external intercostal muscles are responsible for the[…]
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