TEACHING YOGA

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Teaching yoga classes

AI in yoga: Three main concerns about AI dispensing yoga advice

There is no doubt at this point that AI is here to stay, and it…

Taking care of yourself as a yoga therapist & yoga teacher who works with trauma recovery

The ability to hold the space for clients who have experienced trauma requires the ability…

The healing balm of therapeutic groups and working with the story

Our connection with other human beings is essential to our health and happiness. Traumatic experiences…

Assessment models for working with clients and small therapeutic groups around trauma

Human suffering is universal, but everyone’s experience of suffering is unique, even for those who…

Creating avatars to cope with anxiety

“Become the warrior version of yourself,” my teacher used to say. At the time, I…

Words matter: Yoga cues to help with anxiety

When people think of the aspects of a great yoga teacher, they often conjure up…

How to accommodate a yoga student with osteoporosis in a general yoga class

Osteoporosis is a chronic disease that is characterized by porous, weakened bones. It usually presents…

What do your students need in their yoga right now?

Yesterday morning, I was trying to do my pranayama practice, as my 9-year-old was bouncing…

What’s so special about yoga series?

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post about the similarities between a well-designed…

“What am I going to teach today?” How to narrow your options for maximum impact

I was amused to discover that the word priority came into the English language in…

How to give your yoga students an experience, rather than “same old, same old” yoga class

A couple of weeks ago, I went to get a massage at a wellness center…

What do pregnant women need in a yoga class?

Some years ago, I was invited to teach an introductory workshop on viniyoga at a…

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…

Who sets the intention for the yoga class – the teacher or the student?

When I go to a yoga class, and the teacher asks students to set an…

Who are your yoga students and what do they need?

When I started teaching yoga many years ago, I remember spending a lot of time…

How to improve your students’ experience with yoga visualizations

Our brains store huge amounts of information that needs to be kept organized and ready…

Predictions: How your yoga students’ brains respond to your class instructions

Any yoga teacher knows that it feels very different to teach regular students who have…

Does the intensity of your yoga practice match your life stage?

Over the years, I’ve discovered that as teachers we have to make a choice of…

Choosing appropriate poses

AI in yoga: Can AI do an effective yoga pose analysis?

Every time I read an article or a book about AI, it touts remarkable feats…

Two fundamentally different ways to do Bridge pose

Am I the only one who finds that sometimes detailed instructions on how to get…

How do you know what a yoga pose is meant to accomplish?

I remember reading an article a couple of years ago by a yoga teacher who…

How to make an extension pose a focus of your practice

At first glance, it might seem that axial extension poses are easy – what’s so…

How to lengthen your spine without strain

There are two distinctive ways of lengthening the spine while performing axial extension postures: one…

Why do we lengthen upward? Four types of axial extension postures

Technically, the term “spinal extension” refers to the spine returning into the neutral position from…

Core players: The muscles that move your trunk and how to work them

From my observations around my gym, it looks like abdominal crunches are on their way…

Four main functions of your core muscles

One thing that I often hear from my new clients is: “I was told by…

How to prepare for “pelvic opening” poses

The last time I went to see my hairstylist and settled in the chair, she…

Avoid common pitfalls while bending sideways

There is this interesting thing that I observed during my years of teaching yoga –…

Why do we bend sideways?

One of the revelatory experiences I had in my viniyoga teacher training came after a…

What makes Jathara Parivrtti a “superpose”?

Have you heard the term superfood? It is usually used to describe a nutrient-rich food…

How to protect your sacrum during twisting

Do you know how tsunamis get started? One of the most common reasons is an…

3 steps to safer, more effective twists

The best image that seems to help students get the hang of twisting postures is…

Why do we twist?

Just like any other discipline, yoga has its own “lingo” that is widely used in…

How to organize back bends in a yoga sequence

A number of years ago, a friend of mine went to a new yoga class.…

How to bend back without hurting your back

When I was little, I did gymnastics, and deep back bends like this one were…

Why do we bend back in yoga?

If you follow any famous yogis on Instagram, you will inevitably see many beautiful, glamorous…

Should we take the body to the maximum bend possible in every direction possible?

A few months ago, one of the teachers in my yoga teacher Facebook group asked…

Designing yoga practices

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…

AI in yoga: Can AI do an effective yoga pose analysis?

Every time I read an article or a book about AI, it touts remarkable feats…

AI in yoga: Can AI create and lead a simple yoga practice?

As AI continues to spread everywhere, its complete disconnection from the physical experience becomes particularly…

AI in yoga: What does it mean to have or not to have a body?

At the SYTAR (Symposium on Yoga Therapy and Research) conference earlier this year, Doug Keller,…

AI in yoga: Can we trust AI to be accurate?

There are already plenty of products/services on the market that promise great benefits from integrating AI into yoga. Should we join the hype?

Why it is important for yoga students to practice yoga at home

My son has been getting tutoring in Spanish for almost two years now. He gets…

Mudra in a leading role: How to organize an entire practice around a mudra

Since most mudras are simple hand gestures, they are pretty easy to integrate into one’s…

Breath control options in yoga

There are many ways to control breath in our yoga practice. I put them into…

How to plan a yoga class

I was educated as a school teacher, and in the past, I had written my…

Less but better: Essentialism in yoga practice design

I’ve been reading an interesting book called Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg…

Yoga practice ideas based on the Panchamaya Model

My teacher Gary Kraftsow often says: “You can’t teach what you don’t have.”  This means…

What can singing teach us about yoga? How to structure effective yoga classes

Recently I’ve been very fond of this 24-year-old singer from Kazakhstan whose name is Dimash.…

Short yoga practice to restore emotional balance

There is an interesting and complex connection between your physiology and your emotions. We tend…

How to create a short targeted yoga practice to change your mental state

When you want to change the way you think or feel at any given moment,…

How to create a short targeted yoga practice for energy management

When we design a short yoga practice to manage our energy, breathing needs to be…

How to create a short targeted yoga practice for physical tension

Every time I have a yoga video shoot with my videographer, I feel slightly guilty.…

How to create a short potent yoga practice

My sister had recently gone to see Tony Robbins – you know, the self-help guru?…

Why it is important to be specific in your yoga practice design

When I first moved to Michigan about five years ago, I experienced a bit of…

Teaching chair yoga

Magic Three yoga poses chair practice

Magic Three yoga poses are simple, foundational poses that most students would benefit from. They…

Let go of agitation: short langhana practice in a chair

I have experienced a full-blown panic attack once in my life about 10 years ago.…

A list of basic chair yoga poses

Once you begin to think of chair yoga poses in terms of directional movement of…

How creative do we need to be with chair yoga?

If you teach chair yoga to a group or individual student for a while, at…

Chair yoga practice for supple spine

“So why did you decide to give yoga a try?” – I asked a new…

How to sequence classes for chair yoga

One of my older yoga students gets mildly irritated every time she hears a yoga…

Four things to keep in mind when designing a chair yoga practice

One of the readers commented on the last post on chair yoga: “Chair yoga is…

Who is Chair yoga for?

“Let’s use a chair,” – I suggested to one of my students a few years…

Yogic frameworks

Three main yogic frameworks for understanding your state of well-being

Whenever we try to understand what’s going on inside ourselves or our students, we can…

Who is driving your chariot? The traditional view of the relationship between the senses, mind and intellect

For a long time, I’ve been wondering: Where do emotions belong in the Panchamaya model?…

Does the intensity of your yoga practice match your life stage?

Over the years, I’ve discovered that as teachers we have to make a choice of…

How to manage your “body budget”: The Brhmana/Langhana model

The other day, I was cooking dinner as my son was watching a kid’s movie…

Mula bandha: what it is and whether or not you need it

Some Sanskrit words had successfully made it into our pop culture. When a lady in…

Five currents of prana and how they organize your physiology (5 Vayus )

I heard a theory (and I don’t know whether or not it’s true) that Western…

Yogis ahead of science: One nostril breathing determines how you feel

Have you ever heard of the “honeymoon nose”? The proper name for it is honeymoon…

How to use yoga to energize or unwind

I am not a morning person. In my early days as a yoga practitioner, I…

What makes your heart beat? A yogic view of energy and physiology

What differentiates a living, breathing human body from a cadaver? After all, the hardware is…

What’s more important – your hamstrings or your liver? Panchamaya (koshas) model

My yoga teacher likes to ask: what is more important – your hamstrings or your…

Yoga teaching options

How to record your own yoga videos and offer them for sale

Recently, we discussed offering your yoga services via video conferencing and live streaming. Another way…

How to move your yoga teaching online with video conferencing or live streaming

As much as we want this uncertainty brought on by COVID-19 to end quickly, we…

Diversify your offerings: How to find private yoga clients

Heraclitus famously said “The only thing that is constant is change.” This applies to everything…

Think beyond classes: Eight options of teaching yoga

There are many ways of teaching yoga to your students. Today, let’s have an overview…

The pros and cons of teaching yoga online

About twelve years ago, my most reliable and consistent yoga client decided to move to…

What does it take to open a yoga studio

Over the holidays, I got hooked on the NPR podcast called “How I Built This,”…

Yoga teacher’s toolbox

Yoga teacher’s toolbox: How to work with hands, wrists and forearms

Whenever you plan to work with hands, wrists and forearms in your yoga class or…

Yoga teacher’s toolbox: How to work with hamstrings, IT band, knees and ankles

Whenever you plan to work with legs, knees and ankles in your yoga class or…

Yoga Teacher’s Toolbox: How to work with hip adductors, abductors and rotators

Whenever you plan to work with hip adductors, abductors and rotators in your yoga class…

Yoga teacher’s toolbox: How to work with hip flexors, extensors and QL

Whenever you design a class or a private yoga session to address tension in hip flexors,…

Yoga teacher’s toolbox: How to work with lower back and sacrum

Whenever you plan to work with lower back and sacrum in your yoga class or…

Yoga teacher’s toolbox: How to work with core and pelvic floor

Whenever you design a yoga class to strengthen the core or tone the pelvic floor…

Yoga teacher’s toolbox: How to work with shoulders and upper back

Whenever you plan to work with shoulders in your yoga class or private yoga session,…

Yoga teacher’s toolbox: How to work with neck and upper back

Whenever you design a yoga class aimed at releasing tension in the neck and upper…

Marketing your yoga services

“Elevator pitch” for yoga teachers: How to quickly communicate to anybody what is it that you do

For the last several weeks, my neighborhood has been having Happy Hour get-togethers on Thursday…

What’s at stake for your potential yoga students?

What is your favorite TV show right now? What is at stake for the main…

How to motivate students to engage your services

Have you ever seen one of those late-night infomercials with the host screaming at the…

How to make it easier for potential yoga students to sign up for your services

A few years ago, I received an email from an avid blog reader who was…

Two main qualities that define a good teacher and attract new students

Several years ago, I went to an ophthalmologist’s office for a vision check. At one…

Who are your yoga students and what problems do they face?

How’s your transition to teaching yoga online going? Do you have enough students to keep…

The secret formula that will grow your yoga business

I don’t know a single yoga teacher who chose to teach yoga to make money.…