If you’ve been to my classes or tried my online videos you’ll know that I rarely feature advanced yoga poses. I want my classes to feel accessible to as many people as possible and I also feel that we can gain more by working with simple and accessible poses from yoga. It’s like the difference between a 5km run (or walk) and an ultramarathon. Lots of people can run or walk a 5km distance. It’s something many people can do regularly without a lot of work and there are ways to make it challenging and yet unique to each person’s ability. However, very few people will ever do an ultramarathon and ..read more

I’ve decided to step back from teaching and writing about yoga. It’s been 8 years and the decision surprised me. I was waiting for coffee to brew when I had the epiphany that it was time to stop. With the realisation, the first thing that came to mind was aparigraha. Aparigraha is one of the five yamas (one of the 8 limbs of yoga from Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras, yamas are often described as ethical or moral rules or guidance). Aparigraha is often translated as non-possessiveness, non-hoarding, non-holding or non-clinging. The intent is about not holding on to things – whether they are tangible th ..read more

Spending a few weeks in a new city has meant that I could try out yoga classes from teachers that were new to me. Trying out new classes with unfamiliar teachers made me reflect on how it important it is to think about and do what is right for me personally. And specifically in group classes where everyone follows along often without time or space for questions, it’s important to feel like you can say no, not do something or do something differently. In one class I tried, we were guided into certain physical movements that aren’t ideal for my dodgy hypermobile (far too flexible) hips. We repea ..read more

Pranayama in yoga refers to practices or techniques to moderate, change or influence how we are breathing. It can involve changing things like: The pace of the inhale or exhale The amount or quantity of air that is inhaled or exhaled The ratio of the inhale to exhale Holding the breath out or in (known as breath retention) Using our body to change the breath (such as closing one nostril, breathing through the mouth, changing the position of the tongue, restricting the breath in the throat, and using active abdominal muscles to influence breathing). This can involve using mudras (hand gestures ..read more

A quick scan of my blog and you’ll find I most often write about the physical movements of yoga as well as breathing practices and meditation – however these are just 3 aspects of yoga practice. Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras outline the 8 limbs of yoga. The philosophy and practices of yoga have developed and evolved over 5000 years, originating in India. Over this time you can find many different philosophical movements, intellectual and spiritual scholars and thinkers, and writings that address what yoga is, the purpose of yoga and how to practice yoga. Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras are one such Sanskrit ..read more

When I started practicing yoga in 2002, it was booming in Seattle. There was a new studio on every corner attracting new students with a first class free offer. I was a grad student on a budget, so I visited just about every studio in Seattle at least once. Though I tried a range of styles, I found myself at the time drawn to power vinyasa or power yoga (see more on the different modern postural types of yoga). This style of yoga tends to be more physical, moving faster from one pose to the next and typically every movement is matched to an inhale or exhale. Early on I was introduced to the pr ..read more

When I was researching the purpose of śavāsana (corpse pose), I came across a comment from restorative yoga expert Judith Lasaster that it takes the average person 15 minutes to physiologically relax. She talked about this in a podcast on Why You Can’t Skip Savasana. She said the effects of śavāsana don’t take affect until 15 minutes. Judith explained her definition of the three stages of relaxation with the first stage being physiological relaxation. This can be measured with biological measures like heart rate, breath rate and brain waves. This is the stage that Judith says on average takes ..read more

In the last week, I’ve seen increasing calls among the yoga community to help organisations working to address the covid crisis in India. As I’ve been working to increase my knowledge and understanding of the roots of yoga in India, these calls to help have struck a chord with me. Susanna Barkataki is a yoga teacher and activist who focuses on equity and diversity in yoga. She wrote on social media “As organizations and people that benefit from yoga and other wisdom traditions from India we need to show up in relationship to this situation, acknowledging the pain and hurt, addressing the need ..read more

Last week, I wrote about how going to yoga to stretch a recent acute injury is not always the best approach to help recovery. So what is? We’ve all heard of R.I.C.E. as a common approach to help manage and recover from acute injuries. The acronym stands for Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation. But after my own recent injury, I learned about a new acronym from local physiotherapist Sam Jewell, called P.O.L.I.C.E. This stands for: Protect Optimal Load Ice Compression Elevation The key difference is replacing rest with protect and optimal load. While our body does require some rest to recover ..read more

We all know that tell-tale feeling – the moment, when you’re gardening, bending over to pick something up, or out for a run and misstep, and something goes wrong. You might have rolled your ankle or picked up something too heavy, or twisted around too fast. Either way, there was a moment of sharp pain as you moved – a red flag that something went wrong. Photo by Kindel Media from Pexels This is usually referred to as an acute injury – one that is sudden or spontaneous. But you can also have a new acute injury in place where you already have/had chronic injuries. Frequently, when we get those s ..read more