Back pain is one of the most common physical complaints people have. 80% of Americans complain of back pain at some point in their lives. Learning to stop overusing your spine (which we do to avoid having to stretch big hip and shoulder muscles) can help keep your spine safer. In addition, learning to lengthen and compress your spine intentionally [...]
When my dad was visiting Chiang Mai from Germany years ago, he was astonished how well the traffic flows there despite the huge number of vehicles on the road. Thai traffic has taught me an important life lesson that has not only made me a better driver, but a better person. True, traffic in Thailand is chaotic and there are [...]
Make your practice smarter than your habits. What is your prevailing tendency? And here is the real question: What happens when you let go of your prevailing tendency and work with the opposite one for a while?
I do believe in the value of alignment, and thus I have actually spent quite a bit of time thinking about this question. The answer I have settled on is that the question itself is taking you off the path, is derailing the deepening of your practice. It is simply not a particularly helpful question. To ask if there is [...]
There really isn’t much more to say than the title: Do less, feel more. It’s not about the difficulty or impressiveness of the poses you do. Nor is it about how long you can hold them without hating them or collapsing into a heap of muscle spasms. It’s about how deeply you can get your whole being involved in each [...]
“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; or you can live as if everything is a miracle.” –Albert Einstein Making this distinction may seem at first like a contrived intellectual exercise. However, living life from the perspective that everything is a miracle can profoundly change your attitude. It can change your attitude [...]
Do you like speed bumps? (Or speed humps, judder bars, lomos de burro, or sleeping policemen, depending on where you are from.) I didn't think you did. Who does? I used to dislike them like everyone, but then I received a lesson from a 2-year-old: a lesson in acceptance. Not that my son is (or was) a buddha-like creature in [...]
Why practice difficult asanas, if the practice of yoga is to be something other than an ego-driven endeavor? Because in the act of doing something challenging, we are compelled to become more present in the moment. In doing something new, we gain an opportunity to break out of our habitual and unconscious patterns. We create an opportunity to learn how [...]
When is a body shape merely a body shape, and what transforms it into an asana? From my point of view, it is the suffusion of a shape with the qualities of a free-flowing breath that transforms a shape into an asana. It is the prioritization of a spacious breath that transforms a body movement into the practice of yoga. [...]
This week we will continue with inversions, focusing on headstand. The great advantage of headstand over other inversions is that it requires less muscular effort and less precise balance. Thus it can be practiced for significantly longer time periods. This in turn increases the benefits you derive from going upside down. Headstand is also generally easier to do without a [...]
