Keeping your shoulders safe can be more challenging than protecting your hips. The shoulder joint does for the arm what the hip joint does for the leg. It connects the limb to the trunk. Both are ball and socket joints, which allow for the greatest range of motion of any joints. However, there are two key differences that explain [...]
Getting your upper back involved in backbends (last week's theme) is a challenging adjustment for many. However, like any directional adjustment, it IS possible to take even this important adjustment too far. When we do that, we collapse the back ribs and reduce spaciousness in the back body even as we create more space in the front. This week we [...]
One major problem with backbends that most of us have experienced at some point is a sore lower back. Backbend-induced lumbar pain is the result of following the path of least resistance. Concentrating your backbends in the lumbar spine is simply the easiest thing to do. However, it's neither the healthiest, nor the most effective path. If you want [...]
When you look at photos of people in super-deep backbends, it often looks like they have a sharp 90 degree kink in their lower back. It looks that way because they do. They have a hyper-mobile lower back. That certainly seems advantageous for deep backbends, but it is not something you want to emulate if your back doesn't do that [...]
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. [...]
When we talk about balance, both in the physical sense as well as metaphorically, we often use the words finding balance. We do that as if balance were a magical state that we only need to discover, hiding somewhere under a giant lotus leaf. Once we find it, then we simply ‘have’ it, is the implication, and we don’t need [...]
What does it mean to think of yoga as a gift? Plenty of people practice yoga because they sense that it has the power to transform their life. They sense that it can create a shift away from the ego-centric, achievement-oriented mode that the modern world incessantly reinforces. But it is all too common to see yogis unconsciously applying the [...]
In the yogic tradition, spanda is the subtle creative pulsation that manifests in all living and non-living entities. Recognizing and aligning with spanda helps us become more present in the moment, with a greater sense of connection and joy. The ancient yogic assertion that everything pulsates is true in a very literal way: Scientific investigations confirm that everything vibrates, from [...]
