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 [...]
To me the main benefit of practicing yoga is to become more present in more moments of our lives. There are many ways to help you along that path, including breath awareness and body awareness. Focusing on alignment to improve body awareness is one of my most frequently used techniques. However, this week I want to emphasize another method: setting [...]
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 [...]
In our lives off the mat, we rarely if ever go upside down. Thus it is quite natural that for many of us the idea of inversions causes some trepidation. However, inverted yoga poses have many positive effects on the body (and the mind). Different inversions have specific benefits, but in general, they stimulate the endocrine, immune, and digestive systems. [...]
Pranayama, one of the core practices of yoga, is often translated as "control of life force" or "breath control". This is so because 'prana' means life force or breath, and ‘yama' means control or restriction. (See the footnote below for a detailed grammatical explanation of the meaning of pranayama). While this is probably the original historical meaning, it is worth [...]
We typically discount the importance of the breath in our daily lives. This week, I want you to experience how central the breath is to your health. The breath is enough means that simply improving our breathing can increase our wellbeing in very concrete, measurable ways. There is data to back this up. Yogic breathing techniques have been shown to [...]
Research has shown that happy emotions contribute to long-term wellbeing. But none of us wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed everyday. So how do you generate joy when you don't already feel joyful? One answer of course is yoga. :) Generate joy by focusing on the here and now One secret to increase your joy is to realize that happiness is [...]
Muscular and Organic Energy are a pair of yoga alignment principles designed to work in tandem to bring us into balance. I find such paired alignment principles powerful teaching tools, because they inherently stress the importance of balancing opposites. By balancing opposites like Muscular and Organic Energies, we can increase not only our joy in our practice, but its [...]
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?
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