Author Archives: Kristin Shepherd
I Am Not This Body
It’s a tricky business combining meditation and asana practices in a life. There’s the obvious problem of time when you decide to do sitting meditation twice a day and you happen to be so head-over-heels with kundalini yoga that you’re… Continue reading
Summer Highlights
Sometime during the last hour, I touched my heels in Camel Pose. First time ever. There should be fireworks going off somewhere. This is absolutely one of the finest moments of the summer for me.Here are others: 2.Two of my brothers… Continue reading
Posted in Yoga
Tagged Beginner's yoga, kristin shepherd, Yoga, yoga humor
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Learning What My Body Wants
I paddled flat water kayak and war canoe competitively when I was young. It involved training two or three times each day during the summer, and strength training all winter. What I remember about our summer workouts was one minute… Continue reading
Posted in canoe, competition, sports, stretching, warcanoe, Yoga
Tagged Beginner's yoga, kristin shepherd, Yoga, yoga humor
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Yoga Was Weird Once, Too
Yoga’s come a long way, baby. When my mother took yoga classes 40 years ago, she was weird. She was dabbling in something cultish, Eastern (as if that didn’t say it all), nutty-seedy vegetarian and bound to zip down a… Continue reading
Posted in buddhistmindfulnessmeditation, compostpile, davidnichtern, Yoga, yogainschools
Tagged kristin shepherd, meditation, Yoga, yoga humor
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To Ann and All The Teachers in Training
Over the last few months I’ve had the pleasure of corresponding with Ann, a Yoga Journal reader who is smack in the middle of yoga teacher training. As you’d expect, she’s experiencing ups, downs, and growth in about 47 different… Continue reading
Posted in guidance, students, teachers, Yoga
Tagged Beginner's yoga, kristin shepherd, Yoga, yoga teacher training
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Modern Yoga Wisdom
If I were writing my own version of the Yoga Sutra (a 2,000-year old guide for the practice of yoga), I would include this bit of wisdom: In your practice, some asanas will elicit such panicky resistance from your body… Continue reading
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Tagged Beginner's yoga, kristin shepherd, Yoga, yoga humor, yoga sutras
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What Is Your Yoga?
"It’s not the asanas that will change your life. It’s the courage you bring to your practice that will change your life." Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa I froze mid-leg swing when I heard that while watching her DVD last night…. Continue reading
Yoga and Health Care
Deepak Chopra recently wrote an article in The Huffington Post raving calmly, the way he does, about the benefits of yoga, about the 16 million Americans now practicing yoga, about its effects on sleep, depression and anxiety, migraines, low back… Continue reading
Posted in chiropractic, deepakchopra, Yoga
Tagged Beginner's yoga, Deepak Chopra, kristin shepherd, meditation, Yoga
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Yoga Al Fresco 2
Following twice daily practices outside this weekend and last (blame the Kundalini fever), I have a few more observations on the differences between indoor and outdoor practice.1. Some asanas are transformed by moving outside. Shoulderstand done indoors is a horror… Continue reading
Posted in Yoga
Tagged Beginner's yoga, kristin shepherd, Yoga, yoga humor, yoga outside
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A Change of Scenery
During summer, my practice moves outside two or three days every week. My lovely man and I spend long weekends at our cabin on an island in Northern Ontario. This means that my practice is either free-form or follows a… Continue reading
Posted in alfresco, Yoga, yogamat, yogaoutside
Tagged Beginner's yoga, kristin shepherd, Yoga, yoga humor, yoga outside
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