Category Archives: Yoga

Meditation Top 10

Why meditate? Here are my top 10 reasons: Because it makes me happier overall. There’s nothing sophisticated about this, but if I had to pick one, this’d be it. Because it has transformed my asana practice. Without meditation, I strive… Continue reading

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Beginner’s Meditation 1+1

Last time, we talked about starting to meditate, about placing your bum on the couch for the first time. If that worked for you, and you didn’t run screaming to your TV or your fridge, your computer or your iPhone… Continue reading

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Beginner’s Meditation 1

Meditation, like asana and pranayama, is a branch of yoga. Writing about meditation makes me nervous. I have an irrational and enormous love of what amounts to sitting still, doing not very much, and feel it is impossible to do… Continue reading

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Bellowing

If it weren’t for bellows breathing, I could go the entire day without actually waking up. We’ve been talking about pranayama, the breathwork limb of yoga. I can’t move on to anything else without paying tribute to Bellows Breath, or… Continue reading

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Squared Breathing

Have you tried squared breathing? Inhale, two, three, four, hold, two, three, four, exhale, two, three, four, hold two, three four. Simple, but it’ll change your life. In the foreword to The Yoga of Breath by Richard Rosen, Rodney Yee writes that… Continue reading

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In Praise of Breathing

Pranayama. I’m besotted with it. The use of breath is one of the eight limbs of yoga. It’s all I can think about these days, which makes for disastrous conversations in grocery stores. ("Have you practiced exhaling lately? You haven’t?" Blank… Continue reading

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Expanding the Definition of Yoga

Like most North Americans, I first met yoga as a physical practice, a sport. Unlike most sports in my life, yoga combines strength and flexibility, which is like some kind of magic trick after years of activities (trail running, cycling,… Continue reading

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Beginner’s Breathing

It could be that I’m getting old and that my sense of fun has changed so much that I can no longer play with others in the way I used to. It could also be that yoga is having… Continue reading

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No Resolutions Here

A pox on New Year’s resolutions. Yay for you if they work, but they have not worked for me, ever. Instead, they raise an unrealistic bar set by any guilt and shame still hanging around from the old year. I… Continue reading

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Best Yoga of 2010?

Best yoga of 2010? Okay, I’ll start. Hands down, no question, it was 108 Sun Salutations, done by myself at 4am on the solstice, December 21st. Why was it the best? (I will resist giving you all 108 reasons.) I… Continue reading

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