Maybe a yoga class is the last place you think you'll be running into what Jung called "the shadow." If you've taken a group fitness class in your life, you might think back and recall what you thought or felt about that instructor/teacher. Or you might think about how it seemed that others treated that person. Were they treated as a real person, or as an idealized version of what others think or feel they should be? It's likely that at least some of the class participants (i

and can we breathe well in that shape? Many of us learned how to hold our bodies from family or authority figures at a young age. "Pull your shoulders back!" "Don't slouch!," we were told. And so, we learned to stand, and sit, with our ribcage forward, and our shoulders "back." In the gym, we might sometimes hear "proud chest" as a cue not to slouch forward. We tend to think of this as "standing up straight," or having "good posture." But if we take a look at this image of a

In my last post, we took a look at what we’re actually trying to accomplish when we sit down to meditate. TLDR (too long, didn’t read?):...

Why do we meditate? Or, if we don’t, why do we think we should meditate? For many folks, the goal is to be more mindful. We want to enjoy...

If you’re someone who works with anxiety, you already know how overwhelming it can be. This is especially true for folks with a history...

One of the most important lessons I learned from yoga? That there are some things about myself that can't be changed-- and that's...

Yoga, meditation and other somatic practices have long been part of indigenous communities' ways of healing and spirituality. If we're...

as practitioners, we can empower folks to experience their own strength (rather than fear their fragility) If you've taken a yoga class over the past decade, you've probably heard some of the following cues: a"Never let your knee travel further than your ankle-- you want to protect your knee." "Brace your abdominals to protect your back." "Never roll up to stand from a forward fold, or you'll cause damage to your spine." "Don't place your foot on your knee in Tree Pose or you

a long, nerdy post about alignment in this classic shape Warrior 1: it sounds so fundamental, so simple, like, the most basic thing you...

One of the defining moments in my yoga career happened in a far-away town, where I was visiting and attending a yin class. It was an...

It’s summer! If you’re traveling this year, you may be leaving your favorite classes and teachers behind. If you’re intimidated by the...

Imagine you are a prospective yoga student. Looking at class schedules online, you see a lot of “vinyasa” yoga, and you wonder what it is....

One of the most challenging things about being a yoga teacher is teaching the dreaded “mixed-level class.” It might look like this– In...