by Kara-Leah Grant, author of Forty Days of Yoga It's easy when you regularly go to yoga classes to dismiss the idea of home yoga practice - after all, you don't need it right? You're already practicing in class 2 or 3 or maybe even 5 or 6 times a week. However, even if you are going to class, there is much to be gained by also doing a home yoga practice. It doesn't have to be every day, and it doesn't have to be long. Ten minutes is enough. Even such a small amount of time can have … [Read more...]
Archives for March 2014
This Moment is Enough: A Simple Practice for Peace
By guest author Mary O’Malley In this moment, I invite you into the peace and the ease that you long for. After your next in-breath, allow yourself a long, slow out-breath. Melt into your out-breath, letting any tension in your body melt with it. Now, on the next in-breath, tighten your muscles. Exaggerate the tension in your body and then say “ahh” as you melt again into your out-breath. Revel in the deliciousness of a deep out-breath coupled with the powerful healing sound of “ahh”. (You … [Read more...]
Why a Great Yoga Teacher is Sometimes Crucial to Progress Your Practice
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat Six weeks or so into regular Mysore-style classes with Peter Sanson and I've having some serious insights and openings - not just on the physical level, but also on the emotional, mental and energetic level. But of course - how could it be any other way? These things are all intertwined and I've known this for a very long time. Before I found Peter, I'd been searching for a yoga teacher for a decade or so, while doing a home practice and sporadically … [Read more...]
How To Overcome Your Fears During Yoga Teacher Training
by Kelly Fisher, Urban Yoga Kelly works as a mentor for students wanting to move toward teacher training, currently training as teachers, or fresh out of training. In these articles, she shares some of the questions she's asked. You can ask her your questions by sending her an email. Question: I am in teacher training and I feel as if my teachers aren't giving the structure or guidance I was expecting to find my "voice". They kind of just throw us in it and then critique us … [Read more...]
The Basic Principles of Building a Home Yoga Practice
by Kara-Leah Grant As a yoga teacher, my goal is to inspire my students to practice yoga at home. It's great when people get themselves to classes three times a week, but the true benefits of yoga really start to unfold when you commit to just showing up on your mat by yourself and seeing what happens. In a class, your focus is both internal and external. You're listening to the teacher and watching the demonstrations while also paying attention to what's going on inside of you. When you … [Read more...]
What is Love? Deep Acceptance of the Other, and Opening to Vulnerability
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I've been pondering the nature of Love over the last year or so, holding many deep conversations with my wonderful girlfriends and reflecting over two decades of short and long-term relationships. I've got plenty of material to draw upon! And you know what? I think I've got it. I know what love is - and what it is not. Love is a deep acceptance of the other person. Out of that ground of deep acceptance arise actions that create one's day to … [Read more...]