by Kara-Leah Grant She's sometimes referred to as "the Madonna of Yoga" - at least, that's what Vanity Fair called Shiva Rea when she did a desert photo shoot for them in 2007. But magazines love catchy monikers and as someone who grew up idolising Madonna and has studied with Shiva... the two women are nothing alike. "I'm not sure what exactly what they were referring to, whether it was my boldness, but I'm not into being a yoga celebrity at all. At all! Humility for me is a really important … [Read more...]
Teaching Yoga? You Must have a Home Yoga Practice. Here’s why
by Kara-Leah Grant Recently on social media, a yoga teacher was talking about the difficulty of fitting in going to yoga classes with her busy schedule, and admitted that her home yoga practice was poor. This teacher displayed zero awareness of the importance of a personal practice for anyone who teaches yoga. She's trained as a yoga teacher. Which implies that the yoga teacher training she completed didn't hammer home the importance of a personal practice for those who teach yoga. She's not … [Read more...]
The Difference between Practicing Yoga Postures and Having a Yoga Practice
by Kara-Leah Grant There are many people doing yoga poses today, but there are far less people who have a yoga practice. Postures are everywhere - Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, advertising, magazines, yoga classes, yoga retreats, yoga teacher trainings. However, postures do not make a yoga practice. A yoga practice requires at least two other important elements before it can serve its purpose - that of self-realisation, or of waking the practitioner up from the dream of Maya … [Read more...]
An Interview with Tom Myers of Anatomy Trains on the New Anatomy of Interconnectedness
by Kara-Leah Grant Back in 2001, movement specialist Tom Myers published a book called Anatomy Trains. In it, he put forward an idea that was to forever change the way that people understood "stretching" - a systems-oriented view of our musculo-skeletal anatomy. That is, that when we stretch, we're not just stretching separate and individual muscles, but that we're also working with fascia, which is a webbing overlaid and connecting all muscles. This book was born out of the work that Tom … [Read more...]
The Truth on Drinking Coffee and Teaching or Practicing Yoga
by Kara-Leah Grant Since stopping regular coffee drinking back in 2013, I have become fastidious about never drinking coffee before practicing or teaching yoga. Since I practice every day, and teach often, there are very rare windows when caffeine is an option for me. At a recent summer festival, I realised how deeply this belief I have about the importance of not having caffeine in the system when practicing and teaching was ingrained. A couple of hours before I was teaching a class, I … [Read more...]
Patanjali’s Five Key Attitudes for Committing to Your Yoga Practice
by Kara-Leah Grant Today was Day 300 of a Tantric yoga practice I'm doing, which got me reflecting on what it takes to commit to yoga. Every day, no matter what, I sit and do this particular yoga practice, which consists of seated spinal rotations with pranayama, chanting with visualisation and mudra, and meditation. My intention is to do 1000 days in a row - that's almost three years of dedicated, committed practice. If I miss a day, I have to start again on Day 1. It's taken me over fifteen … [Read more...]
The Ethics of Teaching Newly Learned Material in Your Yoga Class
by Kara-Leah Grant Once, I taught a weekend workshop to an eager group of students, including the studio owner and some teachers from the studio. My style of yoga and teaching was fairly different to the usual style on offer at this particular studio. My offering was lapped up and everyone enjoyed the workshop, excited to have a new way to approach yoga. So far so good right? This is exactly the kind of response one wants from teaching a workshop. A day or two after the weekend, one of the … [Read more...]
How to Avoid Putting Someone off Yoga for Life in Your Yoga Class
by Kara-Leah Grant Yoga might be one of the faster growing pursuits in the West, but there's still plenty of people showing up to class, having one - or multiple - bad experiences and being put off for life. And unfortunately, that initial interaction with a studio and/or teacher can set the tone for the way someone will forevermore think about yoga and 'yoga people'. Yes, there can be difficult first-timers and it takes two people to co-create a situation. But in the yoga room, the onus is on … [Read more...]
Tara Judelle on Journeying to the Centre of the Body through Yoga {Video interview}
by Kara-Leah Grant Meet Tara Judelle, an international yoga teacher and featured teacher with Yogaglo. Tara has over 27 years’ experience working with movement, and now focuses her yoga classes, and her own practice, on the discovery of embodied anatomy. I had the pleasure of attending a weekend workshop with Tara last November, at a time I was beginning to become disillusioned with the yoga I was finding. Tara restored my faith in yoga teachers. She taught 100% out of her own practice, … [Read more...]
Amy Ippoliti on the Most Valuable Thing You Can Offer in Yoga Class
by Kara-Leah Grant This article was written in February 2014 for Wanderlust NZ & Australia that year. I've re-published it as Amy is appearing at Wanderlust Sunshine Coast October 2015 and it was a fabulous interview. When I first heard that Amy Ippoliti was teaching at Wanderlust NZ and Australia, and saw photos of her, I made the assumption that she was one of the new-breed of yoga teachers - young, hip and cool but not necessarily with any depth of understanding or decade-long … [Read more...]