by Lucinda Staniland, Denise Payne is a big-hearted yoga teacher with more than three decades of experience on the mat. Most recently, she spent the last eight years in Bali, where she taught at Ubud's favourite yoga studio, The Yoga Barn and also at Bali's most notorious prison, Kerobokan, where she started a yoga program with Myuran Sukumaran, one of the Bali Nine. In today's yoga landscape, Denise has what I consider to be an unusually deep grounding in Yoga, including twenty years spent … [Read more...]
Why I Don’t Go To Yoga Classes Anymore (But Maybe I Will)
by Lucinda Staniland I have a confession to make. Even though I practice yoga every day and work for a yoga website, I haven’t regularly attended yoga classes in years. My home yoga practice is consistent and serious, I'm constantly consulting my bookcase of yoga books, and I attend the occasional one-on-one session with a teacher. But yoga classes? That thing where you join a group of people to be led through asana and perhaps some pranayama and meditation? The answer used to be, … [Read more...]
Philip Shepherd on What It’s Really Like To Experience Radical Wholeness
by Lucinda Staniland What is radical wholeness? This is a question that Philip Shepherd has spent many decades exploring and experiencing. As an international embodiment expert and the author of "New Self, New World," "Radical Wholeness," and creator of The Embodied Present Process™, Philip has studied wholeness through scientific, historical and anthropological lenses and through the felt intelligence of his own body. Kara-Leah Grant caught up with Philip to explore his nuanced and, to many … [Read more...]
Dr Scott Lyons on The Art of Being Human & Embodied Flow™ Yoga
by Lucinda Staniland, It's always a joy to come across someone who takes real pleasure in the work they do in the world. Without a doubt, Dr Scott Lyons is such a person and I could tell so immediately when I began watching his conversation with Kara-Leah Grant. Although he clearly takes a serious and earnest approach to his work, there is also an overflowing sense of delight and lightness to him, which I couldn't help but be enchanted by. Dr Scott Lyons is a Clinical Psychologist and … [Read more...]
Health & Healing Through Yoga Therapy: An Interview with Mark Stephens
by Lucinda Staniland I love getting things for free. And I have a voracious and life-long love of books. So the first time I was offered a free review copy of a Yoga book (as part of my Yoga Lunchbox role) I was fairly swept off my feet. You mean, you really want to send me a free book? About Yoga? Now that's an offer I can't refuse. However, I'm now at a point where I do in fact refuse some of these offers. I've learnt that just because a book is free and about yoga, doesn't mean that it … [Read more...]
Is It Good to Go Deeper in a Yoga Pose?
by Lucinda Staniland For all the years I’ve been practicing yoga, I’ve always strived to ‘go deeper’ into the poses. In fact, I thought this was the point of asana. In the name of depth, I’ve pursued an ‘open heart’, and ‘release’ in the hips. Whatever the pose—lunges, backbends, twists—I’ve had an image in my mind of precisely how the pose should look, and the depth that I need to reach to achieve the perfect alignment. I’ve stretched my hands to my toes in standing forward bends, sunk deep … [Read more...]
The Dark Side of Essential Oils: Are They Really Safe to Use in Your Yoga Practice?
by Lucinda Staniland Essential Oils seem to be everywhere in the Yoga world these days: whether via a diffuser, massage or taken internally. That old favourite, incense, has been kicked to the curb and essential oils are riding high as they also offer a myriad of health benefits in addition to the delicious olfactory experience. But are Essential Oils really all that they're cracked up to be? Recently I've started hearing whisperings that Essential Oils may be more problematic, or at least … [Read more...]
Leslie Kaminoff on Why Asanas Don’t Exist
by Lucinda Staniland Meet Leslie Kaminoff, a Yoga educator with forty years experience in the study of Yoga and the breath. Leslie studied with T.K.V Desikachar, a teacher renowned for his emphasis on the therapeutic aspects of yoga, and he is the co-author of the bestselling book Yoga Anatomy. In Leslie's conversation with Kara-Leah Grant, I was struck by his particular brand of what I would call respectful realism. This is a man with a deep belief in the power of the work that he … [Read more...]
Has Modern Yoga Been Dominated By The Masculine?
by Lucinda StanilandIt's interesting what happens when you ask a difficult question.You'll note that there is only one man featured in this edition of The Community Speaks, our roundup of perspectives from influential people in the NZ and Australia yoga communities.This is not for lack of trying on our part—at least 11 men were invited to be part of this, but the majority of them didn't reply to emails. Perhaps it's an indication of how uncomfortable and challenging this question can be, or … [Read more...]
This is What Happened When I Combined Yoga with the KonMari Method
by Lucinda Staniland It was a small book that made a big promise. I’ve grown to be suspicious of such books, particularly when they make prominent use of phrases like ‘life-changing’, but there was something about this one that I couldn’t shake off. It was simple, it was sincere—very sincere, in fact—and it was practical too. Maybe, just maybe, I thought, this little book might be offering something true. Maybe, just maybe, tidying up might just turn out to be as life-changing as it … [Read more...]