by Kara-Leah Grant Meet Judith Hanson Lasater. A yoga teacher since 1971, and the co-founder of Yoga Journal, Judith is a physical therapist, and holds a PhD in East West psychology. She's also written eight books and recently released a second edition of her popular book Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life. (The first edition was released in 1999.) That was a great excuses for me to hit up Rodmell Press (her publishers) about interviewing Judith, and I was very … [Read more...]
Am I Endorsing Obesity by Telling Bigger- Bodied Yogis to Love Themselves?
By guest author Nityda Bhakti "I am so interested in trying yoga- I just need to wait until I lose this last fifteen pounds." "Yoga? Me?! Do you see my size? I could never lift myself off the ground like that!" I’ve heard comments like these for the past decade that I’ve been teaching. I’ve made it my mission to make friends, family, acquaintances, even strangers for that matter, see that you don’t have to be a certain weight, body-type, gender, age or race to begin a yoga practice. I’ve … [Read more...]
Is Laughter Yoga Really Yoga or just Another Fad?
by G-Love aka Gareth Edwards "I loved the laughing yoga, but it's not really yoga." I hear something like this every time I run sessions in a yoga context like a teacher's studio, yoga retreat or festival. For me this is the best possible response, because it means we did yoga together and nobody noticed. Like a mother who sneaks fresh vegetables into her children's meals, I managed to get a bit of goodness inside us all without battling the whine of 'aww but mum, I don't want to eat veggies … [Read more...]
Further Yoga Lessons in Bone Compression and Anatomical Limitations
by Kara-Leah Grant This week in my Ashtanga practice I've been exploring and playing with two joints in particular - my ankle joints and wrist joints. Thanks to a Yin Yoga workshop, I've identified that I have a limited range of movement in both of these joints - less than the normal range. The only posture that my limited ankle mobility appears to impact in the Primary Series (I'm up to Bhujapidasana (Shoulder-Pressing Pose)) is Utkatasana (Chair Pose). Prior to the realisation about my … [Read more...]
How Bone Compression Prevents Me from Doing Bhujapidasana
By Kara-Leah Grant I've been aware of the role that bone compression plays in our range of movement since watching a series of Paul Grilley videos on YouTube. Yet despite knowing this intellectually, it wasn't until I attended a Yin Yoga Workshop with Karin Sang and Markus Henning Giess of Yin Therapy that I realised how bone compression was impacting my yoga practice. Over the course of the day, Markus lead us through several bone compression tests so we could determine our natural range of … [Read more...]
How Do I Know if a Yoga Teacher Training is Good Value for Money?
By Lucinda Staniland It's the holy grail of the yoga world: A Yoga Teacher Training that is transformative, comprehensive, and great value for money. But how do we find such a thing? Currently, the price of Yoga Teacher Trainings can vary hugely, from (very rare) free or koha based trainings, to $4000 for an average NZ or Australian based training, to upwards of $16,000. As someone who is seriously considering undertaking a Yoga Teacher Training (but just hasn't found the right one yet) I've … [Read more...]
Is Meditation Dangerous?
by Kara-Leah Grant I got a call from a journalist at the Waikato Times who wanted to interview me for an article on the 'pros and cons' of meditation. I wasn't sure if I could help her out - after all, I don't teach meditation - however it turned out she wanted to interview me about my experience of awakening and psychosis. Ah... I was to be the con in the article. Yes, meditation is dangerous, it can send you crazy! I pondered whether to do it or not. I understand journalism and how most … [Read more...]
What Are We Really Doing in Asana? Online Interactive Workshops on Injury Prevention in Yoga
by Kara-Leah Grant Last August, I interviewed Matthew Remski almost a year ago about his project What Are We Really Doing in Asana?, investigating yoga and injury. He's been doing great work and has interviewed hundreds of yoga practitioners about their history of yoga injury - a topic that was largely taboo or silent until this conversation began. The articles that Matthew has written, and the interviews that he's done, are all going towards a book that he's writing. But in the … [Read more...]
I’m Afraid my Students are Going to Get Bored with my Yoga Sequences
by Kara-Leah Grant This came up in conversation this week - a new teacher expressing a fear that her yoga sequences weren't interesting enough and that she was going to be boring her students. She wanted to know how to make her sequences more interesting. However, there is a fallacy of logic here. The teacher has a fear arising - that of boring her students. Her approach to working with that fear is to ensure that the external circumstance triggering the fear is removed - bored … [Read more...]
Donna Farhi on How to Find True Alignment in Your Yoga Practice
By Donna Farhi, Yoga teacher and author When I first began formal Yoga Teaching Training, yoga postures were taught as a series of check-lists, with a point-by-point focus on each and every body part. While this Simon-Says approach of monkey see, monkey do led to a pretty successful replication of a picture, it seemed to bypass the internal process of feeling one’s own body experience and learning how to find one’s alignment from that felt experience. As the years went on I began to feel … [Read more...]