by Kara-Leah Grant It's that time of year again... the run-up to Wanderlust, which means I get to interview all kinds of amazing yoga teachers. First up in the series is Suzanne Sterling, in part because she's also a founder of Off the Mat Into the World which is running some events in New Zealand and Australia this October (just been) and December. Interviewing Suzanne meant finding out the low-down both about Off the Mat and how awesome it is, and about her and how awesome she is. I … [Read more...]
The Release of Yoga and Body Image: 25 Personal Stories About Beauty, Bravery + Loving Your Body
By guest author Melanie Klein, Yoga and Body Image Coalition. Anna Guest–Jelley, founder of Curvy Yoga and the co-editor of Yoga and Body Image: 25 Personal Stories About Beauty, Bravery + Loving Your Body, and I both struggled with a distorted body image, our perception of ourselves, from early childhood on. In the process, we tried countless diets and experimented with a variety of fitness trends – all of which left us feeling shame, guilt and punishment for the bodies we lived in. Our … [Read more...]
Katy Carter on Why The Space Between is so Powerful {Video Interview}
by Kara-Leah Grant It's that time period between Christmas and New Year's where the madness of the silly season is almost over but the shops and roads are packed. It's that time when our family obligations are usually done, but we haven't quite started our holidays yet. It's that time when the old year is done, yet the new year has yet to start. It's the space between. And a space when Auckland-based yoga teacher Katy Carter has decided to host a five day retreat at Mana Retreat … [Read more...]
How Yoga Helped Me at Every Stage of Life
In celebration of the launch of The No-More-Excuses Guide to Yoga, I’ve invited some friends and colleagues to write articles relating to the theme of the book’s subtitle: Because yoga is for every body. Sara is an Australia-based writer and I first met her when I asked for volunteers to be Beta-Readers for Forty Days of Yoga. Little did Sara or I know how that was to be the beginning of a strong connection. Sara is a talented writer and courageously faces into the difficulties of modern … [Read more...]
J. Brown on the Three Sensibilities that Shape Our Yoga Practice {video interview}
by Kara-Leah Grant I've been following J. Brown for a few years now, inspired and impressed by the consistent and constant magnifying glass he applies to the yoga world. J. has no qualms about challenging the accepted flow with his articles, calling into question elements of yoga teaching and practice that he finds problematic. But then, J. Brown is an upstart who has always gone against the grain right from the beginning of his career, deliberately taking a different approach from the … [Read more...]
The Yoga Body Myth & My Late-30s Body
By Roseanne Harvey, It's All Yoga Baby Recently I was having brunch with my granny and she said; “You’ve gained weight. With all the yoga that you do, you should be skinny!” There’s nothing like being fat-shamed by your grandmother. But she was echoing a common misperception about the “yoga body,” something that has been presented by the dominant culture, a way of understanding the effects that yoga has upon a woman’s body. Reflections On A Changing Body Of course, my 84-year-old granny didn’t … [Read more...]
How My Ashtanga Practice Taught me to Practice Courage
by guest author Pip Bennett After all that darkness of my last article, I decided I wanted to up my practice. I wanted to devote myself and commit to the Ashtanga practice as it demands: six days a week. To take on the challenge and see the benefits of a regular practice. Two weeks later, I hadn’t practiced yoga even once. It’s now been a couple of months since then. I did get myself back into the yoga room, but only for a couple of weeks. Turns out that although you can do yoga anywhere and … [Read more...]
Getting Out of the Yoga Studio: What I’ve Learnt Teaching Yoga in Prisons
This is the second article is this series looking all the ways in which people are excluded from yoga - reasons like social class, race, money, incarceration or general access. In this article Adhyatma shares how the Yoga Education in Prisons Trust (YEPT) got started, what the challenges have been and what she's learned from the experience. by Adhyatma, Yoga Education in Prisons Trust After I finish teaching my Yoga classes, the men in my class often come up respectfully and shake my hand … [Read more...]
Yoga Is For You (Even If You Don’t Think It Is)
In celebration of the launch of The No-More-Excuses Guide to Yoga, I’ve invited some friends and colleagues to write articles relating to the theme of the book’s subtitle: Because yoga is for every body. One of the most inspiring memoirs on yoga that I've read is by Matthew Sanford called Waking. I'm not going to tell you about it because I don't want to spoil Nadine's article down below, but I highly recommend getting your hands on a copy. It inspired one of the chapters in my book and has … [Read more...]
Why Yoga Studios Are Not Enough: The Community Yoga Project
My book The No-More-Excuses Guide to Yoga got me thinking about all the ways in which people are excluded from yoga - reasons like social class, race, money, incarceration or general access. Much as we like to think yoga is accessible for all and inclusive, the reality is that there are many barriers which prevent large numbers of our populations from benefiting from it's practice. I wanted to highlight the work that is being done to bring yoga to all the people and hopefully inspire other yoga … [Read more...]