By Veronica King, Teaching Yoga and navigating a labral hip tear. Monday night, advanced yoga class. Parsvakonasana, a warm-up pose early in class, and as I anchored my legs and rotated my body upwards, I felt a rip inside my groin. I nearly screamed, tears streaming down my face through the rest of the class, wondering if this was the last yoga class I might ever do, knowing something BAD had just happened. It turns out that labral hip tears are common amongst dancers, yogis, … [Read more...]
Top 10 Best Yoga Articles of 2020
by Cara Butler Let's be honest..... many of us were quite happy to see 2020 come to an end. A year that exposed us to not only a global pandemic and its devastating knock-on effects, but a huge range of worldwide injustice and social chaos. Despite the understandable urge to move on and put 2020 well behind us, I believe in the need for reflection. Reflection on both the challenging times AND the amazing moments that were present in-between. Here at the Yoga Lunchbox, we have been revisiting … [Read more...]
Mastering Your Mind With Raja Yoga & Pratyahara
by Swami Karma Karuna, Anahata Yoga Retreat The depth of yoga that is understood and shared in our modern times is primarily touching the tip of the iceberg. In a goal-oriented, pleasure-mad world, the dynamic postures of Hatha Yoga have captured many and become synonymous with the word 'yoga'. While postures are an important base, often the greater expanse of yoga remains like hidden gems in the ocean of wisdom. As yoga teachers and practitioners living in times of incredible … [Read more...]
Cultivating Unshakeable Peace & Wellbeing with iRest Yoga Nidra: An Interview with Fuyuko Toyota
by Neal Ghoshal Ten years ago I had the great pleasure to meet Fuyuko Toyota. We were both assisting our teacher Donna Farhi on a long 21-day training and I was immediately drawn to Fuyuko for her warmth, her humility and humour and her deep, compassionate wisdom. Over the three weeks, we developed a beautiful appreciation for each others' teachings, and a delightful friendship which has only deepened through the years. Now we are like brother and sister on the Yoga path! It has … [Read more...]
Top 10 Best Yoga Articles of 2019
by Lucinda Staniland As the new year begins, I like to take a moment to reflect on all the amazing content that has passed through my hands in the last twelve months. As Editor of The Yoga Lunchbox, I'm blessed to regularly engage with a range of yoga teachers, thinkers and writers, many of them based right here in New Zealand, and to share their reflections with our community of yoga-loving readers. This year, our most popular articles covered some topics that were big talking points in … [Read more...]
Why Meditating WITH The Body is So Important
by Dyana Wells, Open Ground School of Meditation & Somatic Enquiry In the modern world, there is a tendency for us to live exclusively through our conceptual minds. We live in bubble worlds of thoughts and emotions, rather than in the world of direct experience. The body, however, experiences itself and the world directly. It is shaped – moment to moment – by its direct interaction with life. The conceptual mind sees the world through the filter of its own beliefs and … [Read more...]
Tongue Scraping: Does it Really Work?
by Lucinda Staniland If you try to sell me something, I will always approach it with a healthy dose of skepticism. And for good reason. In our consumerist world, I am constantly bombarded with “life-changing” devices and programs, many of which fall more than a little short of their magnificent marketing claims. In my experience, it ALWAYS pays to ask: What is the history of use behind this product? Who is making and marketing it and what motivates them? Are their claims … [Read more...]
Pranayama: It’s Not All Mung Beans & Tofu
by Mary Watson, My passion for Pranayam was fostered during a 3-year sojourn at the Sivananda Yoga Centre/Ashram in Henderson, Auckland, in the mid-1980s; over 34 years later, I still feel excited about it. To this day, the old tradition of unifying body, mind, and breath into one practice continues to teach me. Having the good fortune to learn from my teacher standing/sitting next to me for 3 years, sharing his then 47 years of practice, facilitated my understanding of the deeper … [Read more...]
The Transformative Practice of Yoga Mudras
by Swami Karma Karuna, Anahata Yoga Retreat Whether consciously or unconsciously, the way we gesture or carry ourselves in physical attitudes throughout the day has the capacity to influence health, interactions, physiology and more. Using the body to express something or to communicate a feeling underlies many of our interactions in an unspoken way. Mudras, the ancient science of creating gestures with the hands, head or whole body, is a powerful and subtle yogic practice that is often … [Read more...]
A Review of the Valka Yoga Cork Yoga Mat: Non-Toxic & Eco-Friendly
by Lucinda Staniland & Cara Butler, As the editor of a popular yoga website, I receive a lot of requests to review various yoga-related products. Over the years, this has resulted in me getting a lot of practice at the all-important skill of saying ‘No’. I’ve learned the hard way to only say yes to doing a review when it’s a ‘"hell yes!" Thoroughly testing a product and writing a review takes a significant amount of time and energy and there’s nothing worse than doing it for a product … [Read more...]