by Kara-Leah Grant, author of Forty Days of Yoga It's easy when you regularly go to yoga classes to dismiss the idea of home yoga practice - after all, you don't need it right? You're already practicing in class 2 or 3 or maybe even 5 or 6 times a week. However, even if you are going to class, there is much to be gained by also doing a home yoga practice. It doesn't have to be every day, and it doesn't have to be long. Ten minutes is enough. Even such a small amount of time can have … [Read more...]
This Moment is Enough: A Simple Practice for Peace
By guest author Mary O’Malley In this moment, I invite you into the peace and the ease that you long for. After your next in-breath, allow yourself a long, slow out-breath. Melt into your out-breath, letting any tension in your body melt with it. Now, on the next in-breath, tighten your muscles. Exaggerate the tension in your body and then say “ahh” as you melt again into your out-breath. Revel in the deliciousness of a deep out-breath coupled with the powerful healing sound of “ahh”. (You … [Read more...]
The Basic Principles of Building a Home Yoga Practice
by Kara-Leah Grant As a yoga teacher, my goal is to inspire my students to practice yoga at home. It's great when people get themselves to classes three times a week, but the true benefits of yoga really start to unfold when you commit to just showing up on your mat by yourself and seeing what happens. In a class, your focus is both internal and external. You're listening to the teacher and watching the demonstrations while also paying attention to what's going on inside of you. When you … [Read more...]
Home Yoga Practice Questions: Can I Practice Yoga with A Herniated Disc?
by Kara-Leah Grant, author of Forty Days of Yoga This week's Home Yoga Practice questions comes from Catherine in India. She writes: I have practiced yoga for many years and for the last 6 months have been doing a regular home practice. However last month I had an MRI scan due to persistent backache and discovered that I have a slipped disc. My doctor has asked me to stop yoga - forward bends are a definite no - and his opinion is that I should walk and swim as exercise (which I have been … [Read more...]
Sun Salutations Video Series: Transition Time! How to Link the Postures Together
by Kara-Leah Grant In recent months, we've looked at all the different asanas or postures that make up a standard sun salutation. We've explored each of these postures in-depth, and explained them on video. Now it's time to took at the transitions between the postures. Because this is what makes sun salutations such a fantastic yoga sequence - especially for home practice. Each pose flows effortlessly into the next posture, creating a complete circle where you end up where you started, … [Read more...]
Drishti and The Relativity of Truth
by Melissa Billington How you’re looking is how you’re going to see it. And how you’ve seen it is how you think it should be. Unless you see it and change it. A story is not just a story. It’s your view to life itself. Your interpretation creates your world. This is a quote from my play, PocaHAUNTus—shapeshifting history into Herstory, that I’m in the middle of writing. Writing this play has been an enormous challenge because one of the main premises is the relativity of truth, as the … [Read more...]
Home Yoga Practice Questions: What Should I Do in My Practice?
by Kara-Leah Grant, author of Forty Days of Yoga Home yoga practice - it's awesome and everyone's getting into it, right? But you know what's missing? A teacher. That's what. I mean, at the end of the studio class, you can always go up to the yoga teacher and ask whatever burning question is on your mind. But when you practice yoga at home? Who you going to ask? Me, that's who. Yep, every week or two, I'll be selecting a reader question to answer on video, and sending out a … [Read more...]
What is an Ayurvedic Consultation and Treatment Plan All About?
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I went and had an Ayurvedic Consultation recently with the fine folk at Ancient's Best here in Blenheim. I've had a subtle sense of certain bodily functions not performing at optimum for awhile now. Nothing wrong or broken as such... but just a knowing that things need looking at. It's not the kind of thing you can go to the doctor for though - doctors are great at broken arms and clearly defined illnesses and disease but show up with a vague … [Read more...]
How to Calm an Overactive Mind with Yoga
by Kara-Leah Grant There are days when I spend too much time commuting, too much time on my computer, and have far too many balls in the air. My mind feels like it's going a million miles a minute, flitting first from one thing, then to the next. Sometimes this monkey mind is shadowed by anxiety or fear, lurking deep in the belly and driving me out of my body and up into my head. It's exhausting. And on days like that, I know exactly what kind of yoga I need to do - yoga to still the … [Read more...]
Sun Salutations Video Series: How to do Downward Dog (Adho Mukha Svanasana)
by Kara-Leah Grant It's one of the most common and most popular of all yoga postures, yet like the other postures we've looked at in recent months, Adho Mukda Svanasana is far from being a beginner's yoga pose. No, downward dog is one of those postures which, when done badly, can do more damage than it does good. Fortunately, it's also a posture we usually get to spend serious time in - most sun salutations will allow five breaths in a downward dog, and it's a posture we return to again and … [Read more...]