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The Real Meaning of Aum and Why We Chant It

November 14, 2016 by Kara-Leah Grant 4 Comments

by Kara-Leah Grant An extract from 'The No-More-Excuses Guide to Yoga' The number one thing that freaks out new yoga students is the thought of opening their mouth and making a vowel sound followed by a consonant in a room full of strangers. Yes, the simple sound of OM makes people want to run screaming from the room. There are a few reasons for this - one is that Aum (as it's correctly written) has a bad rap. It's weird, strange and the butt of all kinds of jokes. Plus, making a sound like … [Read more...]

Filed Under: The Foundations Tagged With: Aum, chanting, first yoga class, kirtan, new to yoga, New yoga student, Om

How I Reconnected with My Inner Goddess at The Great Emptying Out Retreat

October 5, 2016 by Guest Author Leave a Comment

By Victoria Bruce I first stumbled across the 2016 Great Emptying Out Yoga Retreat on Facebook and after reading the theme of the retreat – Self-Love – I knew I needed to attend. Why? Because I had a shitload of stuff to empty out and filling that void with some self-love sounded like a brilliant idea. At thirty one years of age, as a journalist and solo mummy to an amazing little soul called Emilie, I often feel like I should have my shit together by now. Yet despite being equipped with … [Read more...]

Filed Under: How Yoga Helped Me, Reviews, Yoga & Community Tagged With: goddess, Great Emptying Out, Inner Goddess, retreat, sacred feminine, self-love, women, yoga retreat

How to Activate Your Chakras, Unlock Your Asana Practice & Make Your Heart Sing

September 29, 2016 by Guest Author 2 Comments

By Premaloka, Yoga on Waiheke Join Premloka for her Awakened Heart Yoga Retreats and Workshops: Raglan, New Zealand 28th-30th October 2016  Kovalam, India August/September 2017. Find out more here. Would you like more Happiness in your life? Would you like your practice to not only be connected to the physical body, the mind, and your breath, but to also transform you emotionally? Through working directly with the chakras and then connecting with the Bhavas (the body’s emotional … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energetic Practices, Home Yoga Practice, Meditation Practices, Physical Practices, Practices Tagged With: Anahata, asana, chakra, chakras, kundalini, meditation, pranayama

The True Meaning of Yoga and Why It’s Not About Asana

August 31, 2016 by Kara-Leah Grant 8 Comments

by Kara-Leah Grant Let's get technical, technical, I wanna get technical... Let me hear your ego rock... OK fellow yoga students. Here's the deal. The word 'Yoga' gets bandied about all over the place, but it's rarely defined. We assume that we all know what we're talking about, but often we're talking about different things. First up, physical postures are not Yoga. They are called 'asana'. When you go to what is commonly called 'a yoga class', you are likely attending an asana class. You … [Read more...]

Filed Under: The Foundations Tagged With: asana, patanjali, self realization, yoga teacher

Jonni Pollard on the Nature of Unbounded Consciousness and Awakening {video}

July 28, 2016 by Kara-Leah Grant 2 Comments

by Kara-Leah Grant I first met Jonni Pollard at Wanderlust Great Lake Taupo in 2015. He was leading the mass meditation at 7pm on the Saturday night. I'd bumped into the other Jonnie from Wanderlust - Jonnie Halstead - hovering nervously around the Mothership, which turned into the mainstage and dance floor in the evening. Jonnie with an E confided in me that this dude from Melbourne - also called Jonni - was about to lead a mass meditation and he wasn't sure how it was going to go down. Yes, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Meditation Practices, Practices, Teacher Interviews Tagged With: 1 Giant Mind, consciousness, Jonni Pollard, kundalini, meditation, shakti, The Heart, Vedic Meditation

Home Yoga Practice: What Counts if You Are a Yoga Teacher?

July 12, 2016 by Kara-Leah Grant 9 Comments

by Kara-Leah Grant A few months ago I wrote an article stating that if you teach yoga, you must have a daily self-practice. That article was widely shared, and read. And it triggered some strong reactions. There were comments, and emails where people shared with me the reasons why they couldn't practice yoga every day. Some of these teachers were only teaching one class a week, on top of working 50+ hour jobs, and they were often teaching disadvantaged groups. They felt like what they were … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Home Yoga Practice, Teaching Insights Tagged With: failure, guilt, home yoga practice, mat resistance, self practice, teaching yoga

How I Dropped the Ball on Day 338 of My 1000 Day Practice

July 5, 2016 by Kara-Leah Grant Leave a Comment

by Kara-Leah Grant Today is Day 138 of a 1000 Day practice I'm doing. It should be about Day 500. But earlier this year, on Day 338 something happened and I dropped the ball. I've been doing Forty Day practices for nearly a decade now. At first, it took great dedication, commitment and mindfulness to practice yoga every day for forty days in a row, especially when I was doing the same practice each day. I learned so much about myself, how my mind worked, and where I was sabotaging … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Home Yoga Practice, Musings from the Mat Tagged With: Christopher Tompkins, commitment, Kashmir Shaivism, mind, patanjali, self practice, shiva rea, Vritti, Yoga Sutras

The Difference between Practicing Yoga Postures and Having a Yoga Practice

April 7, 2016 by Kara-Leah Grant 9 Comments

by Kara-Leah Grant There are many people doing yoga poses today, but there are far less people who have a yoga practice. Postures are everywhere - Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, advertising, magazines, yoga classes, yoga retreats, yoga teacher trainings. However, postures do not make a yoga practice. A yoga practice requires at least two other important elements before it can serve its purpose - that of self-realisation, or of waking the practitioner up from the dream of Maya … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Home Yoga Practice, What's Real Yoga & a Real Yogi? Tagged With: container, enlightenment, kleshas, maya, samskaras, teacher, yoga practice

An Interview with Tom Myers of Anatomy Trains on the New Anatomy of Interconnectedness

March 31, 2016 by Kara-Leah Grant 2 Comments

by Kara-Leah Grant Back in 2001, movement specialist Tom Myers published a book called Anatomy Trains. In it, he put forward an idea that was to forever change the way that people understood "stretching" - a systems-oriented view of our musculo-skeletal anatomy. That is, that when we stretch, we're not just stretching separate and individual muscles, but that we're also working with fascia, which is a webbing overlaid and connecting all muscles. This book was born out of the work that Tom … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Reviews, Yoga & Community Tagged With: anatomy trains, fascia, online couse, Tom Myers, webinar

The Truth on Drinking Coffee and Teaching or Practicing Yoga

March 8, 2016 by Kara-Leah Grant 33 Comments

by Kara-Leah Grant Since stopping regular coffee drinking back in 2013, I have become fastidious about never drinking coffee before practicing or teaching yoga. Since I practice every day, and teach often, there are very rare windows when caffeine is an option for me. At a recent summer festival, I realised how deeply this belief I have about the importance of not having caffeine in the system when practicing and teaching was ingrained. A couple of hours before I was teaching a class, I … [Read more...]

Filed Under: The Foundations Tagged With: addiction, coffee, intoxicants, teaching yoga, Yoga Sutras

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