by Kara-Leah Grant Recently on social media, a yoga teacher was talking about the difficulty of fitting in going to yoga classes with her busy schedule, and admitted that her home yoga practice was poor. This teacher displayed zero awareness of the importance of a personal practice for anyone who teaches yoga. She's trained as a yoga teacher. Which implies that the yoga teacher training she completed didn't hammer home the importance of a personal practice for those who teach yoga. She's not … [Read more...]
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The Truth on Drinking Coffee and Teaching or Practicing Yoga
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...]
Restorative Yoga: Exploring Supported Child’s Pose In-depth
By Neal Ghoshal, Sacred Moves A little while ago I wrote an article on the eight essential principles of Restorative Yoga. Since then I've been continuing to delve deep into this beautiful practice. Deep rest is always calling! I'm happy to be sharing some more … and one of the most profoundly restful of the Restorative postures is Supported Child's Pose (Salamba Balasana). This is a posture which many find deliciously comforting and relaxing, perhaps because it tunes us into a time when we … [Read more...]
How to use Feldenkrais Technique to Free up Your Yoga {video}
by Kara-Leah Grant I first came across Feldenkrais in a yoga teacher taught by a friend in Wellington - Oli Wiles. He was smitten with the technique and skilfully wove it through his yoga teaching to great benefit. Now that I've been practicing yoga for almost two decades, I've also become very interested in how the body opens up, or doesn't open up. From my own experience I can see that it's not a simple equation of doing x, y, or z posture enough times and achieving your optimum range of … [Read more...]
The Definition of a Yoga Teacher: Nothing More than a Friend, Nothing Less than a Friend
Editor's Note: Since this article was published, several accounts of sexual harassment and assault have been made public by Mark Whitwell's female students. We do not in any way condone Mark's behaviour. You can read more about the accounts here. by Kara-Leah Grant I was fortunate enough to attend one of Mark Whitwell’s classes at Wanderlust Great Lake Taupo 2015. Mark is teacher of considerable standing who spent many years with Desikachar and studied directly with Krishnamacharya, the teacher … [Read more...]
On the Dilution of the Genuine Transmission of Yoga Part 2
by Kara-Leah Grant, Musings from the Mat I've been contemplating the many reactions I received to this article over the past week or so, On the Dilution of the Transmission of Yoga. One person unsubscribed from the website (or at least - one person told me they had because of this article, more people may have!) saying that I had made some good points but she found the article judgemental and unyogic. Other people rejoiced that someone was speaking such things out loud. It does feel … [Read more...]
The Eight Essentials of Restorative Yoga
by guest author Neal Ghoshal, Sacred Moves A few years ago I enrolled on my second Yoga Teacher Training course for a year at the Yoga Academy Auckland - I was on a mission to learn more about this practice and to equip myself with as much knowledge as I could. If I was going to teach Yoga, then I wanted to be good at it. About half way through the year, course tutor Jude Hynes gave us a new practice, brought out some Yoga bolsters from the cupboard and introduced us to the wonderful world of … [Read more...]
Pranayama in Pyjamas
by new columnist Gabrielle Harris, The Suburban Yogini It’s 5.30 am, I’m up to do some serious breathing. It feels virtuous and good to be up at this time, just like a real yogi, however I do note that not even the birds seem to be breathing at this hour. But I’m a yogini and I’m on a mission - to find out more about Pranayama and its reported effects. I read somewhere that you should aim for at least 5 minutes breathing, 10 minutes meditation and 20 minutes asana in your morning … [Read more...]
How do I go about becoming a yoga teacher? Part IV
This is the fourth article in a series which has examined what it takes to become a yoga teacher. And who wouldn't want to be a yoga teacher? You get to do yoga all day long, swanning around the world attending workshops and teacher trainings is part of your job, and you're blissed out all the time. Plus you've got hordes of adoring students hanging on your every word. What a great career yoga teaching must be! Sign me up now! But it's not quite like that... and as Mike Berghan … [Read more...]
How yoga practice teaches you to listen to your intuition through life’s transitions
by guest author Lynda Miers-Henneveld of Yoga Unlimited Yoga teaches us to embrace the natural rhythms of life. Through our practice we can ground ourselves in times of instability, or motivate and energise ourselves when we feel stuck. A personal practice has to reflect our changing circumstances if it is to support us in our journey through this life. If we stay present to what is happening in our bodies, minds and hearts, we can adapt our practice intuitively. … [Read more...]