by Kara-Leah Grant This is an impossible question to answer - at least, to answer definitively, but I'm still going to give it a damn good crack. And with good reason. Despite the fact that yoga has nothing to do whatsoever with flexibility - that flexibility is a side benefit of one's yoga practice and no measure of the depth or strength of one's yoga practice - yoga and flexibility are intimately intertwined in the modern idea of yoga. There's a good reason for this. We are predominantly a … [Read more...]
Sun Salutations Video Series: How to do Standing Forward Fold (Uttanasana)
by Kara-Leah Grant For years and years and years this posture has been my nemesis. I hated it. I sucked at it. It challenged me in every way. When I first started yoga, back in 1995 at a ten-week Iyengar course, I was so incredibly tight that when we went into a standing forward bend, I couldn't even reach forward and touch my knees. I had no forward movement in my pelvis at all - my hamstrings were just way too tight. And that's the first part of the body that must be freed up for a … [Read more...]
Folding forward into Easy Pose for instant stress-relief
by Kara-Leah Grant The last couple of years I’ve been getting up close and personal with long, slow holds in seated poses. There’s a couple of reasons for this. One is that I’m often exhausted from being a single parent and running my own business - the thought of standing postures or sun salutes sometimes makes me shudder. Giving myself permission to just sit on what mat and see what unfolds from there means I'm far more likely to practice every day. The second is that I’m yang enough - … [Read more...]
Yoga to the rescue: Six asanas to aid digestion
by Valerie Love When I was growing up, I experienced chronic stomachaches. They came on without warning, and were frequent and horrible. It was only when I began practicing yoga regularly in my 20s that the stomachaches began to taper off. My yoga practice not only helped to lower my stress levels, but it also helped to strengthen my digestion and regulate imbalances in my body. Here are six postures that over time can help improve digestion in the body. Forward bends and twists offer a … [Read more...]
How dropping my story helped me change my yoga practice
I've been practicing yoga for over a decade now, and I'm still tight and inflexible. That's not quite true of course, but when I compare my flexibility to that of the images of yoga we see in the media, or the popular teachers on DVDs... I fall well short. And I find it perplexing. It doesn't make me feel less than in anyway, and I'm well aware that the point of yoga is not flexibility, rather flexibility is a by-product of practice. But how long does it take to lengthen the … [Read more...]