non-cheesy yoga = awesome
Or, How to Talk Intelligently About Yoga Is yoga spiritual? Is yoga religion? Is yoga science? What is yoga? These questions matter to me because it affects how I relate to students. I teach yoga in a university gym largely because I have the autonomy to do what I want, as I’ve yet to find [...]
book review: Yoga PhD by Carol Horton
Other than some yoga history and philosophy years back, I don’t usually read much about yoga. I try to keep it as experiential as possible. But the more I write, the more I have begun to look to what others are saying. In trying to explain hatha yoga a few weeks ago, I found myself [...]
meeting resistance on and off the mat
The last post and some books I’ve been reading have me asking why you do yoga. I know why I do it, and why I teach it. But sometimes I wonder if I’m teaching to your needs. The other night, in a last class of the semester, I asked students what they wanted from yoga. [...]
why do yoga?
When I was working on my masters, I made a website about yoga (2007). I surveyed my students for questions and information, and answered them on the site. This post (and some to follow) is an integration of that material, as I’ll take the old site down soon. Why do people take yoga? The reasons [...]
tradition: ashtanga, vinyasa & 8-limbs lite™
The yoga history thread is on hold as I’ve picked up too many books on the subject to continue until they’re parsed. Much has been published since I first read up on it ten years back. If you must read something now I suggest Joseph Alter’s Yoga in Modern India. For a break, I’ll address [...]
yoga history & hatha yoga : 101x
Last week when I wrote the “Wait. What is Hatha Yoga?” piece, things got out of hand. My intention was to explain simply that Hatha yoga is all physical yoga, not a style of it. But that exploded. Hatha yoga has a long and complicated history, which has thankfully gotten much more attention in the [...]
wait. what is hatha yoga?
Yoga is but one of six schools of classical philosophy called āstika (आस्तिक). Sort of. This began as a simple explanation. Hatha yoga is all physical yoga, asana, kriya, pranayama, etc. It includes Iyengar, Ashtanga Vinyasa, Bikram, etc. It is not, say, Jnana yoga, Karma Yoga or Bhakti yoga, though there are certainly overlaps in [...]
how yoga ruined my tan
Calm down. This is not about the superficial layer. It is about the body and its endless ability to amaze. Last year, I photographed my friend Ilona making a tattoo. At the end, she told the woman she couldn’t work out for a few weeks because the sweat could damage the tattoo. I later mentioned [...]
the thing about gurus: a kumaré review
Gurus have always been problem for me, perhaps my biggest in the yoga and meditation worlds. Though perhaps it’s the strange and often appropriated spirituality that bothers me, and gurus are an offshoot of that. The reason I’ve left most sanghas (communities) is because there comes a point that if you aren’t into the guru, [...]
sexytime with william broad
Oh dear. I somehow managed to ignore most of the uproar over William Broad’s “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body” in the NYT. I didn’t really get his point, as it seems like a no-brainer. You can hurt yourself doing any physical activity, and that’s why you’re selective about what yoga you do and classes [...]
otherness & self
Last week, Julia, a student who seldom misses class (maybe twice this semester?) gave the best excuse I’ve ever heard for not coming to yoga. “I was at Ted Talks.” Excellent. Okay. I often listen to Ted while I’m cleaning. Last weekend I heard this talk about self and otherness by Thandie Newton, and I [...]
more yoga in the news::slim calm sexy spirit
Jon Kabat-Zinn is going to be featured On Being this weekend. I imagine you can listen here after it airs, or just check out where it airs in your area. In NYC it’s on WNYC-AM 820, Saturday at 3:00pm and WNYC-FM 93.9, Sunday at 7:00am & 10:00pm. The site has a number of excellent resources listed, [...]
mental exercise, physical exercise :: yoga and martial arts
This is a quick break from “yoga and weight loss,” which I’ll continue next week. I’m changing gears because Shaolin Kung Fu is popping up everywhere I turn. And it begs a question I can’t answer myself, because I’m too close to the subject: Are people in the West aware that yoga is a mental [...]
is yoga Hindu?
Yes, another yoga article in the NYT (like Sarah Palin, I do read other things. I just can’t think of any right now). I often find articles not directly about yoga much more interesting than those that are. There’s a debate on about yoga’s origins, and it’s gone viral “—or as viral as things can [...]
yoga roundup~yoga in the news
Yoga Breeze, Yakuin Studio, Fukuoka, Japan. Photo: ©Govinda Kai Often I mention articles in class that, if not about yoga, are yogic in nature. Yoga, we know, is everywhere. More and more frequently scientists and other “experts” are coming around to what strikes me as common sense. But if you’ve lost touch with common sense [...]
Namaste नमस्ते
Months ago, a friend living in Beijing complained about yoga teachers using Sanskrit and not explaining the meaning. She was especially annoyed by closing class with “namaste,” when many didn’t know what it meant. I believe my friend and college Ben also takes issue with this. I’m guilty of it, I admit, largely because I [...]
art and yoga
. A number of sketches have been pasted to the wall of a tunnel that leads from street to subway in upper manhattan. I love this one especially (cell phone snap). It nags me, gently and beautifully, to write down my thoughts about the connections between art and yoga. …
ways of knowing
To address Ben’s comment in the last post (5,000 years?), I want to say that to some extent, I agree. But there is a difference between the “kinds of consciousness one accesses by practicing yoga” and yoga. They are not the same thing. Calling something yoga before yoga existed seems questionable, but perhaps I am [...]
5,000 years?
I have to admit, I sometimes ask myself if I’m part of this world. The yoga world, I mean. On Tuesday, the New York Times wrote a piece on foodies and yoga, and it seems to be popular, given its rank on their most emailed list: “When Chocolate and Chakras Collide.” My favorite part of [...]
bikram yoga: good or bad?
I’ve a number of posts in the works, including how to start and cultivate a personal practice, the self in yoga, and yoga and calories (oh yeah). But Ann has hijacked my attention by asking how I feel about Bikram yoga in the comments on the last post. She suggested that she was trying to [...]
what are the different types of yoga? what is hatha?
The styles of yoga on offer are endless. Teachers often blend different practices to suit their needs, and give it a name that ends up on a class schedule, familiar only to those who frequent the studio. Most types of yoga stem from a few different schools, which have splintered into countless directions. Yoga as [...]
virtual yoga
What do you love? What absorbs you, calms you, gives you life? What keeps you going when nothing else will? That, to me, is yoga. Not simply the physical practice of yoga, or the larger philosophy from which physical yoga comes, but what brings us into now. Yoga is a yoke that joins one’s awareness [...]
