Category: The Teaching Experience

ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW

Another point of view to assist better breathing is side bending postures.  I consider these side stretches along with twists essentials for supporting deeper breathing. This is such a well rounded asana (parivrttaikapada upavistha konasana) that spreads, twists, turns and churns from the inside out.  What a wonderful way to change your point of view.  When we are just too…

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IF YOU BELIEVE IN WHAT YOU DO. DO WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN.

I spend some of my study time reading a series of books of interviews with BKS Iyengar. whether it’s a sentence, a paragraph, or a chapter, it is an instant source of inspiration for me. His medical successes, his approache (against all odds) in the medical world, his constant faith in his study of yoga in therapeutic ways. As one who has…

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LOST IN TRANSLATION: ADHO MUKHA SVANSANA

by Shelley Piser Teaching yoga for 35 years, I am always excited to discover new clarity in conveying movement (sometimes very abstract movement) to my students so they get it! Teachers can get stuck in how they express poses and students can get stuck in how they translate directions into their own postures. For a beginning student, yoga is a new…

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Yoga means Awareness

“HABITS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF INATTENTION” Benjamin Franklin. Yoga postures are often done with the same tone that one would be driving, sitting, reading, or working.  That is they are practiced habitually.   Your practice is a moment-to-moment source of refreshing awareness, which when met with deep breathing, shapes the body from the inside as new spaces expand while moving and…

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MARTYN JACKSON: The Wizard Of Yoga

Since 1971 when I began seriously taking formal Yoga classes, I have had many great yoga teachers. I consider myself very lucky to have had an unfolding succession of creative and inspiring teachers. But in 1981 I was graced with meeting  Martyn Jackson. He was a magical teacher full of intensity, sincerity, great humor, laughter, originality and honest teaching. He…

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