What an interesting time to be alive. What an interesting experience being a yoga teacher with nobody to teach. Ah, but as a yoga teacher I am guessing that there is a lesson here and the lesson is on me. For the experienced teacher one might consider this as attending graduate school for yoga teachers. The attributes of being a…
Tag: yoga
Yoga in the time of now
In these days and weeks as we are all experiencing the change that is effecting some part of our lives and everything around us has closed shop, many have turned to online class participation. Historically Yoga practice has been taught in groups with the individual in mind. While teachers call out general directions of movements and adjustments in large classes,…
MY INTERNAL CLIMATE CHANGE
How vast is our breath! When I was experiencing the limited ability to take a full breath because of my recent experience of bronchitis… at least the doctor said I had an “-itis” he said it was bronchitis. “-itis is a disease associated with inflammation” My annoying cough led me to find out from the doctor just what I didn’t…
THE WALK OF ANTI-AGING
On a walk with a girlfriend at a nearby nature preserve I suggested that we slow our walk down and practice the Buddhist meditation walk. A mindfully slow, careful walk. My friend is a full bodied woman. She is a doer. A doer for others more then herself. Her walk reflects this. Part of her is moving fast forward and part of…
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…
Confessions of a Yoga Nerd: headstand and shoulderstand
Two months ago the rains in Los Angeles broke up my favorite daily pastime of late; my 90 minute hike up in the mountains very close to where I live. I thought that it would be a wonderful opportunity for me to stay home and do some yoga. I thought I would do a head and shoulderstand series. I decided…
Martyn Jackson on BKS Iyengar, Himself, and Yoga.
There are eight installments from my interview. I have portioned them in segments. I sincerely hope that students, teachers and those who are simply curious and inspired will appreciate the sincerity and candid vision from what Martyn says, sees and reveals about himself and his experience with his teacher, his students, and his life. Shelley Piser Shelley Piser:How do you…
Excerpts from an Interview: Martyn Jackson on studying with BKS Iyengar
This was part of an interview which I did in Sydney Australia with Martyn Jackson in 1988. I will be posting more. This portion will be published in the Iyengar publication of Yoga Vidya in December. Stay tuned for more. “For every student, there is one teacher who makes an impression, which ripples from that moment on to change and expand…
THE YIELDING SOLE
I walk almost every day up a steep hill. My feet have to be intelligent enough to assume the spontaneous demands of a rocky, uneven ground while my eyes are looking out at the horizon in front of me. In yoga poses where the feet are the roots for the rest of the body as in standing, balance, and backbends…