Inside Yoga 51 (20/3/12) We do it every day and every minute of our life, yet there are plenty of moments in our life when we are not in control of it, let alone aware of what it is doing. I am writing about the exhalation of our breath. It is a simple part of life yet it is one […]
more >Inside Yoga 48 (4/2/2012) It’s a simple message and one that is repeated frequently in yoga’s teaching, yet it can be one of the hardest skills to learn and equally hard to maintain – I am speaking of breathing! We breathe every day; so why can it be so difficult to learn if it’s actually a skill we have already […]
more >Inside Yoga 47 (21/1/2012) On January 5, this year, the New York Times Magazine published an article titled “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body”, which caused such a backlash within the yoga community that last weekend the Observer carried an article (“Health warning: from the plough to the lotus, yoga can damage your body” January 15), as did other publications, […]
more >Inside Yoga 35 (29/4/2011) In TKV Desikachar’s book Heart of Yoga he states that “yoga is as much a practice involving breath as it is involving the body. The quality of our breath is extremely important because it expresses our inner feelings… The breath is the link between the inner and outer body. It is only by bringing body, breath […]
more >(First published 20/1/10) During some of my recent classes I asked you to perform some exercises called bandhas. These were used to control the flow of your breath and also hold the breath in a particular posture. So below you will find an explanation of bandhas. The literal translation of Bandha means: joining together, fettering or catching hold of, to […]
more >(First published 27/10/09) “A major part of the art and skill in yoga lies in sensing just how far to move into a stretch,” writes American yoga teacher, Erich Schiffmann, in his book, Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving into Stillness. The skill comes in knowing the middle path, the line that falls between “not enough and too much”. […]
more >(First published 6/9/09) “The practice of asanas and pranayama is not only the most effective, but also the most natural therapy for stress,” says yoga master BKS Iyengar. Stress has been with us since the beginning of civilisation. Our ancestors might have had different pressures and worries to deal with, but the inner turmoil they experienced would have been the […]
more >(First posted 9/4/2009) Do you know your tadasana from your gomukhasana? All yoga postures have a name which is written in Sanskrit, the ancient language from India, so to help you know your paschimottanasana from your marichyasana, this chapter of Inside Yoga translates a host of yoga asanas for you. Sanskrit words are often written as one word, so that […]
more >(First posted 17/1/09) One of the most important principles of a yoga practice, and specifically, asana yoga practice, is the teaching of “sthira” and “sukha”. In the foremost yoga text, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, he describes an asana (yoga posture) as having two important qualities: sthira and sukha. Sthira is steadiness and alertness. Sukha refers to the ability to remain comfortable […]
more >(First published 10/11/2008) The body is mentioned frequently in yoga, in relation to the breath, and in relation to the mind. There is a vast selection of postures available in yoga, from gentle resting positions to complicated athletic positions that seem impossible to get into. But is it all about the body? It is possibly not surprising to discover that […]
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