Who owns yoga?

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 5th October 2015

Inside Yoga 143 (5/10/2015) Al Jazeera correspondent, Bhanu Bhatnagar, asks “Who owns yoga?” in fascinating documentary about yoga. Bhanu is an Indian who works in Doha for the TV station as well as teaching yoga, and this film takes him across the globe as he asks this question about yoga. This well-balanced film looks into various aspects of yoga as […]

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Happiness in a class

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 21st September 2015

Inside Yoga 142 (21/9/15) This week the Dalai Lama gave his blessing to courses run by an organisation called Action for Happiness which aims to make participants happier and the world a better place. Happiness is something we all want, and it’s a “something” that many of us find hard to find. It is elusive and hard to grasp, in […]

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Mindfulness is free

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 14th September 2015

Inside Yoga 141 (14/9/15) When I was on holiday we had stopped at a service station and whilst I was browsing, actually, I was killing time waiting for my daughter, when I saw a book called The Mindfulness Colouring Book. It was a pocket-sized book filled with black and white out outlined sketches of a variety of pictures, swirls and […]

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Yogic thought for the day

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 7th September 2015

Inside Yoga 140 (7/9/15) “Yoga is 99 per cent practice and 1 per cent theory.” This is what Sri K Pattabhi Jois said, many years ago, and it is still true! Pattabhi Jois is the Indian teacher who taught the style of yoga, in Mysore, called Ashtanga Vinyasa. He died in 2009. A simple message, short and sweet, and to […]

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Death and life: living with a future

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 27th July 2015

Inside Yoga 139 In 2013 I posted a story about Wilco Johnson, the guitarist with Dr Feelgood, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, with just 10 months to live. At the time he declared that he had accepted his fate with a calmness and clarity – it was refreshing to see how someone had turned bad news into a […]

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Viloma in practice

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 13th July 2015

Inside Yoga 138 (13/7/2015) Last week I taught Viloma Pranayama: so to help your home practice here is a step-by-step guide to the breathing technique. Viloma means against the hair (loma), or in other words against the order of things or natural flow. The letters “vi” denotes negation, which in terms of breath instead of breathing in one inhalation the […]

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International Yoga Day

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 22nd June 2015

Inside Yoga 137 (22/6/15) Yesterday was the first International Yoga Day and was marked by yoga being practiced all over the world, including Dehli, the capital of India, where more than 35,000 people attended the mass yoga session on Rajpath in the capital. The current prime minister of India, Narendra Modhi, had lobbied the United Nations for this International Day […]

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Mind the gap!

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 15th June 2015

Inside Yoga 136 (15/6/15) Breathing is something we have been doing since the moment we were born, yet when we start focusing on the breath, we discover that this precious resource, which keeps us alive, has not only been neglected, but it has been cut short, it is shallow, and erratic! Practising yoga and meditating on the breath teaches us […]

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Stand still!

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 8th June 2015

Inside Yoga 135 (8/6/2015) For many of us life can feel like a constant rush, with the pressure to keep up filling our days or, it can feel like a runaway train hurtling forward with us holding on hoping that we will last the journey. The pressure to manage can make us feel stretched to our limit, unsettled and stressed, […]

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Yoga magazine criticised for promoting eating disorders

Category : Asanas (Postures), General advice, Philosophy 12th May 2015

Inside Yoga 134 (12/5/15) A recent yoga magazine article has been heavily criticised for publishing an article that describes an ancient yogic technique which involves throwing up to empty the stomach of all contents. Yoga Magazine’s Dr Malik was responding to a reader’s question about Vyaghra Kriya, a purification technique called Tiger exercise in English. It is not the description […]

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