Good teaching is editing. Meanwhile, the possibilities of what to teach in a class are endless. To create a container for my creativity, I often plan my classes around a muscle group. I’ll choose a peak pose that highlights it, and then sequence skill-building exercises, mixing them with other asanas, all […]
I want to tell you about the what-how-why-who approach and how I use it to understand the content I share as a teacher. I’ll boil it down this what-how-why-who approach into three parts: 1. Techniques – I need to know what to teach and how. 2. Concepts – I need […]
Tension needs a better PR firm. It gets a bad rap in yogaland. There’s an awful lot of talk about getting rid of it like holy socks, or releasing it like animals at the zoo, or letting it go like Chinese lanterns. It seems like we’re always running away from […]
Teaching yoga asana is a tough job. A newer teacher, I learned this the hard way. Three big shifts lead me to experience chronic pain. 1. My practice was no longer entirely my own. Once I became a teacher, my students and my classes were always in the back of […]
Stability and flexibility are not the same. Nor are they entirely separate variables. A majority of people who try yoga for the first time do so to get more flexible. They’re on the right track! Yoga is highly effective for increasing people’s flexibility. Flexibility is the absolution range of motion […]
Yogaland platitudes like, “Practice and all is coming” are really comfy words to live by, but what do they actually mean? Personally, I find them problematic because I think they bypass the importance of critical thinking and questioning what we’re learning, practicing and teaching. Is it enough to just keep practicing? […]
It starts with your practice… I know I say it a lot, but the Yoga Tune Up® Level 1 changed my teaching. I think it’s important to add that I was ready for my teaching to change. It was 2013, and I had been teaching classes for 6 years and […]
When I was a 200hr trainee, my trainers taught me that on the path to learning to teach, there are three stages: imitation, integration, and innovation. Imitation Yoga teachers learn to teach in the beginning mostly by imitating their teachers and following ‘the rules’ of the method. This makes sense. According to […]
This past weekend in the YogaWorks 200hr teacher training I’m leading we talked about the meaning of Vinyasa and how this Sanskrit word doesn’t actually translate how many think it does. Vinyasa doesn’t mean ‘flow’ or ‘moving on the breath’ or ‘chaturanga, up-dog, down-dog.’ In his book, The Heart of Yoga, T. K. […]
Pigeon pose is one of the most popular ‘hip opening’ postures that yoga students love to hang out in. Meanwhile, it’s unclear given all that we know and are still learning about stretching whether more flexibility gained through exploring passive range of motion (aka hanging out in a stretch) is […]
Progressive overload refers to the deliberate, gradual increase in stress placed on the body in order to facilitate an adaptive process by which your tissues change structurally and functionally to be able to meet the demands of greater and greater loads. In order for this adaptation to take place, loads […]
The following was a conversation between a Yin yoga teacher and I during a Body of Knowledge™️ biomechanics workshop about soft tissues, hypermobility and stretching. In it, she asked how to reconcile her new understanding of passive stretching and hypermobility with her existing understanding of the aim of Yin yoga. […]
In this episode of the Body of Knowledge™ video blog I share a wonderfully simple and potent exercise called Monster Walks! All you need is a stretchy band and some space to walk around like the spawn of a land crab and benevolent zombie! Cute! In an effort to strengthen […]
Instead of doing passive stretching to alleviate your ‘hip tightness’ try doing exercises that stabilize your hips. Static Circumduction is one of my signature moves that I love teaching to help prep the hips for better reflexive strength and coordination. Additionally, this exercise enhances hip joint centration by helping to […]
The sensation of tightness or muscle tension is a sensation that yoga students frequently explore through passive stretching in order to alleviate ‘tightness’ that they feel around their shoulders, hips, or back. Is passive stretching the best solution for tightness? In this video, I explain a little bit more about […]
Joint movement can be described in 2 main ways. Osteokinematic movement is the movement of your body parts and it’s clearly visible to the naked eye. Arthrokinematic movement is movement that happens inside your joint capsules and cannot be seen. Your joint surfaces slide, spin and roll across each other. […]
In this episode, I touch on the biomechanics of stretching and explore some of most important soft tissue properties to know about – rigidity and extensibility. These properties, and their relationship to flexibility and mobility, are extra important to understand if you are interested in a sustainable yoga practice that […]
In this episode we’ll take a look at a common yoga pose, low lunge, or anjaneyasana. We’ll look specifically at two ways that you can practice this pose. One way is more of a passive approach that biases and exploits flexibility, while the other way is more active and seeks […]
A majority of people who try yoga for the first time do so because they want to get more flexible. One of yoga’s benefits is that it is a highly effective practice for increasing range of motion. But why do we want to increase range of motion at our joints […]
Enjoy my latest Body of Knowledge™ video blog – a Chaturanga-Less Sun Salute! Joint centration is the ideal balance between the muscles that mobilize and stabilize as well as the agonists and antagonists of a joint. Centration implies that all the muscles that surround the joint have balanced their tension […]
In episode 5 of the Body of Knowledge™ video blog, we apply knowledge of bone rhythms (learned in episode 3) by using a belt around the back thigh in order to more clearly sense pelvic and spinal rotation in triangle pose.
Take your body out from between ‘two panes of glass’ and stop squaring your curved pelvis in triangle pose. In part 3 of the Bone Rhythms Trilogy, this Body of Knowledge™ vlog raises your awareness of the action and position of rotation at your hip joints in triangle – specifically […]
I sometimes call triangle pose Bermuda Triangle because proprioception, sense of direction, and the ability to hold oneself up muscularly instead of collapsing into joint tissues all seem to mysteriously disappear in this shape. In this Body of Knowledge™ vlog post, I show a simple self-adjustment to tactilely clarify movement […]
In part 2 of the bone rhythms trilogy, we take a look at triangle pose and how knowledge of coupled movements can clarify what you feel and see happening in this sneakily complex posture. We discuss two different approaches to triangle pose and how to couple or uncouple (that is […]
This is the first Body of Knowledge™ video blog about bone rhythms of the thigh, pelvis and low back. In this video we take a look at a squat and fetal position to understand femoropelvic and lumbopelvic rhythms. Bone rhythms (or coupled movements) are great to know about for anticipating […]
In this blog intro, I share my intention for the Body of Knowledge™ video blog. Namely, it is to share with you some of the questions I love to wrestle with as a student of what I teach – movement, anatomy, biomechanics and the courage to remain curious.
