It was a pleasant surprise to realize that yoga has helped to improve my concentration. Over the years I have seen immense (immense) improvement. I am now able to witness, while working at my desk, for example, a break in concentration and guide my mind back to the task. When I notice the break I […]
Are you experiencing an obstacle that is keeping you from practicing? Is your obstacle physical, mental intellectual or spiritual? And how can you know which one it is? Over the years I have experienced a huge list of obstacles to practicing. Most of the time I wasn’t able to name the obstacle until it had […]
The yoga student journey from potential new student to practitioner is not a straight line. When students come to class for the first time I definitely don’t assume they will want to dedicate their life to a yoga practice. I assume new students are trying it out casually and I don’t put pressure on them. […]
I sat down with my mentoree Dawn (pictured here) to discuss her experience with Iyengar Yoga and talk about a new class she is offering this fall. Aaron Fleming: Hi Dawn, tell us a little about yourself. Dawn Baurichter: In addition to yoga I enjoy being outside, traveling to national parks and walking the trails. […]
I attend class with my teacher, Laurie Blakeney, three or four times a year, usually during her weekend intensives up in Ann Arbor. In between her intensives I try to take class with other senior certified Iyengar Yoga teachers. There’s no certified Iyengar Yoga teachers senior to me in Cincinnati so I must travel to […]
Misconceptions about yoga abound. But I am here to tell you that it is not what you think it is. Yoga is not what you think it is. And Iyengar Yoga is not what you think it is. If you have never taken a yoga class I bet you already have an idea of what […]
If you stick with it practicing yoga can lead to a life of contentment. But how does doing poses lead to contentment? Let’s explore a recent experience I had which will hopefully illustrate the process. I spent last week vacationing on Lake Michigan with six adults, six small children and one pretty big dog. There […]
Can you grow a relationship with yoga? Many people don’t think of yoga as something you can actually learn. That is probably because a lot of what we see in advertising makes us think that yoga is an exercise for people who are already flexible and some how intuitively already know what they are doing. […]
In the previous post, we touched on Why we use props in yoga. The props are essential for helping us approach the poses with safety. But we also use the props to help facilitate a more profound effect through the awareness of the breath. When we are doing active poses, and not holding still very […]
B.K.S. Iyengar invented ways to use props to support the body in yoga poses. He saw that many people had difficultly achieving the poses and therefore could not reap the benefits of a practice. His props help when there is a limitation like stiffness or injury. An example of props sometimes used in an Iyengar […]