Sunday, June 21st, will be celebrated around the world as the first International Yoga Day sponsored by the United Nations. Geeta Iyengar is encouraging us to use this day to honor yoga and our teacher, B.K.S. Iyengar.
There are many ways that you can honor this day, whether it is through your own personal practice or a more public event. Geeta generously offered a sequence that could be used in a variety of ways.
There has been a stomach bug being passed around my house for the past two weeks. When you live with small children there always seems to be something being passed around! By last Friday evening I was on the couch with a stomach ache and a fever. And I didn’t feel good at all. The…
1.13 tatra sthitau yatnah abhyasah Practice is the steadfast effort to still these fluctuations. In this yoga sutra “these fluctuations” are the movements of consciousness. We experience the movements in our consciousness when our thoughts are bouncing around. We have a thought which sparks another thought which turns into another thought, and so on and…
All practitioners, either seasoned or just starting out, are well aware of the many things that get in the way of a regular and consistent practice. Patanjali outlines 9 obstacles to practicing. They are: Vyadhi: disease styana: lack of interest / mental laziness samsaya: doubt pramada: carelessness alasya: idleness avirati: sense gratification / over indulgence…
Last week I published the Beginners and practitioners post. In that article I stated that in order to help beginner students become practitioners I need to first understand why people are not practicing on their own. What is standing in the way. I heard back from many of you. People sent emails or Facebook messages,…
Dr Geeta S. Iyengar, daughter of Yogacharya B.K.S. Iyengar, and the senior most teacher in the Iyengar community passed away today morning. She had completed 74 years on December 7. Sister to her five siblings but a mother figure to the whole community of Iyengar yoga practitioners which now spans 59 countries across the world,…
One of the many reasons I love teaching is because the students challenge me to clarify my thoughts. Sometimes the answers to their questions come easily – like “should the legs be straight in Trikonasana”? The answer is yes. Didn’t take much brain power to come up with that answer. But every once in awhile…
