Ashtanga is not arbitrarily difficult or demanding—no, the practice provides you with a perfect, explicit model of what it takes to come to the mastery of anything. And the requirements of Ashtanga’s sacrifice are so blatant, physical and explicit.
I’m going to tell you a secret about myself. I started practicing Yoga for sport. To stretch my muscles out from running. I taught myself how to practice for devotion.
Most of the day I feel that I waste the miracle of life that I know I am part of. The evidence of the miracle—–the undisputable fact of the world’s Beauty and Intelligence is literally everywhere. And this miracle of life cannot even be denied in midst o
To me the ashtanga family is like a fragile eco system and thus your own internal relationships and the external relationships with others in the family have to be tended to very carefully in order maintain a balance. And so even though I may disagree wi
Your efforts in practice are meant to feed the ideal images that you are shaping within your mind and body, and this maturation takes place nearly imperceptibly, little by little, day by day. Part of establishing yourself in the discipline, is learning to
The hatha yogi uses his body to create an inward, symbolic sand mandala each morning, and thus he mounts to a similar pinnacle of devotion, a turning away from the pull of materiality in favor of turning towards the sublime spiritual realms within. In ma
Baddhakonasana, Bound Angle Pose, is an important hip opening seated posture that is found in the primary series. In this blog post I provide instruction for the upright phase and the two forward bending phases...
I recently posted about the importance of spinal positioning in asana study, and also how the asana allies can help you to position your spine in the center of your asana. When I say asana ally, I mean that in response to the mind’s tendency to be turned o
Because fire is THE most important element in practice, you must work consciously with your fieriness or lack of. It can require tremendous energy to get to a place where fire presides over your practice, where tapas leads you...
Resisting pain can frustrate you and challenge your resolve to practice and thus it is essential to see that the obstructions that appear in your path, whether physical or mental, are meant to be there for your learning and growth.
