One of my teachers, Seane Corn, in action.

It’s that time of year again – what I consider to be the New Year of Yoga. As the summer draws to a close, the majority of people return home from vacation, begin to spend more time indoors, and fall back into some sort of routine. With this annual immigration of Yogis, most Yoga studios experience a stark increase in attendance. Read the rest of this post»

As we approach September, I have been more or less bending backwards, and inviting the yogis in my classes to do the same, for at least 2 months now, if not more. This year, more than any other year, I feel as if I have been more open to the heart qualities like loving-kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy. So it is fitting that as we near the end of the season, I find myself needing to cultivate equanimity.

I first realized this while watching an Arsenal soccer game (aka “football”). A particular player (Eduardo) broke his leg quite severely almost a year ago and worked hard to make a comeback. When he scored a goal during their first game of the season, I skipped being sympathetically joyful for his accomplishments because I was stuck at feeling pain for the suffering he must have felt a year ago. After feeling like this for at least an hour, I realized that I was being paralyzed by my compassion. This is not unusual; a near enemy of compassion is withdrawal stemming from feeling overwhelmed by suffering. In my opinion, this near enemy serves no-one; it only increases the amount of suffering there is in this world. Read the rest of this post»

A beautiful paradox of yoga is that it is always evolving. In my opinion, that is one of the only reasons why yoga has survived the 2,500 years since it was created. Because of this continuous evolution, the practice itself becomes a dance – one that asks teachers and serious practitioners to stay on top of what is consistently changing in the yoga world.

For those who adopt the “Let’s get this over with” attitude, this can be extremely frustrating. I used to be one of those people, but this dance with yoga has taught me to let go. One of my teachers, Nicole Bordeleau from Yogamonde used to often say, “Yoga is an ocean of knowledge.” This cannot be more true. I’ll be lucky if I learn in this lifetime even a quarter of all that yoga has to offer. Read the rest of this post»

As some of you know, I have been working backbends for the summer. Whenever I practice and teach backbends, unintentionally I tend to become more connected to heart qualities like loving-kindness, compassion, and forgiveness, to name a few.

Normally when I practice any of these heart qualities, it is often separate from my asana practice . But as a famous saying goes, “How you do anything is how you do everything.” Before I knew it, this practice started to spill over in many other aspects of my life, particularly my life on my mat. Read the rest of this post»