Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

Natarajasana, or Dancer's Pose, is a glorious heart-opening posture that challenges balance while lengthening the chest and spinal muscles. Also referred to as Lord of the Dance pose, Natarajasana stimulates the Heart Chakra (Anahata) and the Third Eye Chakra (Ajna), to help the practitioner feel more grateful, forgiving, focused, intuitive, and free. 

Do you ever feel like yoga should be more accessible? It has become harder with our fast-paced lives to get our practice in. Especially in a highly digital world, we have become more and more distracted. Instead of staying centered and trusting our internal compass, we’re pulled in a million directions. What’s the solution?

If you’re reading this, you #GoYourOMWay. You are not restricted by class times, work schedules or even walls. You have followed your heart (and our mobile app) to discover new teachers, styles and inspiring places to take your yoga. If you are reading this, you are part of a community that decided to throw away the script, think outside the studio and build the yoga practice that works for you.

Dear fellow yogis, When I started the The Kaivalya Yoga Method Teacher Training with YogaDownload.com in January 2016, I had no idea or conception of what the ride would be like.  Wow, that was a training above all trainings imaginable!  It certainly took lots of energy, effort, focus, and strong perseverance! I found the beginning modules more challenging for me personally, and as I continued on, I felt like I was opening up a genie (a.k.a. Alanna Kaivalya) bottle that I found on the beach. And, out of the genie bottle continued to arise more and more intrigue, more and more heartfelt information, more and more myths and depth.

Hello from YogaDownload! We have 4 exclusive new classes to share with you, going back to the core teachings of yoga. The 2000 year-old Sutras (Sanskrit for “threads”) are timeless truisms that brings you closer to your practice. The classes are all offered by the same teacher – and you need to meet this person. She gives us butterflies. Everyone from Ana Forest to Rodney Yee to Yoga Journal has sung her praises. Her books are bestsellers, her workshops sell out all over the world and millions of people adore her music. She is a true yoga scholar, an expert on the sutras, mythology, the anatomy of the body and the creative expression of the practice.

As we approach Independence Day in the Unites States, we here at YogaDownload.com felt it was a great time to explore the concept of what true freedom and independence means to us, in general and also in the yogic sense. The Fourth of July is a time to celebrate our country’s freedom. We celebrate with vacations to the beach, barbecues with family and friends and fireworks. It’s a time to shake off work, duties and responsibilities and instead embrace joy and light-heartedness.

You’ve probably practiced Bakasana (crane pose) in class before and most likely the version you learned was actually Kakasana (crow pose). Whaaaat? Isn’t Bakasana synonymous with crow? Well, actually...no, it is not.

Making the decision to sign up for a teacher training for most people is a big deal. Many register for programs in order to become a yoga instructor, but people also register in order to simply learn more about yoga. What most people don’t count on is how much you learn about yourself through the teacher training process. While learning alignment for Down Dog and how to cue people into a Warrior One is great, gaining tools to thrive and uncovering a new way of looking at life are even better.

When circumstances, ruled by forces beyond the will of one individual, overshadow our personal experience of life, unconscious resentment and fear run deep. The coercive fuel of capitalism has conditioned and resigned us to manipulation that both obfuscates truth and reveals the inhumanity of entrenched power. Despite hopelessness, perhaps a kernel of our sacrificed fortitude and imagination can be redeemed.

Spring is approaching! It’s the time when our homes feel lighter and brighter after we purge all the junk and unnecessary clutter we tend to amass over the winter months.

Often, yoga is described as a journey for self-understanding-- a process for uncovering your true nature. Once we maintain a consistent yoga practice, we change—physically, emotionally, and mentally. Change is good! If we are different, we interact with others in a different way as well. Yoga can help us resolve issues in our relationships--past and present and future.

Sukhasana, or easy pose, or cross-legged sitting, is one of the fundamental poses I teach in my beginner’s courses. I usually make some remark about how the title ‘easy pose’ used to piss me off because it’s not necessarily an easy pose. For me as a beginner it was hard, uncomfortable, and eventually painful to sit cross-legged on the ground. But I think, in a way, I’ve been missing the point.

At my recent wedding, my dad mentioned in his toast how the Herzberger family is not particularly skilled at how to deal with change. This is kind of like one of those running jokes in the family where it’s funny, but not really.

It’s the height of zucchini season and for those of us with a veggie garden (or a nice neighbor who likes to share), we’ve got “zukes” (and “cukes” for that matter) coming out of our ears!