Yoga, Health, and Wellness Articles + Recipes

These are, hands down, my favorite 15 poses for opening the hips. Creating a balanced, effective hip-opening sequence is simple if you know how the hip muscles are laid out. When you don’t have for a map for their hips, you’re at a higher risk for overstretching your hamstrings and external rotators compared to your hip flexors and adductors. Teachers make this mistake in their sequencing regularly and, as a result, hamstring insertion injuries are one of the most prevalent injuries in modern yoga

For more than a decade, I’ve quivered at the thought of attending a hip-opening workshop. Having played ice hockey and been a skateboarder for more 15 years, my hips were molten lead that no amount of Pigeon Pose could crack open. Now, 20 years in, I’ve chipped away and breathed steadily enough to be halfway comfortable and mobile in these joints.

Chaturanga Dandasana is hugely common in vinyasa flow classes and often vilified or blamed for all sorts of injuries. Some of that may be true, especially if done quickly, forcefully, and without any concern for alignment. I prefer to think positively about what chaturanga delivers, although extolling its virtues may fall on deaf ears and tired arms. With sincerity, I believe it is an efficient and effective transition from plank into upward-facing dog, priming the strength of the arms and shoulders to deliver the backbend energetically as well as giving an opportunity for rhythmic breath and movement.

How can we possibly discern what is true for us and beneficial for the evolution of our soul when we are bombarded by life? And by bombarded I don’t mean that we’ve lost control some how. I just mean, sometimes life moves at the speed of light and honestly, we start to move at that speed without knowing it and that’s not always the best thing.

Samskaras are impressions imprinted in the mind, created by our life experiences. They form together and create habitual patterns that can be experienced physically, mentally, or emotionally.

Now that the information superhighway is such a ubiquitous part of our lives, repercussions must be reckoned with. In this time of smartphones and big data, the ancient yogic practice of questioning our identifications needs to include the technologies that have become appendages to our minds and bodies.

Discipline is defined as a branch of knowledge or the practice of training people. I find this interesting as a yoga “teacher,” for a few reasons. One is that that while I am a teacher, I am also only a student. And honestly, the only person I am ever really training is myself.

It’s 3pm. You’re brain is fuzzy. It’s getting harder and harder to focus. Your body is sore from sitting. And you just want to make that final push to get that last bit done and then you’ll take a break.

For the modern yoga world, 2015 was a time of reckoning. The veneer of yoga lifestyle branding dulled further and the un-photoshopped belly continued to garner greater market appeal. Both grassroots and corporate entities that staked claims in the once vast frontier are now scrambling to stay ahead of the digital winds that are shaping the new paradigm.

This past year has provided big shifts for me, and I know (from personal connection) for a lot of you as well. I have witnessed shakedowns, breakdowns, breakthroughs, breakups, epiphanies, and big page-turners. But really, it’s not any different than any other year, now is it?

If you ask me, it’s always pumpkin season. Thank goodness for canned pumpkin! To avoid all the extra stuff in the store bought or coffee shop smoothies or pumpkin lattes – I like to whip something up at home and know exactly what is in one of my favorite pumpkin treats.

In the latter part of December, I found myself completely underwhelmed in yoga class as another teacher themed on the trials and tribulations of holiday stress. I'm talking about the self-induced stress from busyness, not true emotional strife due to current or past, uncontrollable circumstances magnified around this time of year. We bowed our heads in child’s pose commiserating over our burdened schedules, practiced twisting postures to detox from the holiday parties the weekend prior, and were asked to put our “to-do” Christmas lists aside for the hour.

Happy Winter Solstice! I love celebrating the solstices and equinoxes as they represent light and new beginnings. There is innate wisdom in nature and I think we human beings can look to nature to find more peace and happiness in our lives.

You are not one big backbend away from enlightenment. I hate to break it to you, but it is really the unglamorous work of getting up a bit earlier to do a daily practice, most of which probably isn’t instagram-worthy, that will keep you sane and healthy. It’s the accumulation of consistent practice over months and years that puts you on a path towards joy and freedom and not just one rockin’ class with a Coldplay soundtrack. If the experience of subtle energetics is part of your practice, then of course big poses have the possibility to connect you to transcendental states. But they can equally throw you off balance and out of the continual practice of balancing the energies that compose your physical, emotional, and spiritual states.

I wish I was a better meal planner. I’m great at food prep, but I must admit that I never do it with specific meals and menus in mind. I go to the farmers market or the supermarket and purchase what is in season or on sale. Then I build meals on the fly around those foods.

Winter Solstice I love this time of the year. Which seems off because I am, by nature, a very fiery, sand-loving, ocean-adoring, sun-bathing type of woman. I enjoy wearing flip-flops, bathing suits, and barely enough clothes to cover my body. Truth be told, in the midst of the cold weather months, I have yearned for the Southern Hemisphere.

I woke up on Sunday with a sore throat. The last time I was sick was when I lived in Texas back in 2012. Naturally, I was annoyed. I thought it might just go away. It did not.

Yoga has made me curious about my body for more than 20 years. When I feel restriction in my outer hips during Pigeon Pose, I wonder what exactly is holding me back—is it my gluteus maximus, my piriformis and external rotators, my posterior capsule… or my questionable karma? Hey, I’m a Virgo, I don’t like surprises, and teaching yoga is my passion, so I like to understand these things. That’s fair, right?

Yoga has been practiced in India for some 5000 years by yogis, but it is only now being regarded as a universal solution for all health issues. I bet you know that June 21st is World Yoga Day, and millions of people across the globe converge every year to celebrate this day. However, have you ever wondered why are we talking about yoga now, even though it has been around for thousands of years? Maybe because more and more people are getting to know about this form of exercise and are experiencing its many benefits. Here are some benefits of yoga that are probably responsible for its fame:

The idea of listening came to me when I spent the last four weeks nurturing a very sore throat. It wasn’t a cold or anything like that. I guess it could have been the fact that I was using my voice for work more than normal. But honestly I believe the issue came from something that was energetically linked to me needing to shut my mouth and listen.

Truth be told, I was never much of a fan of snacking. I don’t have natural self-control or discipline when it comes to food. I was a teeny tiny little fairy waif growing up. I exercised a ton, I was always hungry, and I ate whatever I pleased, whenever I pleased.

Recent events and the turn of season have landed on many like a celestial wet blanket, casting a hue of funk and resignation. Even just a quick glance at any news feed bombards us with what seems to be insurmountable suffering, injustice, and ignorance. Governments and institutions appear at a loss to stem the tide. As individuals, we have no choice but to either give in to hopelessness or garner our intrinsic resources.

Last night was the last time I’ll ever sleep in my childhood bedroom. Tonight, I’ll sleep in a “guest room” in my parent’s new house. I don’t live in the same state anymore (and haven’t for the past 5 years), so I don’t really get a room in their house.

Many of us could use some healing when it comes to our relationship with food + our body but most of us are convinced that not feeling well after eating (either emotionally or physically) is our version of “normal”.

We stretch our hamstrings in yoga A LOT, but we don’t necessarily work on strengthening them. If you’re familiar with the ‘yoga butt’ injury, you know that injuries at the hamstring tendon located, well, in your butt, are more and more common with regular practitioners.