Growing up just a few miles upstream from Santa Cruz, California, September was our favorite time to spend endless hours in the swimming holes along the San Lorenzo River. With the tourists gone after Labor Day, the days were hot, dry, and made for being outside in the magic of “Indian Summer.”

Yet school always beckoned, vacations ended, and the sun’s arc sank lower each day as the Autumnal Equinox drew near. By October, change was undeniable: maples and sycamores turned color, watermelons gave way to pumpkins, squirrels busied themselves for winter. Still, we insisted, it was almost summer.

Decades later, I still feel that in-between quality of the season. Add in the effects of global warming and it can seem like summer never ends. Yet the shift is real – routines reset, energies rebalance, and our senses reveal the turning of the year.

The Autumn Equinox – September 22 this year – marks the midpoint between summer and winter. For traditional cultures attuned to nature’s rhythms, ...

Yoga is entwined with politics in the epic Mahabharata and it's most famous chapter, the Bhagavad Gita. And it's not just in the epic and mythological literature; many early kingdoms and states in India connected their politics with yoga, just as many yogis in rural India (where its majority lives) often resisted such rule. Mohatma Gandhi applied a radical commitment to ahimsa, non-violence, to help rid India of the British while Sri Aurobindo organized 10,000 yoga warriors to try to take on the British Army. The current Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, has made yoga and politics an art form for his BJP party and the larger religio-nationalist Hindutva political movement.  

So what about yoga and the November 2024 presidential election in the United States, where basic rights, the planet, and perhaps democracy itself are at stake? What's an American yogi – and yoga teacher – to do, or not do?

First, consider Shakespeare, "to thine own self be true," before reflexively (or du...

Reflections on Stretching, Stabilizing, and Forceful Yoga

by Mark Stephens

What is Asana? Sthira Sukham Asanam – “Steadiness, Ease, Present”

– Patanjali, Yoga Sutra (325CE)

Hatha: “forceful”

Example: Hatha Yoga Pradipika (Light on Forceful Yoga)

– Swami Swatmarama (early 15^th century)

These reflections flow to you in waves:

• Wave One. This sets the table. I wrote it somewhat playfully, colloquially, and maybe a little provocatively. I do like to stir the pot! It considers notions about stretching in the vastly different practices of Ashtanga Vinyasa (which the foundational practice from which most “flow” style of yoga are derived) and Yin Yoga.

• Wave Two. This sets forth basic – and conventional – information on joint stability and mobility.

• Wave Three. This takes a much deeper dive into the kinesiology of stretching, ROM, stability, the nature of fascia, and related matters.

Wave One

Let’s imagine a student who’s in good overall...

There are virtues and drawbacks to the use of the traditional concepts and belief systems in yoga to inform its various practices. On the one hand, for many, the belief that one is engaged in an experience rooted in ancient knowledge and validated by the passage of time provides a level of confidence and reinforcement. Also, learning a new and foreign set of concepts within the context of what appears to be a holistic and coherent paradigm signals and emphasizes the ways in which learning yoga is not simply an adjustment to one’s physical exercise activities, as it might be in, say, adding a new move to one’s basketball offense or a new stitch in knitting.

Yoga involves a transformative approach to physical activity centered more in the breath and the sense of the bodymind than in simply a new arrangement or movement of the limbs. So inviting students to learn the traditional yoga practices and belief systems can be an insightful and affirmative part of the practice and, for many...

After 15 years of doing this practice pretty much daily, I’m writing it out for the first time as requested by the folks in the December 2019 5-day sequencing immersion at triyoga in London.

Everything described here should be modified such that complete comfort takes precedence over everything else. I usually do this practice for 45-60 minutes; as always and with everything in yoga, explore modifying! Please refer to any of my books regarding contraindications with the pranayamas, only some of which are noted here. For basics on breathing and teaching the pranayama parts of this practice, see Chapter 8 of Teaching Yoga or Chapter 21 of Yoga Therapy. Please forgive me shifting back and forth between writing as though for teachers and for students…hopefully we’re always both!

Enjoy doing and sharing this practice for fully waking up and getting on top of the day.

The Practice

Start in a simple seated position (Sukasana, Padmasana...) for a few minutes (3-10), at first simply si...

In thinking about the nervous system, it makes sense to assume it is the part of us that makes us feel nervous. It does. But part of our nervous system makes us feel calm, relaxed, and sleepy. It is called the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), with the nickname “rest and digest.” 

The PNS is part of our autonomic nervous system (ANS), which works through a network of sensory and motor neurons that are connected to our internal organs and automatically regulates most of our physiological processes without our awareness. You might be more familiar with the other side of the ANS, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), which generates our “fight or flight” responses and often seems to stay in the “on” position in reaction to stress. The SNS tends to get a bad rap, but it is vitally important to our survival and has some sweeter effects, such as accompanying the release of the “tend-and- befriend” hormone oxytocin and allowing us to feel close, playful, and joyful with others. 

Where...

With a variety of age-related, health, and lifestyle factors affecting how we sleep, we need varied approaches to sleeping well. A night owl versus a morning lark, someone with hyperarousal versus emotional depression, or an adolescent versus an older person need different strategies for improving their sleep.

In applying yoga practices to specific sleep issues, it is important to align the effects of the practices with the causes of sleep issues.  If you are hyperaroused and your mind tends to jump around like the Energizer Bunny on espresso, this suggests a very different set of yoga sequences compared to the practices that help if you are emotionally depleted or depressed, are subject to timing issues, have a breathing disorder, or are frail. 

The sleep diary and other self-assessments listed in appendix II can help you identify your conditions, sleep patterns, and which practices are best for you.

In each of the yoga sequences given in the following chapters, the practices ...

Following the basic principles of sequencing instructions, guide the building of full Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog Pose) from the ground up and from what is at most risk of strain or injury: the wrists, shoulders, and hamstrings. We will look alternatively at the upper body (from the hands up) and lower body (from the feet up).

Adho Mukha Svanasana is an excellent asana for learning and embodying the principle of roots and extension. Encourage students to press firmly down into the entire span of their hands and length of their fingers, paying close attention to rooting the knuckle of the index finger as a way of balancing pressure in the wrist joint. This rooting action should originate at the top of the arms. With it, ask students to feel the “rebounce” effect of this rooting action in the natural lengthening through their wrist, elbow, and shoulder joints. 

The fingers should be spread wide apart, the thumbs only about two-thirds of the way in order to protect...

The conditions of men and women change considerably across the broad span of one’s life. Most of the changes are similar when considering the broad scope of human physical, emotional, and mental development from early childhood to the latest moments of life. Yet along the way there are several factors that bring us to give the conditions of women in yoga special consideration in crafting yoga sequences.

While there is no question that the onset of puberty is very significant in boys, the changes in boys pale in comparison with the hormonal and larger physical and physiological changes experienced by girls with menarche (the onset of menstruation) and the cyclical recurrence of menstruation until menopause. While sharing in the experience of pregnancy and childbirth can be very significant to men, this experience pales even more in contrast to the experience of being pregnant, giving birth, breast-feeding, and healing in the postpartum period. And while men often have a variety of...

Half Moon Pose (Ardha Chandrasana) is a strong intermediate-level standing balancing asana that asks for steady grounding of the standing foot and leg, opening of the standing leg’s hip in external rotation, elongation of the spine, and expansion of the torso and chest. It invites exploration of confidence in balancing through the opportunity to eventually maintain the gaze toward the thumb of the upper hand while transitioning in, refining, and releasing from it.

Explored with patience, steadiness and ease, Half Moon is a sustainable asana with options for more accessible modification and more challenging variation, making it among the most commonly taught standing balancing asanas in Vinyasa Flow and many other styles of classes.

Yet as with many things in life, this potentially beneficial asana is also replete with risks to most students when taught and practiced in ill-informed ways. Let’s look more closely.

Half Moon Pose is most easily and naturally approached from Triangle ...