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...

When doing a yoga practice, we come to various asanas. In approaching them, we’re already experiencing sensations. If we’re actually doing yoga rather than merely exercising, then we’re breathing consciously and using the breath to refine how we’re exploring the asana. Breathing consciously, we’re bringing more conscious awareness into the bodymind, ideally as suggested by the sensations that are arising in the moment, adapting our movement and positioning to be more stable, relaxed, and present. So there’s a dance of the breath with the bodymind, each affecting the other, all of it increasingly experienced as part of the whole of our being. This is the basic practice of always and forever integrating and awakening that is at the heart of yoga asana practice. In it, we can play with different breathing techniques, positions, and visualizations, exploring their various effects, including the inner dialogue and reactions that are an increasingly clear reflective mirror of our deeper qu...

Downward Facing Dog Pose (Adho Mukha Svanasana)

Adho Mukha Svanasana is the foundational asana for all other arm support asanas and is an excellent asana for learning and embodying the principle of roots and extension. Following the basic principles of asana practice, explore Down Dog from the ground up and from what is at most risk of strain or injury in this asana: the wrists, shoulders, and hamstrings. We will look alternatively at the upper body (from the hands up) and the lower body (from the feet up).

In exploring Adho Mukha Svanasana, consider coming to all fours to explore the fundamentals of the hands, arms, and pelvis, then lift the hips up and back while moving toward straightening the legs. Healthy students with sufficient arm, shoulder, and core strength and stability can explore lifting the hips directly up and back into Adho Mukha Svanasana, either stepping over one foot at a time (relatively easier) or rolling over the toes on both feet simultaneously (more chall...

Cuing students in the asanas with a balanced attitude of vairagya (letting go) and abhyasa (persevering practice) helps ensure that students feel supported in their practice while feeling free of attainment-related expectation. By conveying this attitude through every aspect of one’s teaching, including in offering and giving tactile cues, students more naturally find their way to their inner teacher, utilizing the intensity of physical sensation and the barometer of the breath to guide their effort in their personal practice. 

Indeed, an essential element of this balanced approach to sustainable and transformational yoga practice rests in the breath. Curiously, although the classical writings on Hatha yoga give primary emphasis to pranayama (from pra, “to bring forth,” an, “to breathe,” and a combination of ayama, “to expand,” and yama, “to control”), pranayama practice—basic yogic breathing—is typically given little attention in many contemporary yoga classes.  As with asana pract...

There is inestimable value and purpose in having outer teachers and in teaching yoga. While with consistent and refined practice students develop the awareness that makes the asanas more understandable, accessible, and sustainable from the inside out, gradually and more clearly feeling their way into sequences that work, nearly all of us benefit from the informed insights of a trained and experienced teacher whose guidance, even just on matters of postural alignment and energetic actions, can make our experience in doing yoga safer and more beneficial. A teacher can also give guidance on techniques and qualities of breathing, mental attentiveness, postural modifications and variations, sequences within and between asana families, as well as adaptations to address special conditions such as frailty, tightness, hypermobility, pregnancy, and interrelated physical, physiological, and psychological pathologies. Put differently, teachers matter; the question is, how do we best teach?  

As...