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...

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 em...

Excerpted from Teaching Yoga, Chapter 4 sidebar on “MULA BANDHA AND UDDIYANA BANDHA”

Earlier we looked at the cultivation of pada bandha, the energetic awakening of the feet through the stirrup-like effect of contracting the tibialis posterior and peroneus longus muscles on the lower leg. The fascial attachments of these two muscles interweave with those of the hip adductors, which have origins in and around the ischial tuberosities (the sitting bones). The sitting bones are the lateral aspects of the perineum, with the pubic symphysis at the front and the coccyx at the back. The front half of this diamond is the urogenital triangle, a landmark for the urogenital diaphragm, a hammock-like layer that is created by three sets of muscles: transverse perineal (connecting the two sitting bones), bulbospongiosus (surrounding the vagina or bulb of the penis), and ischiocavernosus (connecting the ischium to the clitoris or covering the penile crura) (Aldous 2004, 41). Contracting this se...

With more and more students opting for open-minded teachers on a consciously evolving path rather than gurus claiming to transmit pure ancient teachings, students are increasingly setting higher standards for teachers’ overall knowledge and technical skill. An important facet of contemporary yoga evolution shines forth from the rapidly expanding fields of insight into the nature and functioning of the bodymind that is abundantly available for teachers to learn. With this we are beginning to see movement in the yoga community toward more robust standards of competence that are supported by both the received wisdom of tradition and emerging insights from multiple fields such as ayurveda (the science of life that is very much evolving), kinesiology, psychology, and neuroscience. 

What does this mean for yoga teachers in the twenty-first century? As we started this story a few hundred pages back, there is no end to what we can learn. If, as a community of yoga teachers, we are committed...

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...

Ancient writings on yoga explain this with the koshamodel, in which prana—the life force that we cultivate through the breath—is the mediating force unifying body and mind (vayutattvain the Samkhya branch of ancient Indian philosophy). Rather than starting from the assumption that the body and mind are somehow separate, here we approach the practice as one of awakening to the existing reality of the bodymind as already whole—wholeness that we might not think or feel to be whole due to the conditions of the bodymind itself in its inner nature and all its sociocultural conditioning.In practicing, when we breathe consciously into a part of the body as directed by the tension highlighted in a particular asana, we are creating the opportunity to consciously awaken awareness there. Doing this in each of 840,000 asanas—the number mentioned in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika as a way of saying there is infinite possibility—we gradually awaken awareness throughout the entirety of our being, awakenin...

At the risk of stating the obvious, in practicing yoga we all start from where we are—this in contrast to where someone else might think we are or where we ourselves might mistakenly think we are. Many teachers have preconceived or ill-informed ideas about the abilities or interests of their students while many students over-or underestimate their immediately present ability. How as teachers might we best navigate these realities?

There is no end to how much we can learn and evolve as teachers. True to the maxim posited by the Greek philosopher Aristotle that “the more you know, the more you know you don’t know,” the further you go in your training, learning, and experience as a yoga teacher, the more you’ll realize that there’s an infinite universe of knowledge and wisdom to bring to the practice. This becomes more abundantly clear as we come to better appreciate and understand our students, which is absolutely essential if we are to guide them well in their practice. To get a better sense of this, let’s look at the practice itself and the basic elements and sensibilities of teaching. 

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...

In doing yoga, the best teacher one will ever have is alive and well inside. In every breath, every posture, and all the moments and transitions in between, the inner teacher is offering guidance. The tone, texture, and tempo of the breath blend with myriad sensations arising in the bodymind to suggest how and where one might best go with focused awareness and action.  There is no universally correct method or technique, no set of rules, no single goal, and no absolute authority beyond what comes to the practitioner through the heart and soul of simply being in it, listening inside, and opening to the possibilities of amazing qualities of being fully, consciously alive. It’s a personal practice, even if one comes to it and finds in it a more abiding sense of social connection or spiritual being.