Part of the sublime nature of yoga is that there are infinite possibilities for deepening and refining one’s practice. In playing the edges of effort and ease, exploring balance between surrender and control, and opening to self-understanding and self-transformation, there is no end to how far one can go along the path of awakening to clearer awareness, more integrated well-being, and greater happiness. There are also seemingly infinite styles and approaches to yoga, even different ideas about what yoga is, offering a rich array of practices that any of the seven billion of us sharing this planet might at any given time find most in keeping with whatever brings us to explore this ancient ritual for living in the most healthy and awakened way. It’s a fascinating, challenging, often mysterious path that ultimately reveals the deepest beauty inherent in each of us as we gradually come to discover the balances that most complement and support our diverse values and intentions in life. If...

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...

In communicating with our students to convey insights about how they might best approach and explore their practice in a way that reflects and embodies the principles of steadiness and ease, perseverance and nonattachment, we can tap into a variety of resources—speaking, demonstrating, touching, and for some even singing to evoke the spirit of being fully in this self-reflective and potentially transformational practice. The specific combination of techniques we use in any given situation ideally reflects both our personal sensibilities and our best sense of how the students we’re teaching might best explore and learn in keeping with their own intentions and sensibilities. Indeed, how people learn is closely tied to what Howard Gardner (1993) refers to as “qualities of multiple intelligence,” which vary considerably in any given class. Some students learn well from verbal messages while others need a visual model in order to “get it” in their bodymind. Still others are primarily tact...

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?

Connecting the femur to the tibia, the knees receive considerable stress from above and below, making their stabilizing muscles and especially ligaments among the most frequently strained in physical yoga practices. Athletes, runners, even committed sitting meditators discover that the stress created in the knees from their athletic or spiritual avocation can lead to debilitating injury, especially when lacking the beneficial effects of a balanced, appropriate practice of physical asanas. Even in a balanced yoga practice, the knee still has to handle considerable forces, primarily from bearing weight but also due to twisting forces exerted from above and below. In more strenuous yoga practices, the knee has to handle very powerful physical forces. Primarily a hinge joint capable of extension and flexion, with minor capacity to rotate when flexed to about ninety degrees, sudden or excessive movement in any of these motions can tear one of the supporting ligaments or cartilage. Underst...

5 Ways To Sustain Your Yoga Practice

If you’re like most yoga students, you imagine practicing for the rest of your life. There is little else that creates such a sense of bliss or that takes you so deep into simply feeling good, clear, joyful and connected with a sense of spirit.

So why do so many dedicated students and teachers eventually fade away from the practice? One reason is that in the normal course of a lifelong practice one encounters physical, emotional or spiritual “plateaus” that often give way to burn-out or boredom. But even more often an attainment mentality – striving to “get the pose” – leads to injuries that may undermine your practice. Your original intention of feeling better, living a healthier lifestyle and awakening to the beauty and spirit of life gets lost.

Hatha yoga (whatever style, from Ashtanga to Iyengar to Jivamukti to Yin) offers a set of practical tools – asanas – for cultivating wellbeing, self-understanding and self-transformation. Each pose...

Most people are first drawn into the practice to reduce stress, develop flexibility, heal a physical or emotional injury, explore new social connections, or pursue physical fitness. But once in the practice, connecting body-breath-mind, something starts to happen. Students begin to experience a clearer self-awareness, a sense of being more fully alive; they feel better, more in balance, more conscious, clearer. The yearning that we have as human beings for a happy, wakeful, meaningful life and a sense of connection with something greater than our individual selves starts to become a powerful motivation for practicing over the long run of one’s life.

When used as a tool for self-transformation and a path of spiritual being, yoga starts the moment a student first pays attention to what he or she is doing in the practice. If a student is unsteady, falling, in pain, or distracted by discomfort, the tendency will be to go back into his or her analytical or agitated mind. Sthira and sukha...

Virabhadra—the fierce spiritual warrior. When Shiva’s consort Shakti was killed by the chief of the gods, Daksha, Shiva tore out his hair in grief and anger, creating the fierce warrior Virabhadra from his locks. With a thousand arms, three burning eyes, and fiery hair, Virabhadra wore a garland of skulls and carried many terrifying weapons. Bowing at Shiva’s feet and asking his will, Virabhadra was directed by Shiva to lead his army against Daksha to avenge Shakti’s death, which he did with immediate success.

Like Shiva, Virabhadra’s aim in destruction is not revenge but to destroy the real enemy, which is the ego standing in the way of humility. Approaching the asanas named for Virabhadra—Virabhadrasana I, II, and III—we can encourage students to cultivate the mind of the spiritual warrior, aware of all sides, unattached to attainment, centered in one’s being.

Staying focused in the practice, holding on in the midst of fear and intensity, the spirit of Virabhadra helps students...