One of the most common questions people ask me when they hear I teach yoga is “Can Yoga help me lose weight?” Does it really provide enough cardio to actually burn calories? I have an answer for this question, but you may not like to hear what I have to say. For decades now we Americans have been warned about …
Saturday Vinyasa at Weathering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a beautiful farm/ranch in Omaha owned by my friend and student Nancy. She has been kind enough to offer it as a location for Saturday Morning Vinyasa while I am between teaching locations. Wuthering Heights is still within city limits! It’s just a little Northwest of the Irvington exit off of I-6-80. It’s amazing that such a …
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What is Yin Yoga: Part II
The Forest When I was a kid my parents would occasionally take my sister and I camping or for hikes in the woods. I remember making up stories in my head about the various places we’d see; a clearing, many dead or dying trees, an overlook or valley. The stories would include fairies or elves or thieves. Creatures who made …
What is Yin Yoga: Part I
The first thing you should know about Yin is that it is a cool practice. Cool as in really happening but also cool as in temperature. In fact, much of the practice depends on the commitment the student has to not warming and lubricating the joints and tissues. When I first started practicing Yin I found this very frustrating. I …
3 Reasons to do Yin Yoga
People who love Yin, really love Yin. There are many benefits over the long term; greater flexibility, healthier joints, a deeper understanding of your body maybe resulting in better proprioception. That last one is especially important as we age by the way. You will reap greater and greater rewards over the course of weeks and years doing a Yin practice. …
Yoga Teacher Playlist Woes… Overcoming Spotify Shuffle
Have you discovered Spotify yet? If you are a yoga teacher it’s the absolute best for creating playlists. Unfortunately though, you have to pay for it… It’s $10 a month for Spotify Premium. If you are a yoga teacher who plays music though it’s likely the cheapest option out there. The library is pretty stellar and searching for fresh music …
Role of Pain
I recently read an article about the role of pain in the popular style of yoga, Astanga, popularized by Pattabi Jois. This style of yoga is the grandfather of the Vinyasa that I teach, but the strict Astanga style often gets a bad rap because of it’s dogmatic rigidity and the frequency of injury among its practitioners. The author of …
Span of Progress
"I've said before that the span of progress on the spiritual path is about one body length. We take a step, and we fall flat on our faces, because it was another impure trip. So we pull ourselves up, and we take the next step -- and we fall on our faces again. That seems to be about the rate at which we go. [...] But you keep tuning and tuning-- through study, through meditation, through falling on your face. Andy slowly, slowly, as your methods start to work, your attachment to the whole business starts to get less and less. After all, the ego can only trap you as long as you think you are it...."