Habits That Support a Home-Based Yoga Practice
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”] [et_pb_row admin_label=”row”] [et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”] Practicing yoga at home is a great way to keep yoga in your routine. You can develop discipline, improve your fitness level and deepen your yoga practice from the convenience of your house. If you want to start a regular yoga practice at home, consider the following tips […]
Yoga Outside of the Mat: Bringing Yoga Into Real-Life
You have your regular classes, your favourite teachers, and your go-to yoga videos… now what?
Support helps a yoga practice flourish, but no one should have to sell themselves short by staying restricted to a mat. The real magic happens through taking the epiphanies from the experiences on the mat and integrating them into everyday life.
So, how can you make yoga outside your mat happen? Here are a few tips to weave the teachings into real-life situations.
Find Your Happy Place
When you step away from the mundane and give yourself the space to receive, it gives you that extra breathing room to remember what’s important. Whether it’s meditating in the woods, a well-deserved….
5 Signs of an Advanced Yogi
When I started going deeper into my yoga practice, I began to wonder what it really meant to be an advanced yogi. I remember the frustration I had with certain poses that wouldn’t happen no matter how hard I tried. One day in a yoga class, I noticed someone transition directly from a wide-legged forward fold to a headstand. My reaction was, “Wow, this person is like a magical unicorn!” I could also hear the little voice of doubt inside my head saying that would never happen for me. Well, I was wrong. A few years later, I conquered that variation—I’d officially transformed into that magical unicorn. Did I feel any more enlightened? No. Did I feel like I’d raised the bar? Not really. Luckily for us, what determines an advanced yogi has nothing to do with yoga poses; shifting into a refined practice goes a few layers deeper, to the core essence of what it means to be a “real yogi”—whatever that means.
Yoga Teacher Spotlight: Susan
Susan (Sadhana) is one of the skilled yoga teachers that the Yogacara community feels honoured to have. This week, she has been featured in our yoga teacher spotlight in the hopes that you can get to know her and the connection she has to yoga. Do you have any favourite mantras/meditations/spiritual practices? I am fascinated with mantra, the Sanskrit language and the effects it has on not only those chanting, but all beings, plant and animal life in its proximity. Mantra is a daily practice that has become effortless and brings so much joy. It’s a very powerful tool to bring things back into balance and perspective. During extended poses when I am not cueing, I am often chanting silently, helping to raise the frequency of the room.
Anatomy in Yoga
An understanding of anatomy is key for the safety and development of your students. Integrating this knowledge can encourage injury prevention and facilitate the healing process. It can connect a deeper understanding of the philosophies in creating yoga sequences for public and private classes. For private classes, if there is a specific area of focus, then you can design a practice that addresses those concerns. An anatomical awareness also prepares you to take on students with injuries in a safe and effective manner. Using variations, props, and mindful sequencing to compliment this information can create an inclusive yoga class.
An understanding of anatomy also gives you the tools to analyze your practice and teachings to create effective movement patterns. This encourages proper sequencing techniques that include adequate warm-ups and poses with appropriate counterposes. It also reinforces the importance of alignment for the purpose of safety for our joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments rather than for an esthetic appeal. The patterns we create on our mat have the ability to affect how we progress outside of yoga, meaning that our muscle memory creates healthy habits to impact other activities in our daily lives.
Yoga Yin and Yang | Yogacara Studios
Most of us are familiar with the Yin and Yang symbol that originated in Chinese philosophy, but did you know that this philsophy, literally meaning “shadow and light”, can be used to describe the varying styles of yoga? Yoga Yin and Yang is used to describe how polar opposites or contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent […]
