Beyond Asana Blog

When I attended the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune, India in August 2000, most of the classes were taught by Geeta and Prashant Iyengar.

BKS Iyengar was also there most days, doing his own practice in the back of the room. In almost every class he would step in and teach for a little while.

One day, while he was instructing Triangle pose, he yelled across the room an instruction that was meant for me. It was about adjusting my left foot, but I didn’t catch it. He then came over, stood on my mat and said to me,

“You want to learn yoga, but you don’t even know how to listen!”

And so began my ongoing inquiry into the relationship between listening, learning, and yoga. 
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It’s that time of year here in Sutton when the calendar says it’s Spring but there are still little patches of snow here and there. Where there isn’t snow there’s mud. The trees are mostly bare with just the tiniest hints of new growth. It’s still a pretty barren landscape.

We know, though, that in a few weeks nature will burst forth with new life. There’s an innate potency that will awaken the earth, the trees, the flowers, and the birds.

Yoga teaches that this potential for creating, for bringing new life into being is within all of us as well.

In Chapter 10 of the Bhagavad Gita Krishna tells Arjuna where to look for him in the things of the world. He says things like,

“Among animal...

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.  

-Clarissa Pinkola Estés


I fully believe that the only way to effect meaningful change in the world is to begin with our selves.

Yet, I still sometimes struggle with the enormity of the world's suffering and how that contrasts with the privilege I enjoy of being able to spend the amount of time that I do practicing and thinking about yoga, and "working on myself."

I know better than to consider this selfish, yet sometimes it feels tinged with self-indulgence, a sense of luxury and entitlement.
Shouldn't I be doing something more timely, more urgen...

At ease, in the present moment, spacious, clear, grounded, centered, calm, settled.
 
These are some of the words that describe my experience of being in alignment in my asana practice yesterday – a lower-body focused practice of seated hip openers and twists.
 
Articulating beneficial experiences in yoga strengthens them.

Therefore, I invite you to explore your own process of moving into alignment:
 
- How do you go from feeling out of sync to synched up? From scattered to sorted? 

- How would you describe the movement toward unity and wholeness that comes from bringing the pieces and parts of you into greater harmony? 

- What words convey the experience of feeling aligned in your bod...

I stood on a small bridge near my house the other day, focusing on the movement of a freshly defrosted stream flowing beneath me. 

I’ve observed and listened to this particular stream before, but I experienced it differently this time.
 
Instead of my usual feeling of moving head-on into the flow of the water, I felt the energy of the stream supporting me from behind. 
 
I imagined myself moving forward like that stream - with grace, tenderness, and the support of the universe at my back.

The feeling of letting go and being gently propelled into the flow was incredibly comforting.
 
It was a powerful lesson in the value of temporarily releasing everything: our fears, worries, anxieties,...

Tonight is the Hindu celebration of Mahashivaratri. It is the night dedicated to Lord Shiva, who represents the divine, auspicious, and eternal essence that exists in all things. One of the traditional ways to honor this occasion is to chant Lord Shiva’s name throughout the night. 

I first celebrated Mahashivaratri during my first monthlong visit to India in 1995. I still remember standing on the roof of a temple pavilion in the darkness of the early morning hours, listening to the sounds of Om Namah Shivaya being chanted in a courtyard below.

As the syllables of the mantra rose up into the night sky to be received by the heavens, I too was transported into a mystical, majestic, and pri...

A number of participants in our recent Triumphant Heart course on the Bhagavad Gita have confessed that they’ve fallen behind in our coursework (which isn’t a big deal, since students have full access to the course for one year.)
 
It's worth taking a closer look at the dreaded “falling behind.”
   
Here we are at the beginning of March (already!) It's just about that time when we might feel like we're lagging on projects we've started, plans we've made, or intentions we've set for ourselves.

I, myself, am already behind on an online program I’ve recently joined and on a number of other goals I have for this year. 

I know the sheepish kind of energy that can come with confessing one has...

Live every day like it's your last, and one day you'll be right.
 
This was one of my father's favorite sayings. He always chuckled after he said it. Incidentally, it's memorialized on a customized mouse pad we inherited when he passed away (after a good and full life) in 2018. It's a daily reminder that he ended up, of course, being right.
 
Sometimes I think this is the understanding that gives you the biggest bang for your buck in terms of re-zooming your perspective, remembering what's really important, and living each day to its fullest.
 
No wonder the Buddhists make it a practice to contemplate their own death every day.
 
Acknowledging the fleeting nature of our human existence: W...

This winter, I’ve finally mastered the art of getting our wood-burning stove roaring and, not only that, keeping it hot all day. It’s amazing how, even when the fire appears to be nothing but ashes, all it takes is a little poking around and suddenly the ashes come back to their red-hotness, ready to ignite another log.
 
Of course, the heat was always there, it just needed a little nudge.
 
This strikes me as a useful metaphor for rekindling the spark of enthusiasm for yoga. The art of making your practices new - again and again and again – is something all long-time yogis get really good at doing.
 
After a while, you realize that enthusiasm is something you need to bring to your practi...

I was blown away when I read how Sophie Gregoire Trudeau began the foreword to my book, Evolving Your Yoga, by asking, “Do you love yourself?" (download the full text of her foreword here).

Little did she know that this exact question had been at the heart of my yoga journey from the start.

Although we’d been friends since she graduated (with high honors) from a teacher training I led in 2013, I’d never fully shared with her my own struggles with unworthiness, insecurity, and lack of self-confidence.

Like many women I know, I grew up feeling critical of my body shape and size. Strong and broad-shouldered, “big-boned” as adults liked to say, I felt self-conscious and uncomfortable in my...