Former yoga teacher in Wellington New Zealand
When I wrote about my decision to stop teaching and writing about yoga, a key aspect was having more time for self-study. What I wasn’t brave enough to say in that post, was that I was also unable to reconcile my own teaching of yoga with my increasing awareness of cultural appropriation, racism and colonisation in yoga.
I reflect on learning about toxic positivity, realising I had done it and thinking about doing better.
I’ve decided to step back from teaching and writing about yoga. Letting go of teaching is about making time for reflection. I will miss you all and I encourage you to think about your own journey of aparigraha and svadhyaya, or letting go so that you have space to reflect.
It can be hard to not comply with a teacher’s request in a group yoga class, to be the odd one out doing something different. But you are the ultimate expert in your body. It’s ok to say no, do something different or not do something at all.
Pranayama refers to practices or techniques to moderate, change or influence how we breath. It can involve changing the pace, quantity and method of breathing. Scientific research has shown many benefits while historic yoga texts outline pranayama as one of the practices leading to mind-body connection and connection with the greater consciousness.
The eight-fold path in Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras sets out 8 aspects practicing yoga which include the asanas (the physical poses) and much more.
Breathing deep and fast when you are moving helps increase your heart rate and can trigger the fight or flight response. If you are practicing yoga to relax you might rethink how and when you breath. Is the point to relax, to develop body awareness or to fire up a physical response in your body?
If you’ve been to my classes or tried my online videos you’ll know that I rarely feature advanced yoga poses. I want my classes to feel accessible to as many people as possible and I also feel that we can
When I was researching the purpose of śavāsana (corpse pose), I came across a comment from restorative yoga expert Judith Lasaster that it takes the average person 15 minutes to physiologically relax. She talked about this in a podcast on
India is experiencing a significant surge and crisis from covid. Yoga is about more than just physical movement – it is a complex philosophy with roots in India that encourage us to think about our connections to each other, and to give compassion when others are suffering.