Congratulations to Kay Ryan!

With everything that life has sailed my way the past few months (most notably new work in addition to teaching), it’s been hard to keep this blog current.
Still, the essays in the archives on YLS continue to have relevance. Rest assured I haven’t abandoned the site.
Earlier this week, while enjoying the Shakespeare Festival in [...]

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Playfulness In Yoga: My first yoga comic!

I know I’ve said in previous posts that I’m an advocate of trying new things.
At the beginning of the year, I suggested to my students that they choose a pose and work toward it throughout the year, breaking down the components and building their skills along the way. It’s important to have a sense of [...]

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In Brilliant Color: Yoga and Allergies

I grew up listening to the music of Kate Wolf, a North Coast singer/songwriter, who described the “golden rolling hills of California”.
It’s true: For most of the year, the hills of Northern California are shades of gold and tan, the colors of field mice, cougars, and deer. But for a brief period in the spring, [...]

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Time for Personal Incrementalism

I have to say, I’m not a fan of New Years’ resolutions because I feel they are usually based in self-deprecation.
It’s as though we’ve developed a national tradition of beginning each year by picking ourselves apart, finding a fault, and setting a goal that will focus our attention on that fault, all year long.
I ask [...]

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More About Ass-Kicking…

I’ve been thinking about yesterday’s post, and I feel the need to add this:
Honestly, I think there is a western preoccupation with getting our ass kicked, and I don’t mean always in the physical sense.
After writing this post, it occurred to me, that many people – and dare I say, especially women – are taught [...]

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No Ass-Kicking for the Holidays, Please.

This past summer, I found myself in a social situation with another yoga teacher. Someone at our table was asking her about her classes, and she was testifying to their toughness: “Come to my classes and I’ll kick your ass,” she said.
She seems like a nice person, and so I chalked her response up to [...]

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Blessed Be.

Recently, I heard someone say that living is the only condition with a guaranteed 100 percent mortality rate.
And, indeed, it would be a rare person who reaches adulthood, even early adulthood, without having experienced the death of someone important to them.

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What’s In A Sound?

Sometimes I think yoga practitioners are firmly divided into two camps: Those that chant, and those that don’t.
Those that don’t often feel self-conscious about chanting, are reluctant to chant something they don’t understand, or feel that chanting will conflict with their belief system. (For more about this, see my previous posts about yoga and religion). [...]

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More about Yoga and Religion

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by Pat Robertson’s view of yoga.
However, I thought that – in follow up to my earlier post, Yoga and Losing Your Religion – I’d share it with you. (Needless to say, Pat and I don’t see eye-to-eye on this, but I’m not surprised by that either.)

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Yoga and Losing Your Religion

Several years ago, one of my students brought a woman friend to class. She thought her friend, a Protestant minister, could benefit from yoga.
The woman was very polite during class, but gave my friend a stern little talk in the car on the way home. She couldn’t come to classes, she said, because it would [...]

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