Scuba Meditation?

I remember being in Pondicherry many many years ago, way before I started yoga or diving.  As a tourist, I walked into an ashram and the first thing I saw was a massive aquarium with a chair in front of it and a sign that said “meditation.” One of the people who worked there explained [...]

Yoga for kids with developmental disorders

“Special Needs” is a wide spectrum of symptoms, diagnoses and illness ranging from mild learning disabilities to profound mental retardation, developmental delays that catch up quickly to one’s that remain ingrained well into early adolescence, occasional panic attacks to serious psychiatric problems.  While there is no cure for many childhood disorders such as Autism, Down’s [...]

Brief History of Ashtanga Yoga

The Ashtanga Vinyasa series is said to have its origin in an ancient text called the Yoga Korunta, compiled by Vamana Rishi, which Krishnamachariya, the father of modern yoga received from his Guru Rama Mohan Brahmachari at Mount Kailash in the early 20th century. The origins of yoga itself are obscure and estimated as being [...]

Vi-Nyaah-Sa

Vinyasa, (pronounced: vi-nyaah-sa)  is a Sanskrit term used in certain styles of yoga. In Sanskrit, Nyasa means “to place” and Vi means “in a special way”.  So we define Vinyasa as, ”a specific sequence of breath synchronized movements used to transition between certain postures.” The Vinyasa flow is a variant of Surya Namaskar A and consists of [...]

Anticipation, Apprehension – My first class

  Leaving the Tirisula TTC, I was not at all confident about my ability to teach yoga to beginners.  It had nothing to do with the course; the course was great. It was me.  I’ve heard many people say you don’t have to be a good practitioner to be a good teacher but I couldn’t [...]

Acro-Yoga

Few weeks back, I walked into a garden café to ponder what I would blog about and there was a group of 6 people doing something that sort of looked like yoga.  Except they were on top of each other, in two sets of three. “Its called Acro-yoga” is what I was told by the [...]

Open Mind, Open Hips

Arrrgh, my hips!  They just don’t open.  They have a mind of their own, and it’s a very stubborn one.  Why am I doing yoga?  Why am I in a teacher’s training course when I can’t even sit in the lotus pose, one year into my yoga practice? Maybe I should give up ecause my [...]

Hanging Bottom over Top

Why go upside down?  Well, its fun. The first time I went into an unaided headstand was one of the most thrilling experiences of my asana practice.  The excitement of being upside down, balancing on my head, the slight danger of falling and the lightness in my legs was what appealed at first.  I felt [...]