At the end of each week, I post the sequence that I’ve been teaching that week during my classes in Seattle. For more sequences from other weeks, click here. And if you would like to see these sequences in action, come join me for a class!

Grounding and Warm Up

Flow 3x each side

Standing Poses

Seated Poses and Inversions

I subbed a class today for people over 50 years old and I have to say, I love teaching that population of people. I don’t know if it’s just that they have had to accept certain limitations or if it’s just the wisdom of age (maybe those are the same thing?), but they seem to have much less attachment to being able to do poses “correctly” and simply enjoy doing what they can and are very open to modifications. They also seem to be more interested and open to learning about the whole practice than a lot of other classes I’ve taught. A bunch of people in the class today came up to ask me questions and discuss things we were doing in class, which was great. It’s interesting that a population that is relatively new to yoga seems to intuitively get yoga so quickly despite their physical limitations, and I’m wondering if there isn’t a connection. A sense of letting go of how the physical practice is supposed to be done seems to lead to a better grasp of yoga as a practice for your overall holistic health. Perhaps we can all learn from their example. They are most of our elders after all.

I’ve been a coffee and tea drinking almost my entire life. When I was a kid, my favorite ice cream flavor was always coffee and I really looked forward to being old enough to drink a big cup of it when I was old enough that my parents would let me. I can’t actually remember a time since I was a child that I have been caffeine free. But I’ve decided to eliminate it from my diet finally. Caffeine can cause anxiety, mood swings, and insomnia, irritability, and lots of other stuff, yet most of us consume it regularly. It can also make you stiff, which is exactly the opposite of what most of us yoga practitioners are trying to be. I actually had a really hard time finding concrete studies here, but as I understand it from talking to people who know about this, caffeine can cause muscle twitching (hyperflexia), which prevents our muscles from relaxing fully, a necessity to get a good, healthy stretch. Additionally, if taken in large enough doses, it acts as a diuretic, draining you body of precious water and leaving your muscles less able to stretch. That combined with the addictive nature of the drug, are finally getting me to give it up. Instead, I’ll be relying on a short morning yoga practice (which I’ve not always done) and breathing. There are lots of good resources if you are interested in trying to kick caffeine as well. I’ve included a couple of them below:

findbliss.com
yoga journal
yoga-australia.com

In 2003 (when data was last collected), almost 14 million Americans sought the help of a doctor to deal with a shoulder problem. The types of injury, and the treatment for these problems varies, so it is important for the yoga teacher to have a good working knowledge of shoulder anatomy and the common injuries that occur. With such a high prevalence of shoulder injury, it is only a matter of time before a teacher will be required to call upon that knowledge to help a student experiencing one of these injuries. While referring students to a doctor for a complete diagnosis is the first step, there are ways to work with the various conditions as well as preventative measures that can be utilized during a yoga class.
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As I begin my transition into this new career, I wanted to set up a blog where I can share my thoughts, provide links to helpful resources, and share a little insight into my new path.

My main passions are yoga, circus, and personal training, so that’s pretty much the bulk of what I’ll be sharing here. I’m intending to add some video tutorials down the road and to build up the site to be as useful for readers as possible, so if there are any resources you think would be helpful on your own path, please let me know and I’ll see what I can do to add them.

I’ve been learning so much lately about both fitness and yoga philosophy lately, and am excited to share that. I really believe in the mind body connection and love how bringing conscious attention to one can positively affect the other.

So some of what I’ll be exploring is how the yoga sutras (the ancient yogic texts that are the source of much of what we would consider traditional yogic practices) relate to our modern practice, both for yoga and life in general.

I also believe in the value of pure child-like play, so I’ll also be sharing things that get me excited, whether amazing circus acts that I find inspirational or just fun ways of moving that can help bring joy to your day. I welcome feedback, comments, and e-mails, so please don’t hesitate to connect.