Tuesday, January 8, 2019

If You Can Be Aware of Your Breath, You Can Do Yoga

I like to say to people who doubt their ability to "do" yoga: 
"If you can breathe, you can do yoga."

Being aware of the flow of your breath alone is "doing" yoga.

The video below by Dianne Bondy Yoga is so inspiring! This yoga student may be missing complete use of his legs and feet, but that is not stopping him from living life fully or from enjoying a fulfilling yoga practice.

Bolsters, blocks, blankets, straps, and chairs are helpful and practical yoga tools!

YOUR body, YOUR yoga! 
YOUR attitude, YOUR yoga! 


Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Live with Creative Intention


It's that time of the year when making new year's resolutions seems to be the thing to do. However, for more uplifting and long-term results, I compassionately encourage the making of *intentions* rather than resolutions.

At the beginning of every one of my yoga classes, I invite my students to create a seed of intention (Sankalpa) for their time on the mat and to plant that beautiful seed deep within the heart to be nurtured and grown. This intention provides focus and direction in how they approach and think about their practice during that hour on the mat.

Intentions set our sights toward the life we want to live. They are powerful seeds which yield abundant results along the journey of life. They have a wider scope of uplifting effects and do not hold hands with failure, as resolutions typically tend to do.

Intentions offer a lifestyle flowing with possibility, creativity and positivity, whereas resolutions are demands from a hard task-master which yell: "get this done or you are a failure!"

There are a number of helpful articles on the internet talking about the differences between resolutions and intentions. Here are excerpts from some of those articles with the titles hyperlinked to the original posts.