Put Your Best Feet Forward: Yoga for the Feet

Healthy feet are a key element to a healthy body! Many experts, from podiatrists to osteopaths to yoga teachers agree that proper alignment in the feet can stave off not only foot problems, but knee, hip and back trouble as well. When we look at the body holistically, as we do in yoga, this certainly stands to reason.

How to Force People to do Yoga (or Not)!

Of course we want people to do yoga because it’s done a world of good for us in some regard – newfound strength, resilience, a more positive outlook. For those of us who have been fortunate to heal an injury with the help of yoga, or break through psychological barriers that were holding us back, we begin to see similar patterns of pain in others, and now know the antidote is yoga!

How Yoga Creates Space

Yoga teachers often ask us to create more space – between the shoulders and ears, between the collar bones, in the belly as we breathe in…very helpful cues for getting the most out of our poses. How might this concept of creating space play into the rest of our lives, both on and off the yoga mat?

Picking Favourites: Investigating our Yoga Pose Preferences

Many of us have a favourite yoga pose – the one that took us forever to master; the one that really made yoga “click” for us; the one that helped us heal an injury; the one that always chills us out. Some yoga poses may feel intuitive for our bodies, and directly helpful, while some just make no sense, and are totally uncomfortable. It stands to reason that the former poses become our favourites, right?

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough do Yin Yoga!

Sometimes life seriously pulls the rug out from under us, and we’re not even sure we can stand up! Perhaps in stressful, traumatic times, one of the very best things you can do for your body and mind is to lie on the ground. Times like these, yin yoga can be our very best friend!

The Never-Ending Winter – a Mindfulness Practice

Winter provides us with so many ways to focus our mindfulness practice. Whether it’s doing yoga to prevent falls, or breathing in the cold and fully experiencing it in all its crisp, needle-like glory, there are things to be noticed and felt that we normally find unpleasant and wish to ignore.

Let Your Body be the Leader – Home Practice for Beginners

Most of us yoga-nuts can probably agree, there is nothing more delicious than a class led by a fabulous teacher – the detailed instruction, the infusion of philosophy, the feeling of safety, the energy of the rest of the group – it can be downright magical. Alas, it can also be pretty time-consuming. Of course we should all make room in our schedules to regularly attend class, but there are times when we simply need to balance classes with our own practice, at home.

Chakra-Talk: A Teeny Introduction, Part One

If you’ve been to a few yoga classes, you’ve probably heard something about chakras – wheels of energy stacked parallel to our spines. Perhaps this concept instantly made sense to you, and you’ve been happily applying your chakras’ wisdom toward your physical health and spiritual growth from the moment you heard of their existence. Or maybe every time the idea comes up, your inner thought is a resounding, “Huh?”,”0