Do you practice yoga and know of other limbs of yoga besides asana? If so, do you catch yourself ignoring some of those limbs, such as non-violence, truth to self and others, and discipline? It’s fine. We’re all a work in progress.

As with crow pose, alternate nostril breath, and meditation – you practice. Keep coming back to the Yamas and Niyamas and see where you can improve. We are human and we are programmed (most of us, anyways) to separate ourselves from others and look at people differently due to certain circumstances (poorer, richer, religious, non-religious, healthy, unhealthy, e.g.).

If you don’t like how it feels to be singled out, then become more all-inclusive. This will take a while if it’s something you’re not used to.

This is where the Yamas and Niyamas come in. I believe practicing these help you connect with everything and stop living life as though it’s all about you.

Trouble breathing fully? Practice. Can’t stand in Warrior II too long? Practice. Keep yelling at people on the road in traffic? Spending your energy on things that feed anger, jealousy, resentment? Practice the opposite. You are in charge of your reactions/responses to the actions of others.

Just stay true and changes come slowly so you can savor them. Enjoy the process!

Your personal currency is your energy. Spend your energy wisely.

What experiences do you “buy into”? What kind of people do you “invest in”? Are they experiences and people that have a positive return, that inspire you to be a better version of yourself, that allow you to be fully you?

No? Then stop spending your energy!

It’s very simple. This can be applied in yoga asana, relationships, workplace and family drama, your personal development, and your reactions to other people’s actions. Think about all the reactions and interactions you had in the last week: How many positive returns did you earn? How many people were enriched by your presence? How many times did you walk/drive/hang up from an experience with negative feelings?

Start writing down daily how you spend your energy. Remember to take into account how you spend your energy physically, mentally, emotionally/intuitively, and then write down what you use to fuel your own body (like food/drink, hobbies, books you read, music you listen to, e.g.). Make this a habit for thirty days.

Become more aware of your energy expenditure, and you may just find you improve it simply by using the journal to become more aware of yourself.

There’s only one way to find out – start tonight before you hit the sack 🙂

Namaste, readers.

It’s easy to become nervous and speak too much or trip over your directions in class. I use these simple concepts (and often fail, but I am a work in progress) to help direct students concisely:

Verb, Body Part, Direction

Write up a sequence, then write down every cue to transition from pose to pose with this formula. It’s a great exercise for your mind. If you have time, perform the sequence and say it out loud. Remember not to add alignment corrections; this is an exercise to help you tell your students where to go.

This list is short and to the point. Try to find good synonyms once you become comfortable with these words so you can spice up the language.

It’s called life. And yes, it can get awkward. How much more free and less stressed would you feel if you could never get embarrassed, never feel “stupid” for making a mistake or misstep?

It’s a choice. When you fall over in tree in the middle of class, you can merely set yourself back up and try to pinpoint the problem and fix it, or you can feel bad about falling, as though you’re putting on some kind of show for those around you and you disappointed them, and then beat yourself up about it as you get back in.

A fall, or doing the other side of a pose, or hearing the wrong pose altogether, is merely part of the learning process. Once done, smile at yourself and forget about it, staying mindful of the next step or the next incarnation of the pose.

When you take your day out on a loved one, trip and fall while walking on the sidewalk, and fail to detect an error in an important work email, it’s all just part of being human. If other people seem intent on focusing on your missteps time and time again, that’s not necessarily about you – it’s their inability to move on, to see their own faults, and feel compassion towards the qualities you share. We ALL share the quality of not being perfect – we never will be, and the journey will only end when we take our last breath.

So show up, breathe through every pose, smile when you and others triumph, dismiss the start of disparaging thoughts, and encourage yourself the way you would a child, a partner, a friend or loved one when they endeavor to do something as challenging as yoga. In other words, DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF, and enjoy every step on your path, even the ones that leave you in the mud.

Remembering to backbend with your upper spine can be difficult, as we naturally tend to collapse in our lower back (lumbar spine). In my former life as a gymnastics coach, the anatomically inclined coaches always knew to teach kids their backbends from the upper back (thoracic spine). This of course prolonged the acquisition of many skills, but once the skills were obtained, they were done correctly and safely and the gymnasts could do more repetitions of the skill, therefore increasing muscle memory and instilling confidence for their competitions.

Backbends can be simple – from just standing in tadasana and lifting the heart towards the sky to chakrasana – but even the simplest backbends done incorrectly time after time can increase compression in the lower spine and tighten the muscles around the sacrum, creating a very tight area in and around the joints. Add that to the amount of sitting the average person does, and you can create even more tightness and asymmetry in this area.

Using a block (narrow end if you can) prop it against the wall and put the narrow end of the block between your shoulder blades. Sit against the block and externally rotate the arms (make your palms face up/forward) and let gravity do the work of opening your collarbones and lifting your heart. Keep a light engagement in the pelvic floor and lower abs so as not to compress the lumbar spine.

Do this for as long as you can, or about ten minutes. Take the feeling of the block between the shoulder blades with you as you try some of your favorite backbends. Maybe you’ve been doing them right all along – if so, great! If not, approach your backbends as though you’ve never done them before. Be ok with NOT going as far as you’re used to because you know NOT to use your low back. Always be willing pull yourself backwards from a pose in order to correct form, or some day you’ll find you can’t do the pose at all due to an injury. Most injuries in yoga are caused by the ego. Some are most certainly NOT, but from what I’ve seen over the years and what I’ve done, I can say many of our ouches and chronic pain come from over-stretching, over-doing, and under-aligning all in the name of trying to look like an ideal we have in our heads.

Also keep in mind that bending backwards requires stretching in the front of the body. So, tight quads, hip flexors, psoas, pecs, external rotators of the shoulders, and more can restrict your backbends. Use the awareness that yoga teaches you to recognize if you need to work on any tight areas.

Remember, there is ideal and there is real. Be real. Pose with integrity. And be sure you can breathe while you do it!