FindYogaInfo.com

Yoga Basics

If your hips and knees allow it, this half lotus tree pose makes for a nice variation. It's also the first step to getting into flying crow, in case you were wondering just how the heck to approach that one.

While writing my review of Slim Calm Sexy Yoga, the new book from yoga teacher Tara Stiles (of New York and the internet), I began thinking about which three analogous adjectives describe what yoga does for me. I came up with Strong, Sane, and Confident. Not quite as catchy as Slim, Calm, and Sexy, but more accurate to my experience. What are your adjectives?

Laughter yoga and its founder Dr. Madan Kataria get The New Yorker treatment (in-depth, fascinating) in the August 30 issue. You can check out part of the article online or pick up the print edition for the full piece.

I'm very excited about a crop of new yoga videos now live on About.com. Each of these short videos features demonstration and instruction by Joelle Hann, a wonderful New York-based yoga teacher and writer. You can check out her work on her blog, Yoga Nation, and enjoy her great alignment and clear explanations in this video on anjaneyasana (cresecent lunge).

Bird of paradise is one of those poses that seems completely improbable until the day comes, quite unexpectedly, when you find yourself standing there on one leg, all bound and balancing. What I like about this pose is that it can easily be broken down into stages, beginning with bound side angle. As you become comfortable with each step along the way, you are working your way up to the full pose.

A reader wrote me this week complaining about the high cost of yoga classes. Believe me, if this yoga guide gig came with super powers, I'd wave my hand and make all classes affordable, studios profitable, and hamstrings flexible. Unfortunately, it's beyond my control, but I can offer you some ideas on how to do yoga on a budget. Donation-based studios are the big news lately, as more teachers become committed to keeping the cost of yoga reasonable.

As yoga's popularity grows, more and more avenues of this ancient practice are being explored. Yoga for kids, quite a modern concept, grew out of parents thinking their children could enjoy some of the same benefits of yoga that adult do, such as improved body awareness, coordination, and stress relief. Traditional yoga practice is definitely a grown-up activity, but yoga is flexible enough to accommodate young students as well when the teaching is approached in the right way.

If you're pretty comfortable doing headstand in the middle of the room, you can try these crunches, which figure in the Ashtanga Primary Series. Once you are up in headstand, slowly lower your legs to a 90 degree position. Then slowly bring them back up to straight, moving both legs together the whole time. Do this three times. These crunches will really strengthen your abs, preparing you to lift both your legs from the floor at the same time when first coming into headstand (as well as do anything else you need killer abs for!).

Watch Me Do Yoga is an engaging new children's book by Iyengar yoga teacher and illustrator Bobby Clennell. I submitted the book to a rigorous critique from an actual child. To see what my household's resident five-year-old thought, read my Watch Me Do Yoga review.

Last night, I went to check out the new movie Eat Pray Love starring Julia Roberts. Eat Pray Love is the adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's best-selling memoir of the same title. I read the book a few years ago and enjoyed Gilbert's funny, self-deprecating writing style as she describes her breakdown, brought on by her realization that she does not want the conventional life-path she has started down, and subsequent recovery, brought on by a year of travel to Italy (where she eats. A lot.), India (where she prays, in the form of a meditation retreat) and Bali, Indonesia (where she learns to love again). To see how the movie stacks up, read my Eat Pray Love review.