Yoga & Tai Chi

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Category: Yoga

  • Moving Gracefully from Position to Position During a Yoga Session

    Moving Gracefully from Position to Position During a Yoga Session

    Have you ever been in a yoga class where you are instructed to move from supine to standing, standing to kneeling, kneeling to prone, prone to standing, then down again to your knees.  You get the gist. You are bobbing up and down like a yoyo.  You begin to forget where you are or what…

  • 13 Tips on How to Find Ease in a Yoga Pose

    13 Tips on How to Find Ease in a Yoga Pose

    These are emotional times.  I awoke yesterday morning to hear of yet another two deaths of my black citizens by police officers.  The FBI director was being interrogated concerning Hillary Clinton’s emails during her term as Secretary of State.  My tai chi teacher is dealing with life threatening cancer and several of my own students are fighting…

  • Dialoguing with Resistance

    Dialoguing with Resistance

    Ever feel like you are fighting yourself in a yoga pose? I have heard many students say that they will not attend yoga classes that include poses with long holds. They tell me the long holds are too difficult even if the pose itself is not.  But what is so difficult about holding a pose…

  • I honor that place in you…Strength, friendship, humility.

    I honor that place in you…Strength, friendship, humility.

    I like ritual in my classes.  It adds a structure and a serious tone to the class.  In my yoga classes I always start with the ringing of a Tibetan bowl.  I end class with Namaste.  In my tai chi classes I start with the ringing of my Tibetan bowl and the formal greeting of…

  • A Touch of Silk

    A Touch of Silk

     “Move like a cat Flow like water Soften like silk” This is my mantra. Am I talking about tai chi or yoga? Actually the more I study both arts the more I use this mantra for both my yoga classes and my tai chi classes. It’s about practicing softly, slowly and continuously. But the aspect…

  • Savasana: Destination or Afterthought

    Savasana: Destination or Afterthought

    In 2001 I was teaching my very first real yoga class.  I say “real” because I had taught many practice sessions when I was doing my training.  As I remember it nothing was remarkable about the class.  I had somewhere around 15 participants and the class went fairly well albeit my cues were not so…

  • My thoughts on teaching mixed physical challenges in a chair yoga class

    My thoughts on teaching mixed physical challenges in a chair yoga class

    I often participate in seminars, workshops and online webinars that address how to teach mixed level yoga classes. What I have not seen or heard much about is how to teach mixed needs yoga classes. I teach chair yoga and chair yoga by its very nature attracts people who are older or those who for…

  • Tai Chi and Yoga: Similar, Not Similar, Similar

    Tai Chi and Yoga: Similar, Not Similar, Similar

    When I began taking tai chi lessons I was apprehensive that tai chi would conflict with my yoga practice – a practice that I have nurtured for over 30 years and a practice that I continue to polish and hone for my physical, spiritual and mental health. I wondered if tai chi would dilute my…