Yoga & Tai Chi

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Tag: yoga teacher

  • What to say when guiding students in yoga poses

    What to say when guiding students in yoga poses

    The last post discussed how to move into a pose using simple clear language as a guide.  Today I would like to talk about what you say after you have guided your students into a pose.  This is the phase that I think about as carving your way into the pose.  The choice of words…

  • Yoga Movement Formula

    Yoga Movement Formula

    Back to Yoga Teacher Talk Yoga movements occur at different levels. On one level the poses transition from from one position in space to another, For example, we can move from a supine (on the back) position to table position or from a seated position to a belly down orientation.  Mountain Pose (tadasana), table pose (bharmanasana), sphinx…

  • Ganesha’s Inspiration

    Ganesha’s Inspiration

    India has 2,000,000 gods, and worships them all. In religion all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire.” ~Mark Twain In most western yoga classes (and I teach in a western class) the concern and emphasis is placed mostly on teaching the physical poses and in many venues this is all that is expected…

  • Caesura – What is it and why is it important in Yoga and Tai Chi

    Caesura – What is it and why is it important in Yoga and Tai Chi

    The Merriam Webster word of the day for July 16 was “caesura” pronounced sih-ZYUR-uh. Caesura means a break or interruption.  Caesuras are those slight pauses one makes as one reads verse.  We often need these little stops to set the cadence and phrasing of natural speech into the metrical scheme.  This word intrigued me because I…

  • 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…

  • 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…