Yin Yoga for SPRING!

It’s springtime in New England and in my mind we’re waking up from not just the winter, but two long years of the ups and downs of pandemic life. Bringing this energy into balance will be important for all of us for our overall health and wellbeing. Yin Yoga does an amazing job of bringing our bodies, minds and spirits back to balance, so I thought I’d share this sequence for you specifically focused on postures that influence the meridians associated with Spring.

You can download this sequence below and practice along with it. Here are a few notes that will help you in your practice:

• You’ll need a timer to help you stay in the postures for the appropriate length of time.

• You can always do less but, especially if you’re new to the practice, I wouldn’t advise doing more.

• For Sphinx you can always substitute supported bridge (lay on your back, lift your hips and place a yoga block or something else under your low back, lower your hips to the support and rest there).

• For Sleeping Swan (often known as pigeon) you can take Figure 4 instead (lay on your back, cross right ankle on top of left thigh. Stay there or draw left thigh into your chest with your hands. Repeat on the other side).

• If Shoelace is inaccessible take Half Shoelace instead by straightening the lower leg. Support under the straight knee may be helpful.

• Don’t skip Shavasana! It’s the one pose you CAN extend the time on if you wish.

Click the image to download your sequence!

If you’re ready to come back to In Person Yoga classes with me, I’m offering a few this month at a beautiful new space in Amherst, NH.

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Yoga & Hiking: Complementary Practices for Health and Wellbeing

In my free time, I’ve been spending more time hiking and backpacking in the last couple of years. It doesn’t hurt that I live in this amazing state that has so many beautiful trails to travel and discover. It’s become an important part of my weekly routine and a great complement to my yoga practice. Throughout the pandemic, it’s also been an important point of connection to the natural world. Here are 5 reasons why hiking can be complementary to your yoga practice and an important component to your health and wellbeing.

Legs up the Sign Summer 2018 on Mt. Katahdin. My first 4K footer turned into a 5K footer. Whoops!

1. Cardio & Strengthening - In my classes I tend to focus on yoga not only as physical movement, but a wholistic practice that includes the mind, body and spirit. That’s not to say you won’t find some physically challenging classes. However, most yoga classes you’ll find don’t really qualify as cardiovascular exercise. The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) defines aerobic exercise as "any activity that uses large muscle groups, can be maintained continuously, and is rhythmic in nature." While it may seem like yoga would fit the bill here, especially the vinyasa style that I mostly teach and practice, a typical yoga class just isn’t going to raise your heart rate enough and sustain that elevated rate long enough to really qualify. Hiking on the other hand can do just that and if you’re carrying a pack with any weight in it (did you know one liter of water weighs 2.2 pounds?!) you’re definitely going to be keeping your heart rate up for a longer period of time. In addition to strengthening your heart, you’ll also be strengthening your legs and core. This has been incredibly good for me personally for managing my back pain. Balance this with a yoga practice and you’re on your way to a more well rounded fitness routine and a stronger body all around.

2. Time to disconnect from devices - Technology rules our lives more than ever these days and it’s influencing our health. It’s messing with our sleep patterns, causing physical issues like “text neck”, and may even be causing mental health issues in some people. While you’ll definitely see me using my cell phone to take pictures and occasionally navigate when I’m on the trail, being out of cell phone range for a even a little while can be an amazing way to refresh our tired minds. While your 75 minute yoga class can be a great small break (provided you actually turn the phone off), even a day hike can give us a greater opportunity to experience this relief from the everyday requirement of being connected to devices.

3. Mindfulness practice - When we aren’t able to respond to every text message right away we create a space and an opportunity to bring ourselves more to the present moment and practice mindfulness. There’s so much to discover out there if you’re paying attention! I can’t tell you how many times I nearly walked by something small like a red eft or a snail, but since I was actually in the moment outside I got to see the finer details. If I’m hiking with other people, we get to talk and interact (even if it’s between gasping breaths) in a way that is seemingly so rare these days. We might even help each other notice the small details we’d otherwise pass by. What a great way to take what we’re practicing on our yoga mats for 75 minutes off the mat and into our experiences with others for a longer period of time!

4. Letting go of watching the clock - Your yoga class is going to begin and end at a certain predictable time. 99.9% of the things we do in our daily lives are like this and we need that structure in our lives. However, every now and then, to be able to do something without a definite ending time, especially when it’s something we enjoy, can be *so* liberating. I’ll often go out on a hike and tell my husband if I’m not back by dark, that’s the time to worry. I purposely don’t put too definite an end on this time I’m spending with Mother Nature and myself. There is something really freeing and mentally restful about that. If it’s a great day and the weather is amazing and my body feels good I can go for hours. If the bugs are swarming and I forgot to bring enough food and my feet hurt I can go home. There’s a freedom there we don’t often get in our daily lives. It can help us tune back into a more natural rhythm and relieve stress in a way that’s hard to describe.

5. Change of scenery - We all live with a variety of stressors in our lives. Some of these are welcome and others might be more than we’d ever wish for. Sustaining ourselves physically and mentally over the long haul of life requires times to refresh, get a new perspective and look at the world differently. You’re probably going to have a yoga class that you go to on a regular basis at the same location with mostly the same people, but that class will be different in some way every time and that’s a really good micro break. Similarly, hiking can be a good micro break as well. Even if you walk the same path every day *something* will be different. Being able to notice that change and recognize it can relax your mind and relieve stress in a way similar to your yoga class

These are just a few of the benefits you might find by getting out on the trails this summer. I’m sure you’ll find even more reasons once you’re out there!

I’m considering guiding some outdoor experiences beyond the outdoor yoga classes in the late summer or early fall.

Interested? Leave a comment below!

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Leave No Trace is a Form of Ahimsa

One of the good things, in my mind, to come out of the pandemic is the number of people that are reconnecting to public lands and outdoor spaces. Given the extra hours all of us have been spending in front of screens to find safe forms of connection to others, to learn, to take a yoga class and so much more, time away from screens in the three dimensional world is all the more important. But if you’re going back into nature for the first time in awhile (or the first time), you may not understand the impacts of your presence. In this post I’ll give you a few ideas and some information that might help you draw your awareness practices from yoga out into your interaction with the outdoor world so that you can see the connection between Ahimsa and Leave No Trace and make your interactions with nature less negatively and more positively impactful.

Yoga is, in so many ways a practice of awareness. One of the most important points of awareness we can have, especially these days, is our impact on our natural world and outdoor spaces. Yoga philosophy goes beyond the physical postures and addresses our mental and emotional interactions with ourselves and others. Many people often describe these principles as the ethical principles of yoga because they guide our interactions and are a code of conduct. Ahimsa is a foundational tenant of yoga philosophy that asks us to do no harm to the best of our ability. That includes our thoughts, words, deeds and actions. Without awareness, none of that is possible.

Leave No Trace principles explain how we can bring more awareness to and minimize our impacts on nature, whether we’re spending time in the “backcountry” or the “front country”. Practicing these principles keeps our wild spaces wild, leaves things for others to experience as we got to experience them and may even encourage us to leave those spaces BETTER than when we arrived. They are also an ethical code in that they guide our interactions and conduct, specifically with the natural world in this case. Many of them may seem obvious when you look at them, but as with yoga, when you dive deeper into the details and can be truthful with yourself, you’ll find that there may have been things you missed along the way. The seven principles are:

1. Plan ahead and Prepare.

2. Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces

3. Dispose of Waste Properly

4. Leave What You Find

5. Minimize Campfire Impacts

6. Respect Wildlife

7. Be Considerate of Other Visitors

(© 1999 by the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics: www.LNT.org)

So in my mind, Leave No Trace is a form of Ahimsa. Both give us ethical guidance on how to interact with our world outside of ourselves. Both ask us to be kind and consider others whether that’s other people that we’re sharing the environment with or the plants, animals, etc. we may encounter when we’re outside. Both ask us to bring greater awareness to the impact of our actions from a perspective outside of ourselves and our immediate needs. And both ask us to recognize that when we are aware of our actions through thought, word and deed we can have great positive impact on our world.

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To inspire you to learn more about and put LNT into practice, here are some ideas, experiences, information and thoughts that I’ve been sharing recently on my social media channels. In preparing each of these, I certainly learned a few things along the way! I hope you enjoy some of the pictures from my outdoor adventures too!

Plan Ahead and Prepare

I had a conversation with my Dad on my way home from a recent hike where he was surprised to find out I had a complete change of clothing in my pack. I was hiking Mount Jackson, a 4000 footer here in NH and a place like many in the White Mountains where conditions can change on a dime and one false step might mean waiting for search and rescue. When I told my Dad I packed to stay overnight if I had to, he suddenly understood. While you might not be climbing mountains, even when you go out to the local park, a sudden change in weather, a wrong turn or an accident may have an impact on not just yourself, but that park you’re enjoying. So be sure to plan ahead and consider what you might need if you had to be out there longer than expected.⁠⁠

Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces

It’s what we all affectionately refer to as Mud Season here in New England and it’s a time when we may be having impacts on our local trails more than we might think. Some places in NH and VT actually “close” trails this time of year because most of us don’t really want to walk through that big puddle of muck that’s right in the middle of our path. But when we walk off the designated path we may be trampling plants that will never grow back and “blazing a trail” for the person behind us that was never meant to be there. With so many people trying to get outside these days due to the pandemic we’re seeing this impact on a lot of places. So the next time you come up to a mud puddle in the trail, knowing that you already planned ahead for it, channel your inner child and just jump right in!⁠

Dispose of Waste Properly

I know many of my students are dog owners and lovers (and you know I love dogs too), so I thought a reminder about dog poop in the outdoors might be helpful for y’all. Leave No Trace Center had some very interesting facts about why this is so important in a recent instagram post. We all know it’s unsightly, but there are far worse impacts.⁠
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The high nutrient value in dog food when left behind in dog poop and leached into streams from run off can cause algae blooms. Dog poop can have all sorts of bacteria and disease vectors that find their way into waterways in the same way. Thousands of POUNDS of poop get left behind in parks every year all across the country. No one’s saying you’ll always be perfect, but if you do plan ahead to pick up fido’s droppings you’ll be doing Mother Nature a solid (sorry, had to get a poop joke in there somehow! 😂💩)⁠
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Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJZMBzijsM9/⁠

And please, please don’t leave that poop bag behind and think you’ll get back to it later. Things happen! Take it with you now!

Leave What You Find

I’m particularly guilty of this one, but we’ve all done it. You pick up that one cool rock you found on the trail and take it home with you as a souvenir of your time outside. Now imagine that the person after you does that. And the next one. And the next one. If not a rock, maybe a flower. Or an acorn. It seems like such a little thing. How could it possibly be that big a deal? One of my favorite little quotes is shown here. We can choose to do small things for the greater good or the opposite. Which will you choose next time you’re outside enjoying our amazing outdoor spaces?⁠⁠⁠⁠

Respect Wildlife

“A fed bear is a dead bear.” 😢⁠

⁠This is a sad but true saying I’ve heard a lot in the hiking community. We all know to bring in the bird feeders in the spring because Yogi (see what I did there 😉) is looking for his free lunch. But if you head out to a state park or other campsite in the warmer months it’s really something to think about there too. Most campsites in parks (not backcountry) have wash sinks and dumpsters just for this reason - to control food and waste smells to certain areas. And while it may not seem like a big deal to wash out a pot or plate and toss the dishwater into the woods or to leave the ketchup on the picnic table overnight, the food smells can attract all sorts of animals and make the next person’s experience a little “hairy-er”. Some estimates say that a bear’s sense of smell is 7 times better than a blood hound!! Let’s let Yogi find his own lunch, shall we?⁠

(Picture is the closest encounter I’ve ever had with the biggest bear I’ve ever seen in GSMNP in 2019! Video will be posted to social media on 4.24.21 if you’d like to see the bear in action!)⁠

I hope this post as inspired you to learn more about practicing Ahimsa in the great outdoors! Please visit https://lnt.org to learn more about the 7 principles and how you can practice them when you’re outside.

If you’re ready to take your yoga practice outside my Outdoor Yoga Class offerings begin May 2, 2021! To learn more and sign up

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Yes AND Thinking: Reflections on the Coronavirus Pandemic One Year Later

The transition between winter and spring can be a deep time of transformation for the earth and for our own bodies and minds. I have a feeling that for many of us, this year this transition will reveal a lot of collective grief, and hopefully, some deep healing. 

In fact, today marks the one year anniversary of the last public class I taught in the space in Milford. The memory of what transpired that day that prompted me to (what I thought was temporarily) close the studio doors in the interest of safety for everyone is still incredibly vivid in my memory. The governor’s announcements that afternoon, the small number of students that dared to show up that evening, my own fear and so many other factors. 

What followed was a year of challenges and changes that no one could have imagined. I don't think it's being dramatic to say that our lives have been forever changed by what the pandemic brought to us and through us. 

And I don’t think that is all necessarily negative. 

The losses are unimaginable. If you have lost someone to this horrible virus I send you my deepest sympathies. There’s nothing that can be said to ease that pain and there’s no way to make sense of why that had to be. 

In quiet conversations over zoom or the phone with others I also find myself and others saying that the way things were wasn’t really working. That things like being unable to see family, being unable to travel, being witness to the incredible suffering of the moment, job loss and job transformation amongst many other things have been incredibly clarifying. Would we have chosen it to go this way? Definitely not. But here we are. We are changed. Some things for the better.

As I look back, If I had to say what the biggest lesson I learned in this time was, and it’s really a fairly recent understanding, it would be simply this: Some things are not within my control. 

No duh Jessica, I hear you say.  

But hear me out - perhaps its my personality, but I have always believed that with hard work, dedication and the right tools, I could change whatever it was that needed changing. My health, my marriage, my financial situation, my environment, my teaching - anything. And in the last year I have definitely taken steps and worked hard to change all those things for the better. I’ve made conscious choices to make important improvements for myself whether it was getting out for daily walks with my husband during the month he was furloughed, taking a reading class, choosing to finish my 500 hour teacher training online, making a concerted effort to pay off personal debt, showing up consistently to teach online classes throughout it all when it would have been so easy to just quit and retreat into my own little world of fear and so many other small and large choices along the way. 

It was absolutely worth the effort. 

AND there is still a pandemic. 

I can teach the best yoga class ever (whatever that means! 😂) AND some people will still not come. I can’t change that.

I can do everything within my power to stay healthy and well AND I will still age and I will eventually die. I can’t change that.

I can pay off my car and do regular maintenance all by the book AND a hurricane might come along and drop a tree on my car. I can’t change that.

What I CAN change is my attitude. What I can change is my death grip of thinking I have total control. Because I don’t. That realization has actually been a relief. I can continue to do the “right” things and know that it’s still worth the effort because I WILL change the things worth changing AND I can recognize that some things are not within my grasp. I can release myself from that heavy sense of responsibility that isn’t accurate at all.

As the Yoga Sutra says, we only see the world through our own lens of experience. Maybe your experience is different than mine. But I’m really glad to have come through this to this point (because as much as I would like it to be, it isn’t over) with a sense that I can drop the burdens that aren’t mine. That I can create change and do so much good and that some things just aren’t within my ability to change and that’s actually really ok. I can really engage in what I call Yes And Thinking and recognize that there is a yin and a yang, an up and down, a yes and a no and all of it is just as it should be.

AND I still can not wait to hug my parents again.

What’s your biggest takeaway from the last year?

I’d love to hear from you. Leave me a comment below or contact me privately here.

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The True Depth of Your Core and How Yoga Can Help Develop Core Strength

I hear it all the time “I really need to work on my core strength”. People say this for many reasons: back pain, a few extra pounds, balance, poor posture, a general sense of dissatisfaction. Most of the time when saying this they’re referring to the front side of the abdomen. And let’s face it, it’s the part we can see so it’s the part we pay attention to the most! But what if I told you that your actual core was not just your abs AND, maybe even more importantly, your core was actually something to think about in 2 different depths in your body? Here’s a simple introduction to two possible ways to think about the true depth of your core and how yoga can help develop core strength.

Let me preface everything I say here with the following: your body is an incredibly complex system and no one system can be separated out entirely from the rest in practical application. This is also true for your muscles. We can take individual muscles or groups of muscles into consideration as a model to start to understand our bodies better, but just know that the interrelationships between individuals and groups within the whole is complex and beyond the scope of a single blog post. What I give you below is a model for how to think about and work with this one system within the body that we know as our core.

Deep Core

As I mentioned above, I really think about the core in two different ways. The first way is what I would refer to as the Deep Core. In anatomical language, what is superficial is closer to the surface (in other words, just under your skin) and what is deep is, well, DEEP! So this first way to think about core involves some things that you can’t necessarily touch with your hands.

The first of those is your SPINE. In discussions of Core, this is often overlooked, but if we consider the core to be at the center of our body, we have to first consider the bony structure that is not only at center, but is an attachment point for many muscles that we might think of as Deep Core muscles. It’s also worth noting that most of us, because you can feel your spine through the back side of the body (just put your hand on the back of the base of your neck. That bony bump that sticks out is actually your C7 vertebra), don’t have a good understanding of just how deep the spine goes into the abdomen. I can’t give you definite measurements, but trust me, it’s pretty deep!

Now we get to the muscles of core and here is where, in my mind, I start to make some distinctions. Generally speaking, the muscles that run along and attach to the spine are muscles that mostly create spinal (or deep core) stability. Key among these is the psoas. This large muscle is often thought of as a hip flexor, but in reality, it’s PRIMARY function is to create stability and absorb shock in the spine. While it does serve a small part in hip flexion (remember, complex system) we can see that the bulk of the muscle is much more focused on the spine, simply by looking at how many more muscle fibers are near or attaching to the spine versus the hip joint.

There are many other deep muscles that stabilize the spine include the amazing network of interspinal muscles and the erectors. Rather than getting bogged down with names and details, simply understand that there is the deep level to core that is centered near and surrounds the spine.

Superficial Core

There is this second level of core as I think of it. This is the one that most of us think of that includes the abs. However, a key concept here is, just as in the deep core, it’s not just the front! Generally speaking, the Superficial core is a full circumference network of muscles around the abdomen that mostly create movement. This includes your abs on the front but also includes your obliques (the sides of the cylinder), your lats (the back) and other layers of muscle. These muscles are fairly large and while they do contribute to stability, they can mostly be thought of as being responsible for movement such as flexing your spine, extending your spine, twisting and side bending. Therefore, to focus on only one set of these muscles is to loose sight of the full picture of what constitutes core.

So we have a Deep Core network of muscles that is close to the spine and generally creates stability, we have a Superficial Core network of muscles that is closer to the surface and generally creates movement. This basically describes a cylinder that has a center within it. Something like this:

So what about the top and bottom?

In my mind, the top and bottom are shared between these two levels (Deep and Superficial) because they cover both. The bottom is the network of muscles that make up the pelvic floor. The top is your breathing diaphragm. If you’ve never seen it before, it looks something like this:

The umbrella like shape of this muscle puts a lid on our cylinder, connects to the spine but also connects in close proximity to those Superficial Core muscles around the outside. The pelvic floor works similarly. These structures create stability but are also key in movement throughout this complex system.

What It All Means

With this understanding that there are two main layers to our core as well as a top and bottom, we now see that the things we might always think of when it comes to core work, namely sit ups, really are addressing only one thing - the superficial muscles on the front side of the abdomen. Now also try to imagine that this was the ONLY thing you focused on when trying to strengthen your core. It becomes obvious right away that this would create an unhealthy and unhelpful imbalance. We need to work all these structures to bring a balance of strength and flexibility to the entire system in order to be well, similar to any other point of focus in the body.

How Yoga Can Help

While a vinyasa yoga practice can’t necessarily address the full picture of core strength, there’s a lot that we CAN do to holistically address the deep and superficial core in our sequencing as teachers and in our practice as students. Here are some ideas:

• Rooting down through the feet in standing postures - this kind of engagement, especially before transitioning from close to the earth into a standing posture (think moving from low lunge to Warrior 2) can activate those stabilizing muscles of the deep core including the psoas. There is a complex network of muscular connections between the psoas and your feet (see the work of Tom Myers if you’re interested in learning more). When you engage in this way you’re helping to support the spine through transitional movements and creating that deep core stability those deep core structures are there to do. (For more about the benefits of rooting down in standing postures, see this blog post.)

• Lifting high enough in Ardha Uttanasana (half way lift) - it’s a posture most people hardly give a second thought to in their practice, but actually lifting up in this posture can help to work the back body muscles and create more strength. Even better, think about that support coming from the front and the back. More on that here.

• Create twisting actions without leverage - many yoga practitioners use their arms to help create leverage for deeper twists. This isn’t wrong. However, if you want to build core strength, especially in the muscles of the core that create rotation, consider doing your twist WITHOUT the arms involved. You won’t go as deep, but you’ll certainly create more strength in these important side body muscles.

• Incorporate more locust poses into your vinyasa - resisting gravity is a key way to build strength in a yoga practice and there’s almost no better pose to embody that than locust. When working with this posture, be sure to do your best to not just bend the knees when you lift the legs. See that the lift is actually coming from the use of your back body muscles like glutes (they’re part of your core!) and hamstrings.

• Use the breath in coordination with movement - This is especially useful in movements that create a lot of force or load in the body. One of my personal favorites as a person with back injuries is to EXHALE on the way up to standing from a standing forward fold.

Want to experience this and more for yourself with some guidance? Then join my Livestream or On Demand classes all this month where we’ll incorporate many of these movements into a vinyasa flow to help strengthen ALL parts of your core together!

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Why You Can’t Stretch Your Way Out Of Pain

Acknowledging bias in our lives is always a good first step toward healing. Yoga teachers and practitioners have long held the belief that if something didn’t feel good in our bodies we could stretch our way out of the problem. I certainly thought that way for many years, particularly around my own back pain. Yet no matter how much I stretched, it didn’t ever seem to get better. I inadvertently realized the error of my ways when I started getting into hiking and began to develop more strength in my legs, hips and core as a result of scaling mountains with a backpack regularly. My back pain started to get better over time and I started to wonder if my hiking had something to do with it. I finally started to put two and two together when I started approaching my yoga practice in a way that incorporated strengthening actions along with the stretching I knew and loved. When I began to understand that the way I had approached yoga in the past had an inherent bias toward stretching and range of motion, and I began to balance that with strengthening actions within the practice, my body responded with less pain and more range. If you’re struggling with pain in certain areas of your body and stretching doesn’t seem to be changing it, here are some things to consider to bring balance to your body and your yoga practice.

Imagine that your muscles are like rubber bands for a moment. Let’s take your arm as an example. Your biceps and your triceps are on opposite sides of your upper arm. When your biceps contracts, your triceps has to lengthen. That’s a really good thing or you wouldn’t be able to bend your elbow! That muscle needs the ability to lengthen (aka stretch). But consider what would happen if your biceps didn’t have the ability to strongly contract. Imagine it was like a rubber band that had lost its spring. You still wouldn't be able to bend your elbow because it wouldn't have the strength to contract enough to create the movement. We might think of this as the muscle being “too long”.

Now imagine it the other way, which is what we often seem to notice the most in our bodies, especially if we’re dedicated yoga practitioners. Imagine you are trying to bend your elbow and your biceps is contracting, but your triceps is SO strong it can’t lengthen to allow the movement to happen. Now we have a situation where the muscle is “too short” or the sensation we often label as “tight”. Thinking about these two opposites starts to allow us to understand why this balance is important.

Another way to think about this - imagine a suspension bridge like the Golden Gate in San Francisco. The cables have to have just the right amount of length and strength to allow the structure to be stable while also allowing for movement. You probably don’t (want to!) think about it when you’re driving over such a bridge, but there are constant small movements due to weight of vehicles, wind speeds, temperature changes, (god forbid) seismic activity and other factors. Our muscles are similar in our bodies, giving stability to our underlying structure but also allowing for movement.

But with the human body there is one more curveball that we also have to consider. Muscles can be tight without actually being strong and they can be long and still be tight. To understand this, consider the person that spends hours a day hunched over a laptop. They might look something like this most of the day:

The body and the muscles are being held in a certain position for extended periods of time. Over time the muscles on the front side of the are being held in a shortened position. They aren’t actually being asked to contract and so they tend to become weak, but they stay shortened and therefore may be perceived as tight. On the other side, the muscles are constantly being stretched, or held in a lengthened position. They can’t possibly contract for many hours a day to counteract the position in which they’re being held, so they are long but are very weak from being over stretched which may be perceived as tightness. These positions of holding when repeated over time tend to bring about this chronic state that may be experienced as painful. An imbalance forms that won’t be helped by simply stretching, particularly for the muscles that are already too long.

These examples are a simplification and a model for a VERY complex system, but hopefully you get the general idea here. Constant stretching of muscles isn’t good, constant contraction of muscles isn’t good. We need muscles that can contract well and lengthen well. We need balance between the two. Without those two things in balance, we may experience pain.

Yoga does mean union after all so is it any surprise that creating balance between length and strength should really be our goal?

So what does this mean for our yoga practice?

The bias of yoga asana, at least the way that its been taught historically, is toward creating length and range of motion. Again, these are good things to have, but yoga can also help us build strength if we approach it a little differently. One way to do this is to engage a muscle at its end range of motion.

For example, let’s take pigeon pose. We might typically think of this posture as a hip opener (aka stretcher), particularly because of the way it may create a sensation of stretch in the hip flexors of the back leg and the rotational muscles of the hips in the front leg. For many people, finding their way into this posture brings them to that end range or maximum range of motion for several muscles. That’s not a bad thing. But now, once at that end range we can ENGAGE and create strength over time by pressing the back leg down and forward and the front leg (shin) down and backward. The legs won't actually move from the shape you’ve put them into, but the muscles will contract and create strength by doing so over time.

The overall effect is that the muscles will, over time be able to move through a full range of motion while also maintaining their strength. That brings us to our ideal state. (In a perfect world anyway. Again this is a complex system.)

Notice that I keep using the words “over time” here. This is not an instantaneous change. It takes constant attention and constant practice.

One last quick note about those long and tight muscles - when we start to address this imbalance it can be challenging. In the example above of our laptop user, if she decides she wants to start to strengthen that back side of the body that is overly long, weak and tight, she may run into one big obstacle, a sometimes painful cramp. 😣 This shows up all the time in the hamstrings for many yoga practitioners in postures and actions like this:

I’m hugging the heel of the back foot toward my buttocks without using my hand or a strap to do so. That asks the hamstrings to contract strongly and that’s often where the cramp happens. If that happens to you don’t give up! Go a little easier the next time around and increase the demand on the muscle(s) that are cramping over time. They’re basically telling you (rather loudly) that they don’t have the strength to do what you’re asking them to do just yet. It’s really something you have to build up to and takes a bit of patience.

I hope this starts to give you some ideas about how to bring more balance between stretching and strengthening into your yoga practice. Strength training outside of yoga certainly isn’t a bad idea for most bodies, but we CAN create more strength and stop worshiping at the altar of range of motion in our yoga practice if we simply bring more balance to our actions. A pain free, healthy and balanced body should always be our goal and bringing a greater focus on strength into our yoga practice can help us get there.

If you’d like to learn more about putting these ideas into practice, we’ll be working with the concepts here throughout the month of February in my Livestream and On Demand vinyasa classes as we always do. This month we’ll be specifically addressing the muscles surrounding the hip joint.

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Three HUGE Benefits of Standing Yoga Postures

Standing yoga postures are some of the most often practiced yoga postures across many styles and traditions of yoga. But have you ever taken a moment to step back and wonder WHY these postures show up so much? I honestly hadn’t until recently, but when I did I realized they really offer us some amazing benefits when we give them the attention and focus they deserve. Here are three HUGE benefits of these yoga poses and some ideas that might help you bring them into better focus and appreciation the next time you get on your mat.

Standing Yoga Postures Stretch and Strengthen Large Important Muscle Groups - Whenever you’re working in standing yoga poses you are either stretching or strengthening some of the largest and most important muscle groups in your body. These include all the gluteal muscles (did you know that there are three of them per side?), the hamstrings (there are three of them too!), the quadriceps (bet you know how many of those there are! 😉) and the calf muscles, along with some other smaller muscles that are in the same general neighborhood. Depending on the posture you’re doing, you may be flexing or extending key joints in the legs like your ankles, knees and hips helping them to move through their full ranges of motion.

Why is that important? If you’ve ever had the experience of being unable to walk without assistance you know why. The full functioning of our legs in our life is an essential key to a life well lived and part of what makes us fundamentally human. Think about how many things, both simple (getting to the bathroom) and more complex (getting around the grocery store to get everything you need from the top shelf to the bottom one), that you wouldn’t be able to do or would be extremely difficult without working legs. Certainly, many people overcome this obstacle in amazing ways, but if you have two functional legs this family of postures offers a great variety of benefits to keep them healthy and working for you for a long time to come!

Point of focus for practice: Cultivate a sense of the muscles of the legs engaging (contracting) in your standing postures. The ones that are in a lengthened position might build a bit of eccentric strength and the ones that are already stabilizing might build a bit of isometric strength, both of which are important and beneficial for many reasons.

Standing Yoga Postures Can Help Train Your Body to Balance - The standing postures that require us to stand on one leg are probably the most obvious that come to mind here, but if you’ve wobbled in your warrior or triangle pose you’ve actually experienced this benefit as well. Have you ever considered how incredibly quickly the messages between the sense receptors in your feet and legs have to travel to your brain and back to help you maintain your position in any of these postures? It’s so fast we don’t even notice it most of the time. The only time we tend to notice is when we DO feel that wobble happen. But here’s the great thing - those moments of wobble are creating experiences that train your body to respond and correct more accurately and more quickly by developing core strength, kinesthetic awareness and proprioception. It’s something that not a lot of people practice once they learn to walk. Living in New England, especially in the winter months, I really think of this as one of the greatest benefits of our practice. When you’re doing that winter shuffle to the car you have a much better chance of recovering if you start to slip than you would otherwise. That doesn’t mean accidents won’t happen, but it sure does stack the odds more in your favor!

Point of focus for practice: The next time you wobble and recover, instead of cursing yourself or getting frustrated for a weak moment, turn some gratitude toward your incredible body for being able to compensate and correct when needed. Then consider where it is you might need more engagement to help you maintain stability.

Standing Yoga Postures Can Make You Feel Grounded - Life has definitely shown us some serious challenges recently and a sense of not knowing when the next shoe might drop or the ground beneath us might shift again may still be operating in the back of our minds and hearts. [Incidentally, if that’s something that’s really bothering you, check out PSTEC to get some relief.] When we practice standing poses we have an opportunity to allow ourselves to make a deep connection with the steadiness of the earth beneath us through the parts of our body that were built for the job, our feet and legs! I’ll often draw your attention in class to rooting down into the earth through the feet before coming into a standing posture or again once you’re there. Have you ever noticed the rebounding effect that happens when you do so? There’s an amazing relationship there. You press into the earth and she gives you the energy and stability to grow and stand tall. That feeling and that relationship can’t be underestimated. The Warrior poses are called that for a reason! When you do them, you embody the strength of a warrior. That can be a great reminder of that quality existing inside of you when you’re feeling like anything BUT a warrior.

Point of focus for practice: The next time you come into a posture like Warrior 2, before you move into it, press down through the feet and see if you can feel that rebounding effect through your torso. It might be a sense of lightness or ease that allows you to float up rather than feeling like you’re trying to drag your torso away from the ground. You may also find you arrive in the pose with a greater sense of steadiness.

Not sure where to place your feet for your unique proportions or feel you could use more steadiness in standing postures? Join me for my upcoming workshop - Set Your Foundation: Finding Stability in Standing Yoga Postures.

Details and sign up here.

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7 Self Care Items to Double Down on This Winter (and a gift for you!)

If I’m hearing it from so many places, I’m sure you are too. The next couple of months are going to be difficult. It’s dark at 4pm, the weather is cold and dreary and the slow burn trauma of the pandemic is continuing to hit closer and closer to home. With these realities comes the recommendation to double down on self care. But what if you’re in such a mental space that you can’t even think of what to do to feel better? I’ve got a simple list of 7 Self Care Items to Double Down on This Winter and a little gift to help you remember. These are the things I’m doubling down on myself. I hope they help you too!

1. Reach out - Phone a friend, text someone, get on that zoom call or go for a socially distanced walk (yes, even in the cold). Connection to other humans (and seeing them in 3D if you can do so safely) is so important right now. This is especially true for humans that don’t live in your home. We love our immediate families, but our extended family and friends are important too!

2. Be playful - You may feel like doing anything but playing right now, but what if you spent a moment or two playing with your cat, dog, hamster, child, grandchild or hedgehog?? I bet they would be more than ready to oblige and they might bring a smile to your face too! When’s the last time you dusted off the board games or took out the playing cards? Maybe there’s something else that you do for play that you’ve forgotten about? Adults need playfulness too! So go glitter bomb those cards or get out the paints and allow yourself to play!

3. Meditation - Here’s an interesting tidbit I read recently. Meditation increases blood flow to the prefrontal cortex of your brain. This is the area responsible for really important things like regulating impulses (no you don’t need to put yet another Christmas gift you can’t afford on your credit card!) and the execution, order and and timing of sequential acts towards a goal. Want to know what to do next when that next difficult choice comes up? MEDITATE NOW. You’ll be glad you did. Don’t know how? I’ve got some downloads that can help.

4. Healthy Food - We all know it’s the time of year when we are more likely to throw caution to the wind and indulge in all those holiday treats we may have loved as a child. I’m right there with you. And I think there’s something actually healthy about that. But I also believe in the 80/20 rule. Make your choices in food better for you 80 percent of the time and your body, mind and spirit will thank you. Now pass the egg nog! 😉

5. Gratitude - It’s so simple but so overlooked. There are still things to be grateful for right now. Really! Write down 3 things each morning, evening or both and your mindset will start to transform. Be sure to do your best to really allow yourself to FEEL that gratitude deeply. It actually rewires your brain and that’s something we all need right now.

6. Movement - Take a yoga class! Or go for a walk. Or dance around your living room to your favorite song between zoom calls with your camera off and freak out the cat. Just get yourself moving somehow. Stagnation doesn’t feel good. Get your heart pumping so you can remember that you are alive and how precious a gift that really is, particularly right now.

7. Sleep - I know zoning out watching Hallmark movies until 3am just kinda happens but I can’t impress upon you enough the transformational power of sleep. More and more studies are showing that not sleeping is worse than smoking and other similar things that we know aren’t healthy for us. Sleep is when your brain takes out the literal and figurative trash. It’s just so important to your overall health and wellbeing. If you struggle in this department make sure your room is cool and dark, get the screens out of the bedroom and turn them off two hours before bed and go to bed and get up at the same time EVERY day (that last one is tough but trust me, it works!).

Are you going to get all of these done every single day? Probably not. Could you do one? I bet you could! Will you feel absolutely wonderful and fine if you do all these things? Probably not. Life still happens. But you’ll be able to come back to your center much more quickly when life throws you for a loop.

To help you remember to do at least one thing from this list EACH DAY I’ve created these phone wallpapers for you. Just load this blog post on your phone and save your favorite. Make it your Lock Screen or your Home Screen so you can remember to check one thing off the list each day.

And please, if you are seriously struggling with your mental health or are contemplating suicide please call the National Suicide Prevention hotline at 800-273-8255 in the USA or contact an organization like NAMI for mental health resources. You matter and we need you here doing your work in this world.

Wishing you health and safety as we move forward into this next season. 💙🙏🕉

If you’re having trouble fitting my livestream classes into your daily schedule consider trying out my On Demand Membership via Patreon. You’ll find all the details on accessing On Demand Membership here!

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6 Poses to Free Your Breath

“The Breath Is Life Itself.”

I heard Sharon Salzberg say this recently in an online retreat. That’s certainly the view that the teachings of yoga present to us for consideration. The breath fuels everything from the fire of our digestion to the urge to eliminate to the length of our time here on earth according to the sacred texts. The circumstances of the last several months may have our breath feeling less than free and open for a variety of reasons including fear, stress, and sitting at computers more and more. If you find yourself unable to take a deep breath lately because your holding so much tension around your lungs and ribs, consider working with this simple sequence to bring some balance and freedom to the area.

As you approach this sequence you might look at it in one of two ways: 1) A series of postures you can hold for a couple to several breaths each or 2) some points to emphasize in the context of a flow. Either way is perfectly valid and will allow you to find some benefit. You might experiment with both ways depending on your energy level and the time you have to work through the sequence. Let’s look at each pose in turn and I’ll give you some options.

Cow pose - We don’t often see this posture without it’s complement, cat pose, but it certainly has merits on its own in the context of this sequence. As you move into it bring some emphasis to the feeling of broadness it may create through the front of the chest. I’ve heard some teachers talk about “pulling the chest through the shoulder blades” as you inhale into it and that certainly draws a good mental picture. Hold this one for one to several breaths or make it more dynamic by adding cat pose on each exhalation.

Gate pose - This posture creates a deep opening through the side body that may be felt not only through the rib cage but perhaps even up into the arm pit or down into the belly, hip and the standing leg. This is an area where many of us have considerable constriction. This can inhibit the breathing because the ribs aren’t as able to lift and separate from each other to create the space for deep breaths to enter the body. In our daily lives most of us don’t lift our arms into this position more than once a day on purpose! You might consider some padding under the standing knee for this one if your knees are at all tender. Be sure to do both sides!

At this point you may want to bring in some half sun salutations or some lunging salutations to warm the body and bring in some demand to the breath intensity, or as I mentioned above, you might just move into the next posture.

Low lunge - Bring careful attention to the alignment of this posture as I have it pictured here. Many practitioners come into the posture with the hips forward and down a great deal more with the front knee often coming past the ankle. In this version, I am purposely drawing a line from my hips straight down to the lower knee. The torso stacks on top of that and there may even be a little backbend here. Also important is the top of the back foot pressing down firmly into the mat. The overall effect of these details is a great deal more length on the front side of the body, especially through the hip flexors which are often tight and short. What does that have to do with the breath? I can almost guarantee that as you’re reading this, you’re sitting in a chair and perhaps a bit hunched forward. 😉 Try to take a deep breath in that position. Yeah, it doesn’t work so well. Now, sit up tall (even better, stand up and do this) and you may notice a subtle but tangible difference. Front body space allows for deeper breaths. It also prepares us for a real backbend. But first…

Twisting lunge - There is a whole network of long, rope-like muscles that run up and down the length of our spines. It’s a place where many of us hold tension we don’t even notice and many of these muscles tend to be under a great deal of stress because they’re over stretched. Twisting can relieve this tension in these muscles while also bringing length to some of those side body muscles that wrap the ribs and abdomen that we touched into earlier in this sequence. With this one you can always simplify by dropping the back knee to the floor. Also consider allowing the pelvis to turn into the twist and work together with the spine.

Bridge pose - There are so many benefits to this pose, but for our purposes here let’s focus on how this frees the breath. With the hands interlaced behind the back as pictured, there’s a great opportunity to broaden through the front of the chest. As the hips lift, nearly the whole front side of the body is opening as well. Additionally, with the hips above the heart we have a slightly inverted relationship with gravity. This gives us a chance to exercise the breathing diaphragm, an essential muscle of respiration that moves down toward the feet when we inhale and up towards the head when we exhale. In this position, instead of working WITH gravity as it normally would when we’re upright, it’s working AGAINST gravity (just a little bit) and you may actually find yourself having to work a little harder to take an inhale. It may be quite subtle, but this is good exercise for a muscle we don’t often consider strengthening in most forms of physical movement.

Supported Fish - Our last posture is one that when well adjusted can be quite restful and allow us to take advantage of the space we’ve created in the body for our breathing throughout this sequence. You can use two yoga blocks, one behind your skull (that’s important!) and one behind your heart. Depending on your experience with this posture and your flexibility, you might want the one behind your heart on the lowest level and the one behind your skull on the highest level or some other combination. You can also do this by rolling or folding up a blanket and laying back over it with it landing behind your heart, just below your armpits. Whichever option you choose, allow your arms to come out to the side and turn the palms up for more space through the front of the chest. Once you’ve settled in and gotten comfortable, this is a great place to linger and focus on your breathing. I like to imagine my breath coming in through the nostrils and down to the base of my spine and then filling my torso right up to my collar bones with breath and then allowing all the breath to release in reverse. Stay for a few breaths or several minutes and enjoy all that freedom you created!

You’ll find many of these postures in my vinyasa classes this month. If you can’t join me for the Livestream consider signing up for my new On Demand Video Membership through Patreon.

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Tech Advice for Getting the Most Out of Your Online Yoga Class

I’m taking a break from posting about the specifics of your yoga practice today to give you some tech help. Online Yoga is here to stay. Even when we’re able to go back into spaces and safely gather together again, the conveinience factor for online yoga alone is likely to make it a part of our yoga practice far into the future. But if you’re straining to see a small screen or your teacher can only see your ceiling, you might not be getting the best experience from your Online Yoga Class. Here are a few ideas from a technological perspective that might help you get the most out of your online yoga experience and calm your fears about diving in if you haven’t done so already.

First, let’s talk devices. Did you know that you can do your online yoga practice from nearly any device? Zoom has apps for phones and tablets as well as laptops, desktops and everything in between. It can also be used through any web browser such as Chrome or Safari. You can use it on Apple and Android devices as well and your account will work across multiple devices. Most other platforms have multiple device compatibilities as well. Perhaps this is obvious to most of you reading this, but we wanted to be sure you knew that you could use nearly any device.

Second, the bigger your screen size, the better your viewing experience will likely be. You may want to try casting to your TV or directly plugging into your TV or other monitor. Here’s where we get into some nitty gritty details in the tech, so hang with me here. There’s typically two ways of taking what you’re viewing on your smaller device (like a phone or tablet) and making it work with your TV. Whether or not either of these will work will have a lot to do with how old your TV and your device are and if they are on similar operating systems. Let’s talk about these two ways individually. First up:

Casting or Sharing Your Screen

These are terms for wirelessly transmitting the sound and video from your smaller device to your TV. This can be accomplished through your home WIFI network or with the help of additional devices such as an Apple TV, Chromecast, or Smart TV such as a Roku or Fire TV. To do this, make sure your TV is attached to your home WIFI network. If you’ve been streaming Netflix that’s probably already happening. The next steps depend on whether you’re using Apple or Android devices.

For Apple devices including a Mac computer, you can share your screen using Airplay. You can do this with a compatible Airplay device (such as Roku, Smart TV or adapter) or an Apple TV, which is another box to plug into your television. Follow the instructions that come with it for connecting it to your TV. Once that’s done, make sure your phone or tablet is connected to your home WIFI network. Then go into the Settings on your Apple product and look for “Screen Mirroring” or “AirPlay”. Once you open that, your Apple TV should show up in the list of available devices. Click on it and you will see whatever you had been working with on the phone show up on your TV. If you’re using Zoom on a Mac, you’ll have to set your speaker choice to Apple TV to hear sound on your TV.

For Android and Samsung devices, you can use a Chromcast to share your screen. Some TVs will come with this built in nowadays. With older TVs you’ll need to buy an additional device, similar to Apple as described above. Once you’ve connected that to your TV following the instructions that came with the device, you’ll follow a similar procedure as above for connecting. On your Android device, go to the Settings menu, click on the Cast icon. Then choose the TV or Chromcast you want to connect with.

For PCs running Windows 10 you can share your screen using the Connect function in your Settings panel. You may be able to Cast directly to a Smart TV or Chromcast Device or by using Microsoft’s wireless display adapter.

Remember, with any of these options the camera on your device will still need to be used so I can see what you’re doing during your class. More on this below.

Direct Plug In

This is my preferred method because it’s typically more reliable and easier to manage. You’ll need a couple of things to make it work. The first is an HDMI cable. You can get one of these inexpensive cables from the typical big box stores like BestBuy or Amazon.

One end is going to plug directly into your TV through an HDMI port. They are often labeled as such but they typically look like this:

HDMI Input on Back of a TV

The other end is going to plug into your device. Many computers and laptops will have an HDMI out port on them somewhere but phones and tablets will not. For those smaller devices, you’ll need to purchase an inexpensive adapter such as this:

Various Adapters

When you plug into your TV, you’ll be able to control your zoom meeting on your device, but you’ll see a much bigger picture of everything that’s happening on your phone on your TV screen. You can do this same thing with a big external computer monitor as well. Just look for the HMDI port on the back of the monitor and use the same adaptor on your phone or tablet. (Adapters are also available if your computer does not have an HDMI port or if you need to connect to a monitor using USB-C, VGA, DVI, or Displayport.)

Audio controls

If you’re using Zoom on a computer, you’ll have more choices on how you can hear and be heard on your device. There’s a little microphone icon on the screen while you’re running Zoom. Click on the little arrow next to it to explore your options.

Zoom Audio Settings Menu

If you are using a phone or a tablet, some of the audio settings will be available by changing your zoom account settings. You’ll need to access zoom’s website from a browser on either a computer or other device to change these settings. Connecting an external device such as a bluetooth speaker or wireless headphones may be an available option through these or your device’s settings.

A Note About Hearing Aids

I’ve had a couple of students who have bluetooth capable hearing aids tell me about sending the audio for these classes directly into the hearing aids. Basically, the hearing aids are connected to your smartphone (I think the hearing aid companies typically help with this setup, but I imagine it’s the same as connecting any two devices together via bluetooth) and so instead of using the audio on the computer or tablet, you would choose to “call in to the meeting" with your phone when you enter via Zoom. If you do this, be sure to mute the audio on the computer or other device or you might get some unpleasant phasing of the audio (the delay in the audio being heard on your computer will be different then in your hearing aids) or feedback (just like when you accidentally aim a microphone at a speaker). You may also be able to pair your hearing aids to your device directly. We aren’t experts on this one at all, so I’d advise you to talk to your hearing aid provider about this if you have questions. I just wanted you to know this was possible!

Help Me See YOU!

Now that you can see and hear me better, time to make it easier for me to see YOU! My interactive livestream classes are meant to allow me to help you since it’s a two way system. I’ve made jokes lately that I’m getting used to only having half of you visible at any time, but it doesn’t have to be that way! Here are a few ideas to help me see you better.

1. Now that you are using a bigger screen to see me, the device you're using and the camera on it can be farther away from you. That will give me a better picture of your whole body and is a really good start.

2. Ideally, you’ll place your camera so that I can see you from the long side of your mat, with the full length of your mat in view from floor to ceiling. I’m talking about something similar to the view I provide you of me. Something like this:

3. If a full view from the side isn’t possible, a small angle can also be helpful for me. It allows me to see a little bit of what is going on on the side of your body that is facing away from the camera. Something like this:

4. Depending on how far away your device can be will often determine how much of you will be in view from floor to ceiling. From my perspective and from what I’ve learned over the last several months of teaching this way, if your whole mat and body are in view, but I can’t see your arms when your standing and reaching up, that’s better than if I can’t see your legs and feet. Opt for a camera angle that gives more of a view toward the floor than the ceiling if possible.

Making sure I can see your feet more than your arms will help me help you!

I certainly hope you found this post helpful. I’m happy to provide a bit of tech support for you for my livestream classes and private lessons if you feel like you still have questions. Feel free to email me to let me know what specific devices you might be using or would like to use. We can even set up a time outside of class to test things out and make sure they’re working for you, to talk about camera set up and other issues as well.

Many thanks to my husband Justin (who often gets referred to as the I.T. Guy around here) for his help in making this post possible.

[Links in this post are for clarity and convenience only and are NOT affiliate links. We always encourage you to support your local small businesses whenever possible!]

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