The Magazine of Yoga

Senior positive teaching in mixed-age classes.

Photo: Trivia King Sthira and sukha – or loosely translated, steadiness and ease – are the foundational principles of yoga.** The efficacy of everything we do as practitioners rests on our ability to embody these sensations simultaneously. All too often, we “do yoga” whether it’s a posture practice or a practice of compassion, without any [...]

Photo: Alan J Ttruhan They say the road to lousy health is paved with good intentions. Translation: “I thought about doing yoga. I meant to practice today.” Sometimes we get so tangled up in our commitment to an ideal practice that we don’t practice at all. There’s not enough time or we don’t know how [...]

A UPenn study dramatically demonstrates just how quickly your primary muscle for breathing begins to deteriorate without use.

Actually, the music in this video leaves a lot to be desired, but this is Bunraku like you’ve never seen before. In the Japanese art of Bunraku, puppets are life size and are given motion by an entourage of puppeteers. The puppet masters study for years, usually one limb at a time (some specialize in [...]

Video Stills: Shahzia Sikander A few days ago I was reading in the newspaper how to twitter at the office without getting caught. It involved the use of a software application that looks like Excel. In effect, you could be twittering while appearing to be working on a spreadsheet. The article was a strange bedfellow [...]

Practicing yoga in a “yin” or receptive style stretches and stimulates the connective tissue of the body; it complements “yang” or active yoga forms, which stretch and strengthen muscle tissues of the body. What is connective tissue? CT includes ligaments, tendons, and fascia: it’s tissue that crosses from one side of the body to the [...]

Image: Wayne Thiebaud Conscious Post-Consumption Consumer Disappointment is the best chariot to use on the path of the dharma writes Chogyam Trungpa. Should we welcome opportunities to experience it? BY MAGAZINE EDITOR SUSAN MAIER-MOUL There was this cute little Patagonia zip up vest. I loved the color of it, and the cut. It would look [...]

What shapes our health more directly? Is it what happens in the world? Or what we think happens? The virtual reality of our perceptions can be more far reaching than the truth. Mid afternoon January 15th I was busy writing for this website, looking things up at the New York Public Library on line (go [...]

Running on empty? Maybe you feel safer that way. “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” – if only Elizabeth Barrett Browning had been talking about self love when she wrote these famous lines. Alas, all her praise and generosity are directed toward her idealized lover. We think of it as commendable [...]

“Without sustained social interaction, the human brain may become as impaired as one that has incurred a traumatic injury.” Do you ever wonder why you stayed in a bad relationship? I’ve often been curious about themes that seem to recur in situations of attachment. Isn’t it odd that far from spurring us on to healthier [...]

Almost anything will make me think of yoga. This OK Go video is too much fun. I held my breath the first time through waiting for one of these guys to get spit off the end of the conveyor belt. Then I started to think well hey, couldn’t they be doing sun salutations? How cool [...]