Yogaland Podcast

How can you get the most from your restorative poses? That's a question that Roger Cole and I explore on this episode.  Roger Cole is an internationally recognized, certified Iyengar Yoga teacher who has been teaching since 1975. He is also an accomplished scientist educated at Stanford University and the University of California, with specialties in the science of relaxation, sleep, and circ...

Happy gratitude week folks! This week, Gina Caputo returns to talk about her Yoga Off the Mat/Let's Stay Together Challenge. I love the idea of infusing our holidays with meaning and with practice. This challenge does exactly that with small, actionable ideas for us to do together each week leading up to the holidays. Imagine the ripple effect it would have if everyone listening to this podcast to...

Jason and Andrea sit down to review some of the themes discussed in episode 74 with Jill Miller and to delve more deeply into the topic of yoga injuries. How do we stop overpraising flexibility and "going further" in a pose without becoming afraid to fully use and inhabit our bodies? Shownotes: yogalandpodcast.com/episode76/ Shoutout to our sponsors : 1. To my women listeners out there – have you...

We've all been there -- in that yoga class where the person next to us is not doing any of the poses the teacher calls out, or in teacher training when someone asks question after question after question after...you get the picture. Do these people drive you crazy? Or, if you're teaching, do you wonder how you can make that rebellious person follow your lead or satisfy the questioner's endless que...

Jill Miller is the creator of Yoga Tuneup and The Roll Model Method -- a self care method that utilizes specific poses, sequences, and self massage tools to help you tune into your body's "blind spots." Jill's method can help ease and pains, it can soothe your nervous system, and increase proprioception -- that important ability to feel where your body is in space. Just before this interview, Jill...

According to psychologist and author, Kelly McGonigal, listening to someone else's story of resilience and overcoming adversity can have a positive effect. Listening to someone's "restorative narrative" can inspire strength and courage in you. In addition, if you're the person doing the storytelling about your own traumatic event, and you both acknowledge the difficulty as well as the how it trans...

Last week, I talked about the science of self-compassion and how self-compassion practice has more favorable outcomes than boosting self-esteem. On this episode, I offer a way to put self-compassion into practice by sharing a 10-minute guided Lovingkindness meditation. This type of meditation involves silently repeating a mantra and extending love and compassion toward yourself, then toward someon...

High self-esteem used to be regarded as a vital component to happiness. But it's fallen out of favor in the past decade. Research -- much of it led by Dr. Kristin Neff -- has shown that self-compassion is a more effective way to increase optimism, happiness, curiosity, and connectedness. This episode talks you through the research and offers three very practical ways to incorporate self-compassion...

One of my favorite quotes from Jason is,"I believe that we should embrace anything and everything that helps us and our students be well." On this episode, we dive into the meaning behind that quote and why it's important to advocate for our students to try other modalities if needed. There are times when yoga teachers feel pressured to know all of the answers or to make a diagnosis and there are...

We all struggle from time to time with the question -- "Am I doing enough?" This week, Jason and I talk about this question and this fear in the yoga room. His clear message: Trust in the process of yoga. And return to the fundamentals of what we're trying to teach (and learn) in yoga: To hone attention and discipline so that we can remain steady in the face of stress. Support this show http://sup...

Jason is back and he's sharing just a few of the values he hopes to pass onto his teacher training graduates. We talk about -- how do you develop a strong, personal point of view without minimizing others' points of view? And is yoga a discipline that changes over time -- are we allowed to revise? For shownotes and a full blog post go to: yogalandpodcast.com/episode68 Support this show http://supp...

MC Yogi is a well-known performing artist -- and perhaps one of the only rappers to write lyrics about Hanuman and Ganesha? -- and is married to artist Amanda Giacomini who I interviewed on episode 45. Together, they've owned and been the primary teachers at the Point Reyes Yoga Studio in Point Reyes, CA. On this episode, we talk about MC Yogi's his new book, Spiritual Graffiti, which tells the st...

Jessica Berger Gross is the author of the beautiful, moving, hopeful memoir, Estranged: Leaving Family & Finding Home. Jessica was raised in a seemingly typical middle class family in Long Island. But behind the scenes she suffered physical abuse from her father. She made the decision in her late twenties to stop communicating with her parents not knowing that the decision would become permanent....

Lizzie Lasater teaches the pleasure of deceleration through Restorative yoga workshops and digital trainings. Lizzie is the daughter of venerated yoga teacher Judith Hanson Lasater, so I was keen to pick her brain about how yoga was (successfully! without rejection!) passed onto her. Lizzie also offers great tips for incorporating Restorative Yoga into everyday life. And, as she's witnessed both o...

Judith Hanson Lasater Ph. D., physical therapist, has been teaching yoga since 1971. Judith has written nine books and is one of the founders of Yoga Journal Magazine. I had many opportunities to interview Judith during my decade as an editor there, but this interview was so refreshingly different for me because I got to ask her whatever I wanted! She shared how she found yoga, the importance of f...

Kino MacGregor is an Ashtanga yogi in the lineage of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and is the co-owner of the Miami Life Center in Miami Beach, Florida. Kino also has a new book out called Yogi Assignment, where she shares 30 days of "assignments" to help you bring the philosophy of yoga into everyday life. Kino talked to me about the surprising story of meeting her teacher for the first time, what it's li...

On this special bonus episode, Jason and I answer your questions that came up during the summer series. Thanks, as always, for sending in your questions. It helps us plan episodes! We talk about why the cue to keep the feet parallel in Wheel Pose came about (and is it really necessary?), I offer some help for hurting knees, ideas for strengthening the "pull muscles," and Locust Pose alternatives d...

I first met Jaimal Yogis when he was a young, up-and-coming journalist, a long-time spiritual seeker, and a surfer. These days he can award-winning writer, three-time book author, and father of three boys under the age of five to his bio. He is such a wonderful writer and his new book, All Our Waves Are Water is one of the best examples of relating deep meditation practice to the pains and beauty...

I'm tired of the stale, depressing exercise and yoga advice for the "older set." It too often characterizes people over 50 as weak, unfit, and fragile. There are now plenty of yogis who have been practicing for decades and are approaching their 50s, 60s, & 70s. Do you think they're taking it easy? Nope. Neither do I. Desiree Rumbaugh and Michelle Marchildon confirm that I am right! (And who doesn'...

Jason Nemer is the co-founder of AcroYoga and has spent the past decade on the road spreading the practice around the world. Acro is a beautiful, vibrant, playful practice and it's an amazing practice for developing trust, confidence, and communication. Check out the gorgeous AcroYoga flash mob on the shownotes page: yogalandpodcast.com/episode59/ Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogal...

A bonus episode for you this week! Jason and I talk about his new online course on yogaglo.com, The Ultimate Guide to Teaching Arm Balances & Inversions. There's a lot packed into this episode: Jason shares his system for teaching these poses, how he sees both arm balances and inversions as "clusters of poses" -- so that you're learning a whole family of poses -- e.g., the Bakasana Family -- inste...

The core is an often-obsessed about part of the body, and yogis are no exception. In this episode, Jason breaks down the component parts that make up the core. He also offers three ideas for tapping into those parts we ignore -- from paying attention to rotation, to the paraspinal muscles to learning to, at least once in a while, let your core go and let it all hang out. Support this show http://s...

On the last two episodes, Jason offered some tips for working with your hips and shoulders. On this installment, we're moving to the central axis -- the spine. Jason shows off his superior maths skills by sharing that we for every 10 Sun Salutations we do 50 forward bends to every 10 backbends!! He also offers ideas for strengthening the muscles that help you rotate, and talks about everybody's (l...

Did you know that your shoulder complex has four joints on each side? This dynamic engineering allows us to do all of the things we do with our arms and hands. But it can leave the shoulder joints vulnerable if we don't balance them with strength. In vinyasa yoga we ask the shoulders to do a lot early on in the practice (because Chaturanga). So, on this episode Jason talks ideas for offsetting thi...

We love, love, love to stretch our hips in yoga. Pigeon Pose -- oh yeah. Lizard -- yep. Thread the Needle -- mmmhmmm. But sometimes we focus on how good opening the outer hips feels to the exclusion of creating strength and stability in the support muscles. Similarly, we focus on the part of our hips that screams the loudest (outer hips) while neglecting another tight area that's quieter (hip flex...