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Journal Post

As a Virgo, I believe I have organization loaded into my DNA. It somehow comes naturally. I have always loved stationary stores & school supplies. But I never really had a method for my madness. When I merged households with my husband, clutter started to take hold.  Several years ago, I learned of Marie Kondo and quickly read, "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up". I followed her method and was immediately inspired by its effectiveness, so I wanted to share a brief synopsis so you can try it for yourself. I highly recommend reading her book, too! The method is to collate, touch and discard your items in this order:
We are saddened to lose one of the world's most influential yoga teachers. Geeta Iyengar, the daughter of BKS Iyengar, passed away at 74, just after celebrating her father's 100th birth anniversary. Geeta has been a guru to many serious students of yoga; guiding us with her expertise in the practice of yoga for women. Her books Yoga a Gem for Women, Yoga for Motherhood as well as the Preliminary Course and the Intermediate Course are textbooks for students and teachers along with her father's collection of books. Geeta was the ultimate disciple, who was dedicated to her father and guru, BKS Iyengar,  guided by the teachings of Yoga.
In the middle of a house chore or bending over to grab something, if you suddenly feel a severe pain in back, then you are a victim of progressive backache.The most common causes of backache are stretched muscles, strained ligaments and muscle spasm.To get rid of this pain or manage it, you need to give at least a few minutes to back exercises every day. Don’t take this for granted and wait for the next backache event. Start from very now and say goodbye to your backache forever.
This article focuses on the various yoga products that are available online for its readers to purchase before commencing a yoga class.
Know about some of the best places in India to visit for a rejuvenating yoga holiday where you can find peace of mind and train under great teachers
Who was Vanda Scaravelli, you ask?  My initial response is usually, "Brilliant."  We all know the basics: she was a pianist, close friends with Jiddu Krishnamurti, and she started Yoga late in life. She studied with the great masters, B.K.S. Iyengar and Desicachar, and she is the author of the lovely book, "Awakening the Spine.
The reason why we practice, in the west, fast and vigorous yoga, is because we have lost the ability to slow down or be still. We go fast internally as well as externally. On a daily basis we move fast and we think fast. We get up in the morning with the feeling that we are already behind. We sit in front of our computers bombarded by demands to reply NOW. We are constantly catching our breath… and you know what catching the breath means? It means your breath goes faster than you, running away from you, and you try to catch it.
In Yoga, shoulder stand is known as the queen of all asanas while headstand is the king of all asanas. Thus, subtly suggesting that headstand is superior to shoulder stand But we all know that behind every powerful king there is an even more powerful queen…J The question remains: is headstand stand actually ‘better’ or more powerful than shoulder stand?
Use your yoga teachings to inspire social change.
Is each individual on Earth responsible for their own life experience? Or are other people to blame when they are angry, tired, tedious, envious, rude, selfish and just down right mean? How do you make space for other people's roll through the rollercoaster ride of life when it bumps right up against your happy day at the park?
Do you ever find yourself holding on so tightly to a desired outcome that you are a filled with anxiety, tension or blind ambition? Have you ever wanted to do a yoga posture so badly so that you are literally obsessing about it and can talk of almost nothing else? This is perhaps the definition of unhealthy attachment at its core. Yet at the same time the driven mind directed at a task at hand is one of the most powerful tools we have to change our lives. So the question then becomes not how to rid ourselves of our desires or our drive but instead how to train our mind to work towards our desires without the unnecessary tension of attachment.
There is a point in every marathon where no runner quits and there is another point where the majority drop out. The quitting point is painstakingly close to the finish line and, when measured in terms of percentage points, sits at approximately the last five percent of the race. The drop outs' hurdle is the last stretch of the race where the end remains hidden from view. It is here where athletes have been working for a long time that all the major mental and physical obstacles set in. Doubt, anxiety, disbelief, exhaustion, dehydration, hunger, the feeling of no end in sight and physiological stress compromise rational thought and convince many to throw in the towel.
Most people know yoga as a physical exercise system that increases flexibility and teaches them how to relax. However, yoga is a comprehensive discipline that encompasses principles for living in the world and practices to deepen spiritual life, in addition to achieving physical well-being. Yoga is a nourishing practice on all levels!
Shazzam! Fit Yoga magazine's August 2008 issue has an article on cultivating a freeform yoga practice authored by yours truly. Check it out! If nothing else, it has one of the sweetest photos ever of iHanuman teacher Erich Schiffmann.
John is featured in the Yoga Journal Asana Column
When it came to the fitness benefits yoga can or can't provide, yoga teacher John Schumacher had heard it all. A student of B. K. S. Iyengar for 20 years and founder of the Unity Woods studios in the Washington, D.C. area, Schumacher was convinced yoga provides a complete fitness regime. But many people, even some of his own students, disagreed. Yoga might be good for flexibility or relaxation, they'd say, but to be truly fit, you had to combine it with an activity like running or weight lifting.
Schumacher just didn't buy it.
You create your reality by the thoughts that you think. Your attention is itself responsible for your life experience. No matter how awful the traffic jam is, how loud your neighbors are, how inconsiderate people may seem, how delayed the airplane is, you are the one who is in control of your reality.
It is said that the Buddha's definition of truth is "what works." His pithy statement points toward one of the essential teachings about truth also contained within the path of yoga: impermanence. Knowledge and information come into our consciousness at an appropriate time, enhance our being and when we've integrated the lesson, it passes. The intelligence to accept the impermanence of all experience is the seat of true knowingness.
Awakening and enlightenment are two of the most objectified and misunderstood signposts along the spiritual path. Often construed as something outside yourself, many true and genuine seekers mistake the process of gaining spiritual insight as a process of looking for the missing element in their own being. Yet awakening cannot occur to anything outside the realm of what already exists in your own being. Or else, by definition, it would not be awakening.
Fine tune your approach to Corpse Pose through an exploration of varying teaching philosophies.
By Sara Avant Stover
I've been intending for a couple of months to pick up our story line with Sri Yogendra, one of the unsung heroes of modern yoga. Born Mani Desai in 1897, he became in his late teens a disciple of Paramahamsa Madhavadasa, who at the time was reputed to be 118 years old. Paramahamsa, which means "great swan" (or "goose") is an honorific title given to highly enlightened beings (why is an enlightened person compared to a swan? That's a long story for another time). Mani's father threw a fit when he found out his son-a bright kid destined for great things in the world-had dropped out of college to become a yogi, which in those days meant a life of renunciation and celibacy.
Discover how using themes can turn your yoga class from mundane to memorable. We all have yoga classes that stand out in our minds. Perhaps we found ourselves in a puddle of cathartic tears durning Savasana (Corpse Pose) or euphoric after rising into an unassisted Sirsasana (Headstand) for the first time. Something that the teacher said, or simply her way of being, can stick with us for years. As yoga teachers, we all want to deliver such classes. We want to touch our students' hearts, even long after they leave their yoga mats.
So, then, what is it that sets an exemplary yoga class apart froma forgettable one? Is there a method behind the magic? The Power of Themes
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