Practice Notes - 4/27/2026

April 27, 2026 - Stirring the Pot

Our practice this week made the leap from a focus on the guna of tamas to the guna of rajas. My teacher often translates this as “volatility,” implying change and variation of an almost explosive nature. Rajas, like any good Sanskrit word, contains multitudes of connotations that suggest agitation, heat, motion, activation, restlessness and more. Classically, rajas is thought to be a necessary step in the progression from tamas, inertia and stolidity, to sattva, the guna of poise, of clarity, of ease and purity. Rajas is what brings an individual (or anything, really) out of the deep, dark, ignorant muck that is tamas, infusing it with the activation necessary to transform into something else.

An image I’ve always enjoyed, as a baker, is the process of making meringue. You put a bunch of slippery, squelching egg whites into a mixing bowl (tamas). Then you turn on your electric beaters you whip those egg whites into oblivion, slowly transforming them by mixing introducing friction, air, and sugar (rajas) until you’re left with a beautiful, pure, cloud-like meringue (sattva).

But while rajas provides the necessary energy to effect transformation, it also acts as a destabilizing force. Minds dominated by rajas, the yogis of old believed, were restless, reactive, and unable to concentrate. Rajasic individuals or natural occurrences might be more likely to break, to rupture, or destabilize the environment. As contemporary yogis, we’re charged with the task of discrimination between necessary and harmful rajas. Agitation and volatility are all around us (read the news), but whether that force is used to transform things in the service of sattvic pursuits or merely to sow chaos is and “burn it all down,” is a choice we all have to make.

To that end, we explored gentler forms of rajasic practice, introducing movements, breaths, and contemplations to set the pot to simmer, as it were.

We began with a seated breath practice with a tightened strap around our rib cage, creating a bit of resistance for our inhale to push against while maintaining an equal count between inhale and exhale. From there, we:

• Opened wih stretches and warm ups in side bending, rotation, and several variations of cat/cow and child’s pose to practice spinal flexion and extension.

• Transitioned between a variety of postures including tadasana (mountain), uttanasana (forward fold), utkatasana (chair), adho mukha svanasana (down dog), bhujangasana, (cobra), and plank variations.

• Played with some balancing postures. Balancing is a very rajasic physical activity. Balance creates a volatile state. The body and mind are forced to navigate a shifting center of gravity by making constant micro (or macro!) adjustments.

• Moved through a heating series of poses: down dog, down dog with one leg lifted up and behind, into a kneeling side series - modifications of the following poses: parsvakonasana (side angle) and ardha chandrasana (half moon). This kind of work is a great way to train the mind to concentration under a bit of stress (rajas), which indeed is the benefit of rajas itself. Stress can be wonderfully focusing, clearing the self of hold, stuck habits and making room for new possibilities.

Afterwards, we engaged in bhastrika pranayama, or bellow breath. This is an energizing, heating breath, traditionally thought to increase circulation and digestion and strengthen the lungs. This can be a stressful practice, so we began with a modest variation. Abandoning ujjayi breath, bhastrika is a short inhale and exhale through the nose, a quick pull of air in and a short, strong puff of air out. We practiced this for three rounds of 10 repetitions.

Following this, we transitioned into supine work. We began with setu bandha sarvangasana (bridge) and transitioned to lower body mobilizations with a bolster under the hips. We specifically targeted deeper muscle groups connected to the pelvis. While more passive work like this may not appear rajasic, it often can be. Accessing muscles we’re not accustomed to feeling - whether that’s release or engagement - can create a lot of ripples in our system. It’s not uncommon for people to have nervous system reactions when sinking into these areas: goose bumps, little tremors, tears, temperature changes, etc.

After all this, you guessed it. Savasana and a gentle close.

Thank to all who came and those who read. I love this little voyage we’re on together.

Saprema <3

Practice Notes - 4/13/26

April 13, 2026 - Begin in Ignorance

This week’s class was our third exploring tamas, the guna of darkness, inertia, rest, and ignorance. Last week we discussed the quality of ignorance that can be helpful in our lives, and how becoming conscious of what we don’t know can propel our self-study and practice of yoga. However, sometimes there’s a tendency to grasp at our ignorance and take comfort in it, to rely on our lack on knowing in order to keep a fuller engagement with life (or yoga) at bay. It’s a bit like imposter syndrome, a popular psychological concept that describes those who, despite education, skill, desire, and/or success, may be plagued by doubt and feel inadequately prepared to ply their skills. Sometimes, we see these people doing everything they can to gain more knowledge, hoping that some teaching, some understanding will unlock their potential and give them the confidence to successfully begin their chosen endeavor.

Therefore, to some degree, we have to learn to tolerate tamasic ignorance in our lives knowing that we’ll never know everything or achieve perfection. In fact, some yoga traditions suggest that this is a necessary part of the fabric of the world, that concealment of absolute knowledge is an essential feature of the cosmos.

This is beautifully represented in the iconography of the deity Śiva (shi-va), represented as the cosmic dancer Nataraja (nah-tah-rah-jah). This representation of the deity shows the five acts (pancha kritya) that continuously create the cosmos. There are two important features here that can help us understand the necessary nature of ignorance: Siva’s lower left arm and the demon of ignornace, Apasmara, underneath Śiva’s standing foot. Śiva’s lower left arm crosses his body, the palm turned inward. This gesture represents tirobhāva, the concealment of ultimate reality. Apasmara, although he’s being crushed underfoot, isn’t completely destroyed. Both of these symbols suggest the necessity of ignorance in our lives. In order to discover the Truth, aspects of reality must be concealed from us. Otherwise, why would be inspired to see it? And furthermore, although ignorance (or the perception of ignorance) may not be comfortable, tolerating its presence is necessary. in order to continue moving forward in our lives. Like Apasmara, we acknowledge its presence and we continue our dance anyhow, even if we don’t always understand exactly why or to what purpose we dance.

To begin our practice, we started standing, stabilizing and breathing over our two feet. From there, we:

• Lifted one leg and then the other into a standing balance: first knee bent into chest, then knee bent with rotation of the hip, and then a movement into Nataraja mudra - mimicking the shape with our bodies.

• Moved into a warm up including: forward folds standing on a rolled blanket, spinal movements in four points, child’s pose, cobra pose, downward dog, and more.

We began to warm the body in earnest with a series of lunges:

• Low lunge with side body and hip flexor stretch

• Low lunge with rotations through the torso and arm

From there, we began exploring some deeper, supported work with the bolster. We lay down over the bolster, placed horizontally on the mat underneath the belly. We held for about two minutes, aiming to breath fully and relax over the prop, bringing the bolster up into our belly’s for abdominal compression and a gentle low back stretch. After that, we moved into a pranayama series.

• Moved into deliberate ujjayi breath for a few rounds

• Adopted the pattern of: ujjayi inhale, a longer ujjayi exhale, pause and retain the breath. This is called sunyaka - a longer exhale and retention of the exhale. During the retention, we gradually introduced the three axial seals - mulabandha, uddiyanabandha, and jalandhara bandha (pelvic floor, abdomen, throat) - to cultivate more prana (energy) in the body.

From there, we moved into a side bending series, beginning in:

• Parighasana (gate pose). We stretched one side, transitioned onto the other side in a kneeling ardha chandrasana (half moon pose), both stretching and strengthening that side before moving into a twisting variation with both hands on the floor.

Afterwards, we transitioned into a short series of bridge poses and then back to the bolster, using it to assist in a back bending/spinal extension series on the floor. We placed the bolster horizontally under the belly/hip area and extended the arms forward. From there, we inhaled to lift the chest forward and up, which allowed us to explore a larger range of motion while supporting the low back.

After a gentle hip opening series, we grabbed the bolster again and laid it down vertically, bringing our hip up to the bottom end in a sideways orientation in order to lie down in a prone restorative twist.

From there, we closed with a supine series, stretching the hamstring, opening the inner thigh, and twisting. Afterwards, a nice long savasana and the usual Saprema.

Thank you, all. See you all next week.

With warmest affection :)

Practice Notes - 4/6/26

April 6, 2026 - The Horizon of Ignorance

In this week’s class, we continued to build upon the concept of tamas, one of the three gunas, or threads/qualities/natures of our material reality. We talked about tamas as darkness, inertia, heaviness, this force against which we can start to push in order to pursue a path of growth. There is, however, an additional aspect of tamas which is equally important, and one that makes it particularly reviled by many yoga lineages: ignorance.

Ignorance directly opposes the yogic quest to remove all the veils that conceal the true nature of reality, veils that lie within and without the individual. The mind is constantly disturbed by thoughts and emotions swelling from an ignorant apprehension of the world around us. This is made particularly clear in the classical yoga traditions that inform a great deal of American yoga (Buddhism isn’t dissimilar.). In order to achieve self-liberation, one must pierce the many veils that confound a correct understanding of the nature of things.

However, if we step back for a moment I believe that ignorance may not appear as evil as others make it out to be. For anyone who has a great love of learning, in any field, ignorance is often an important motivator. A student may be curious about a topic or be frustrated that they don’t know enough (or anything) about it, and so they motivate themselves to study. There are many times where one butts up against a concept or an experience that they didn’t even know they were ignorant of, and joy and delight may arise during these surprising advancements towards knowledge.

As a dedicated student of most any subject will tell us, the work of studying, the journey towards knowledge, is forever incomplete. There’s always more to know. In that sense, perhaps, the task of enlightenment may not be as much a process of removing all the veils between oneself and the Truth as much as it is a perpetual trek towards the unending horizon of our ignorance. Having it all figured out might sound restful, but I’m not convinced that it would be great way to live and neither am I convinced that it’s possible. But the idea of going through life, aware of ignorance, and seeking to move towards knowledge knowing that the work will never be quite done, well… it sounds harder, but far more interesting.

We began our class with:

Supine (lying on our backs) centering with a bolster under the knees. We emphasized an equal breath (sama vritti pranayama) while bringing awareness to the back of the ribcage, observing movement and sensation in a party of our body where we typically don’t have a lot of proprioception (knowing where the body is in space).

From there, we transitioned into a warm up, which included:

• Bringing the knees into the chest and circling the thigh bone in the hip joint, followed by a figure-four stretch

• Table top position position exploring: flexion (cat spine) and extension (cow spine), side bending, child’s pose, and a few flows.

• Down dog, finger tip cobra, forward folds, low squats, squatting and standing twists.

We moved into the more heating phase of our practice, beginning with:

• Kneeling lunge (anjaneyasana) with an emphasis on deep hip flexor (psoas) stretch with chest opening, and then transitioning to a twist with dynamic spinal and arm rotations going into a thigh stretch (this was a challenge for some of us, and understandably! Hamstrings are often weak and quads tight, and lifting bending the knee in this position puts a lot of stress on the hamstring because it’s loaded by gravity.).

• We transitioned into wide legged poses, turning to face the side of the mat.

  • In a warrior II (virabhadrasana II) stance, we shifted our spine back and forth until arriving in a side angle pose to rotate the spine and arm. Then we landed in utthita parsvakonasana, extended side angle pose, lengthening across the side line of the body.

  • From there, we finished out standing practice in parighasana (gate pose - a pose I am deeply biased towards). We opened with the classic side stretch and then moved into a kneeling ardha chandrasana (half moon pose). We included a thigh stretching variation (called capasana - cha-pah-sah-nah).

We cooled down with seated poses: seated hip openers (hindolasana) and upward plank (purvottanasana).

We then entered into a long pranayama practice:

• We began with sama vritti and transitioned into ujjayi, incorporating that soft hissing sound for a more heating breath. We then took ujjayi into a controlled kumbhaka (retention) practice, pausing after each inhale and exhale. This is a practice that can help with increasing carbon dioxide tolerance, and from a yogic perspective, begin to increase energy (prana) retention.

Then, you guessed it, savasana :)

Thank you, all! I love rising to that horizon with all of you during our classes.

Saprema, Joey

Practice Notes - 3/30/26

March 30, 2026 - Something to Push Against

We began this week’s class with a discussion addressing the intensity of the times. Some of us may feel a great weight pressing in on us, a kind of massing inertia. The intensity of stimulation and the uncertainty of our times are a heavy burden. Sometimes, understandably, we feel that we may buckle under its weight. That we are drowning in the world’s confusion caused by the cacophony of chatter. The yogic tradition has mapped this feeling very well, identifying it as one of the three fundamental qualities of the our material world (which includes the mind). It’s called tamas (coming from the root “dark) and is one of the three gunas.

Classically, tamas is thought to be a negative quality and an impediment to the realization of enlightenment. However, in contemporary traditions this isn’t always the case. Reinterpretations of the older strains of yogic practice give us room to think about the possibilities of tamas’ heaviness, darkness, and confusion as a source of necessary inspiration for the path to self-understanding.

My sister loves a quote by Alice Walker relating to personal growth and its difficulties. I can’t remember it in its entirety, but it goes something like this. Walker uses the metaphor of a tiny seed buried under the weight of the dark earth. The seed, she says, will only grow because of the great mass pushing down upon it. In order to flourish it needs, as she says, “something to push against.” In other words, if things didn’t feel hard, if there was no inertia or darkness of confusion, would we ever be inclined to grow into ourselves and meet the world as it is rather than as we wish it to be? And furthermore, if there was no black soil enrobing us, how would we ever be able to root down and understand ourselves?

To jumpstart this process, we need two types of heat. Recall the sun warming the soil in Spring signalling the seeds to start to making their way up and out of the earth. The first heat is the result of our own work pushing upwards into the soil, the friction between us and the inertia and our own inner drive to keep pushing. This is called tapas. The second heat is that sun, the cultivation of warmth to dry the mud and bring light into the darkness. This is called rajas, which is the second guna.

Our practice focused on introducing heat in a gradual way through personal effort and the literal cultivation of inner fire through breathing practice (pranayama). We started with:

Seated breathing. We began with ujjayi, a gently warming breath to set the tone for practice. From there we transitioned into warm ups including:

• Basic spinal movements - torso extension, flexion (cat), extension (cow), side bending, and twisting.

• We transitioned into larger warming movements including downward facing dog (adho mukha svanasana), forward fold (uttanasana), half forward folds in a stronger squatting variation, gate pose (parighasana) with rotations, and more.

From there, we went into our second pranayama, kapalabhati, the shining skull breath. This is meant to cultivate warmth and send energy to the skull to clarify the mind. It’s traditionally done in a seated position. After a full round of breath, we inhaled to half our lung capacity and then released 20 short, sharp exhales through the nose. We did three rounds in total.

Afterwards, we went into our standing poses:

• Low lunge

• Kneeling lunge with spinal rotations

• Warrior II (virabhadrasana) shifting laterally into side angle pose (parsvakonasana), held and then with shoulder rotations.

• Goddess or temple squat with balancing heel raises.

We transitioned into agnisara pranayama, the fire breath. This is a strong breathing practice done in a standing wide legged squat (like goddess). It’s performed using the three axial bandhas (seals) at the pelvic floor, the navel, and the throat. With hands on legs, we inhale fully, exhale completely, and then hold the breath while engaging the three bandhas (approximating a kegel, an abdominal contraction, and the chin moving towards the collarbones). When there’s air hunger, we inhale and leave the pose. This is a breathing practice specifically designed to light the inner fire which, yoga argues, lives in the belly. By compressing the organs in the abdomen and sealing the energy within ourselves, we physically flush the organs when we inhale and release the abdomen and retain prana (vital energy) in the belly.

After that, we moved into our final asana series:

• Hip opening in hindolasana (baby’s cradle pose)

• Hip flexor opening over a block

• Hinging and articulating bridge (lifting hips up and rolling up through the spine)

To close, we revisited an old favorite: partner supported bridge. We did this in groups of three. One person lies on the mat, one comes to their feet placing their hands behind the top of the calf, and the other comes behind the bridger’s head, looping a strap underneath their upper back, threading it up through the armpits, and then hold the straps. As the person lying down comes up to bridge, the other two gently pull on the calves and the strap, tractioning the spine by lengthening the bridger in both directions. Good times were had by all.

To close, we practiced a gentle ujjayi breath with bandha work, engaging the three axial seals on exhale and releasing on the inhale to gather more energy into the self. We finished with a long savasana.

Thank you to all of you who came out. This practice was marked by my friend and mentor’s passing. She was important to me on my yoga path. I’m honored I could share some of the things Susanna taught me, and I hope you’ll take her teachings out into the world. May her memory be a blessing.

Saprema,
Joey

Practice Notes - 3/9/26

March 9, 2026 - Making Sense of the Dharma

Last week, we welcomed some lovely new students into the fold. We explored the fundamentals of breathing, of posture, and of alignment, weaving together a class the culminated in a supported but powerful lengthening pose (warrior III or virabhadrasana III at the wall). It was a lovely practice, with playfulness and attentiveness that was wonderful to witness.

Atypically, I didn’t really present a theme, although there were certainly elements of the contemplative work we’ve been learning up to this point. The last few sessions, we’d be focusing on the dharma - the idea that we are living in a Life-creating and Life-sustaining, ordered universe. I confess, however, since the beginning of the war in Iran, I’ve found it difficult to connect to the idea of dharma because this conflict stands as such a strong example of an non-dharmic world - disordered, painful, and life-denying.

I won’t share too much more about this, nor will I shared the class sequence. I’ll simply say that I’m trying to understand where pain, thoughtlessness, and fear of this magnitude fit into the model of a dharmic world. It’s moments like these, perhaps, where I recognize the limits of my cognition in trying to parse out the “whys” and “what ifs” of such a conflict. So if you’re like me, and want to spend some time with affirming and lively people, come to yoga. It may be, if only for an evening, a moment to feel rather than think, to listen to what your body and being may wish to share with you, and to feel the gentle, nurturing company of others.

Saprema <3