Practice Notes - 1/26/26

JANUARY 26, 2026 - Yoga is a “Serious” Business

This week’s practice again focused on ujjayi breathing and how we observe this practice breath in our own bodies. It leaves telltale signs: lifting and lowering the belly and ribs in the front body, lifting the sides of our ribs out and up and lowering them back in, and expanding our back ribs behind us and then relaxing them back in. This is the reality of the breath in our lungs. The lungs expand and contract in all directions and our bodily structures follow in turn.

We began with breathing lying on our backs, looking for the front, side, and back body rhythms responding to the breath, followed by a review of ujjayi breath in a seated position, a position that was adapted for our individual bodies. From there, we began our movement practice:

• Seated warm-ups, including spinal flexion/extension, rotation, and side-bending with rotations. Pushing hands down in thighs to rise. More warm-ups in four-point position moving into downward facing dog (adho mukha svanasana).

• Forward fold (uttanasana) led us into an exploration of root to rise (R2R), the act of pressing downwards into the floor to increase length and allow other parts of the body to rise up.

Our standing poses came from the warrior series:

• Warrior II (virabhadrasana), side angle pose (parsvakonasana), and then half moon pose (ardha chandrasana) with floating foot on the wall. We examined R2R in each of these poses - back foot and front foot. Remember, before our half moon, we took a lunge parallel to the wall with fingertip pushes to prime our balance (great to do at home!).

• We moved into the gate pose series (parighasana), looking at both active/muscular and relaxed variations by exploring both side-bending and rotations.

From there, we transitioned into our final class of postures: back bends.

• We prepared for our final pose with a small series of modified cobra (bhujangasana) poses. With the help of our friends, who rooted our legs down into the mat by pushing on our calves, we rose up into locust pose (salabhasana).

To cool down and transition in savasana, we practiced ujjayi with an uneven rhythm - four counts inhale, six counts exhale. This is intended for relaxation, but also exposed some of us to the feeling of air hunger.

Contemplatively, we built on the concept of yogic sound (energy) as a creative force that exists not only in our observable world, but also the energy that we experience without looking for it. Energy that appears to us as insight or revelation or delight. It’s inexplicable, but absolutely true. This too is a generative force in our lives. Due to the playful nature of our class, we talked about how play invites the unexpected into our lives and invites to surrender some control. It’s a great first step to come into contact with that invisible energy. As my teacher Douglas says, “Yoga is a serious business, but we don’t have to take it so seriously.

Thank you all! And thanks to Evi and Seth for donating their bodies to yogic science! :)

Practice Notes - 1/19/26

Hello all.

This page is meant to be exactly what it says: notes on practice. Here, I’ll summarize and sometimes elaborate on what we covered in the Monday evening class, Yoga - A Complete Practice. This is intended to help those of you wanting to revisit or continue what we practiced in class. As always, reach out to me directly if you have more questions or want clarification.

_____________________________

JANUARY 19, 2026 - The Sound of the Practice

This week’s class focused on sound as one of the foundational elements of yoga, particularly as a generative force as we begin or return to our practices. Sound, in Hindu/yogic metaphysics, might be equated to our scientific understanding of energy/atomic theory. Sound is vibration is energy. As creatures capable of creating sound, believe yoga practitioners, this implies our own possibility to create and generate new possibilities and realities for ourselves.

We began by practicing ujjayi pranayama (trans. “rising/upwards breath control”). This breath forms the basis of movement practice. It’s lightly energizing yet also soothing for the nervous system thanks to the addition of a soft, whispering sound (like an ocean wave or fogging up a mirror). From there, we began our movement, or asana (trans. “posture). In asana, we explored:

• Seated warm-ups with the four spinal movements: flexion (bending forward), extension (bending backwards), side flexion (side bending), and rotation (twisting).

• Some of the basic postures of asana practice: cat/cow, cobra pose (with fingertip variation), downward- facing dog, forward fold, half forward fold, lunging poses (side bending and twisting variations), and bridges.

• We focused on balancing and thigh stretches, starting with a balance exercise on blocks and working towards balancing thigh stretches with straps (at the wall).

• We cooled down with hip stretches and twists lying down.

We practiced pranayama for about ten minutes, continuing to practice ujjayi breath with the intention of refining the sound of the breath, making it quiet and audible only to our immediate neighbors. We also worked on equalizing the duration of the breath, inhale and exhale. Then savasana. About ten minutes. :)

See you on the mat!