Where to Start Just the other day I reached a milestone by posting Yin yoga class recording #366 to the On Demand library of this website. My girlfriend, and other friends said, “That’s great, but it’s overwhelming. Who knows where to start?” Even as the classes are grouped into month-long categories, with individual sessions being […]
Blog
Yin Yoga Breathing
Inhale | Exhale A while back, one of my students, a Hollywood studio attorney, thought I’d be interested in knowing how she tactically utilized one of the characteristic elements of my Yin yoga classes out in the wild. Indeed, I was. She was part of a negotiation in, as I pictured it, a high-rise conference […]
Yin Yoga Postures
Fold, Bend, Twist A typical Yin yoga class likely includes postures such as forward folds, back bends, and spinal twists. In any given Yin yoga session the joints between the navel and the knees are the primary focus, and rather basic shapes are used to stimulate them. The hip joints, sacral joints, and lumbar vertebrae […]
Running
Correct | Incorrect No matter what kind of runner you are — elite, recreational, or novice — it’s a good bet you want to run farther, run faster, and run with less chance of injury. Or, just to run again with childlike joy and abandon. To these ends some think, for instance, that running success […]
Streaking
Necessary | Unnecessary Mark Twain said, “Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.” Shoe companies and health care providers have traditionally put forth that various levels of biomechanical shortcomings are the root cause of our locomotive problems. We are inherently flawed, the argument goes, and our only salvation is cleverly designed footwear. It’s no […]
Yin Yoga Posture Limiters
Tension | Compression Even if not specifically as a Yin yoga posture, a basic forward fold is a shape I’ve been doing for years and years. You have, too. It’s a simple, rather elemental shape within general human experience, and a combination of hip and spinal flexion. That is, you stand and bend over to […]
How Yin Yoga Affects Fascia
Relaxation | Creep In my lunar-phase-oriented Yin yoga classes, I point out that the New Moon is considered Yin. Yin, as you know, is dark, cold, still, quiet, concealed, and receptive. By contrast, I describe the Full Moon as Yang. Yang is bright, hot, active, loud, apparent, and assertive. These polarities are self-evident. And, as […]
Balance
Here | There September 22, 2023. On this day the Moon passes the local meridian of 180° due S at 7:01 pm Pacific time, just as Christopher’s Yin Yoga class is beginning, and ten minutes after the Sun has set. The Moon touches its light / shade equivalence at 12:09 pm. The next day, on […]
Awakening Your Yoga Practice
Yoga Yoga is a lifestyle practice. A process delivering perhaps at some point, enlightenment, and positively providing a set of guidelines with which to harmoniously navigate the human experience spiritually, morally, mentally, and physically. The discipline leading to self-knowledge is the unity offered to the ancients, and to us. From my observations, most practicing “yogis” […]
Earthing
Open | Closed What better day to do some “Earthing” than on the New Moon, under the Earth trigram? Within context of the Early Heaven Bagua — the Eight Changes — the Earth trigram represents the New Moon, and Yin, the receptive. It’s here and now that the seed of the Creative (Heaven) is planted. […]