I was recalling to my son how high school spring tennis was like for me, way back in the late eighties in New York State. First off, my teammates and I played with so many layers on. We could hardly move. Second, we often shoveled off the courts. Snow in March and April was/is very normal. Third, while other sports like baseball and softball had use of the indoor gymnasiums, my little team and I...
If you take note of how you typically move during an average day, not including your workout, you’ll find it to be mostly done in the sagittal plane. Walking is in the sagittal plane. Sitting down and up from a chair is in the sagittal plane. The action of riding a bike is in the sagittal plane. The spine does tend to engage in more movement variety, like twisting (transverse plane) and side bending (frontal...
It was a very cold Saturday morning and I rushed off to teach my 9am class. I arrived early enough to set up the classroom and (luckily) still had about 10minutes to spare, so I went ahead and sat in this particular studio’s sauna (they actually have two!). Barefoot and wearing my yoga clothes, I luxuriated in the warmth. My fingers and toes thawed out, my cheeks got rosy and my shoulders softened. I then went on to have a great class....
At the end of most yoga classes, there’s a designated few minutes of relaxation we call “shavasana,” where student lie on their backs and just rest. In Sanskrit, shavasana translates as “corpse pose” and is meant to be completely passive. Some yogi’s say it’s the hardest yoga pose of all for uswesterners, as passivity is not cherished in our culture and we tend to champion “yang energy” and action much much more. I don’t think it’s the...
Around 2013, there was a company called Trainerpass that reached out to me. They were creating an online fitness streaming site and wanted to license my older workout videos and also wanted me to create new workout videos for them. There was a signing bonus, and a 50page contract, and I had to lawyer up. The parent company was CBS interactive, which is a huge corporation. During their sales pitch to me they mentioned a Super Bowl advertisement. In 2013, streaming was...
If you look closely at the photo, you’ll see we’re all on our tip toes. This action is called a relevé and I’m a big fan. In fact, if you’ve done my classes, you know it’s one of my signature moves. Here are the top five reasons why I incorporate the relevé into a workout whenever possible: They strengthen the muscles of the feet. They promote stabilization of the ankle joint. They strengthen 360degrees around the core. They provide a...
There are 33 individual interlocking bones that form your spinal column. The top 24 bones are moveable, while the lower vertebrae (in the sacrum and coccyx region) are fused together and therefore don’t articulate. This is so “yin and yang” – stable and set at the trunk, free and flowing at the crown. Did you know the spine, your spine, is a genius, sophisticated design? What a stroke of luck it is to have one! Here are 10 ways...
There’s a term I heard recently that really resonated – air bathing. It’s like sun bathing but with air instead. I am, for sure, a bona fide air bather. I love love love being in an environment, ideally amongst the trees, far away from highways and other pollutants, just breathing it all in. Basically, I love air. Here’s why you should too: Breathing is fuel. Because of breathing, you and I are able to move, talk, be, and...
When people come up to me before class to quickly give me a head’s up about an ailment they are struggling with, nine times out of ten it’s knee stuff. They may have injured it long ago playing soccer, or perhaps it’s a mysterious pain. (Oh, if I had a dime for every time I heard, “I have a bad knee.”) The knee is a complicated joint and unlike the elbow, the knee bares our body’s weight a lot of the time....
We’ve recently had some brutally gloomy days with cold rain and weird fog. It was a “driving with the headlights on during the day” kinda day, and you couldn’t tell what time it was because the lighting never shifted. It was very low vibe. Even the dogs just wanted to stay home, curled up, snug in their beds. Working out on days like these can appear against the grain. It can seem forced. The last thing you’re thinking of...
