Friend and yoga teacher, Jen, recently emailed me about Vasisthasana (Side Plank) alignment. She asked if turning the sole of your foot down on the bottom leg is healthy alignment or if it could be bad for your ankle. Well, let's take a look and see!

We've all heard from yoga teachers to NEVER put your lifted foot on the knee of your standing leg, but can you safely put your foot on your knee in tree pose without catastrophe?!? Short answer is... probably. Fellow yoga teacher, Kellyn, recently asked for my thoughts on an article about this Vrksasana (Tree Pose) topic. 

It's one thing to be able to control your core while holding a yoga pose, but as you grow and progress in your practice, you might be ready for a bigger challenge. Here's a little activity that I call inversion walking to take you to the next level of core control. It's a lot harder to keep your core stable when the things attached to it (like your legs) are moving all around. Give it a shot and let me know what you think!

There's ALWAYS more to grow, and that's why we call yoga a practice. No matter where you are in this journey there is another step to be taken. Be thankful and content for where you are, but appreciate the things to come! As for asana, a common way to progress a movement or body position and make it stronger is to do that movement or position on an unstable surface. This challenges and improves your balance, proprioception, and strength. It's like standing on solid ground vs. standing on an exercise ball. It takes A LOT more effort. Here's a way to challenge your handstand. In the video below, you can see that I sway a little and need to adjust a lot to hold my handstand, but that's the point!

Give the blocks a good squeeze! I like to hook my fingers over the front of the blocks slightly to get a better grip. Be careful on this one though! You need to have a pretty stable handstand on solid ground first for this challenge. Try not to dump your weight into your wrists or you could injure them. Have fun!

Namasté

The popular fitness blog, aSweatLife recently interviewed Dr. Dominika M. Hertsberg and me about yoga for runners. The high impact of running can cause a lot of stresses on your body. Yoga is an excellent way to balance your running routine and aid in your recovery. Check out our thoughts and recommendations here!

So much activity is going on in your body from your fingers all the way to your toes when practicing Adho Mukha Vrksasana, the handstand! And the mighty handstand is definitely a pose that many of us want to perfect, so I'll start to offer some tips from my upcoming handstand workshop at The Yoga Shop!

What's CYF?!? CYF stands for Chow Yun Fat, a Hong Kong action-movie star famous for flying sideways with two guns a-blazin'. I know that's not very yogic... but he is the inspiration for this pose. This variation will challenge your balance, rotary core stability,  and hip mobility and hip stability all at the same time. Give it a shot today (pun intended)!

Are you forgetting about your backside? If you spend most of your day sitting, there's a good chance that you are suffering from glute amnesia.