Karen Ashby

By Dr. Kaiya Ansorge What is a koan? A koan is a phrase or word that is used in meditation to train the mind. Usually, the koan is somewhat puzzling in order to invite the mind to open in unusual ways. In fact, the term is often translated as “riddle.” Koan literature involves enigmatic sayings or questions that, when meditated upon continuously, are meant to resolve in specific ways that indicate the path of insight for the initiate. On the other hand, other traditions assert that koans are not meant to be resolved but are instead ways to open us to a contemplative relationship with ephemera in the mind—rather than rational, problem-solving approaches. The history and development of koan meditation is complex and reaches back to ancient China. However, this form of meditation can be modified to help those of us who are not planning to become Buddhist monks or scholars. We can use koans in their original formulations, or we can ...

By Alicia Dill Starting in 2013, I’ve been practicing regularly at the same hot yoga studio two to three times per week. Hot yoga gives me intensity, focus, mindfulness, and dripping heat you feel in your bones even in the dead of winter. While holding a complicated pose well past your comfort zone, you start to comprehend all those buzzwords you’ve heard tossed around. The point where you are working mind, body, and soul. Where you forget your own name and everything else that led you to the class because if you waver, you might fall down in a puddle of sweat. It’s a glorious way to exercise the warrior that needs to push to the edge and just flow. So my confession of the pandemic…I haven’t stepped foot inside a yoga studio since March 2020. That’s crazy talk! Just writing about it, I’m aching to be back. But the other part of me says, I’m not ready. And I’m giving myself the space to be ready. To be clear, I’m all about the yoga, and the heat, but I’m not ready to practice with ot...

By Melissa Bryan Lead With Love Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu. May all beings be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and freedom for all. Valentine’s Day 2021 recently passed, and as I sit on the opposite side of that holiday having just taught my high school students to create heart maps to identify the parts of their lives that fill their hearts, and having just finished Romeo & Juliet with some and Great Expectations with others, I find myself reflecting a lot on love and how it works in the universe. Literature helps us question the larger, and perhaps fated, direction of our future existence; story syntax offers us that predictive power. What, however, helps us live those universal governing concepts? How do we practice transcendent and deep love in our present? Yoga teaches us that. These words, “Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu” remind us that love radiates out from us; it is the hope for e...

Yoga can provide you with techniques to teach you how to, at any moment, step into the eye of the storm. – Find Your Why Foundation Let me ask you something…are you confident enough to step into the eye of the storm? Probably not. Let me ask you this…why would you want to step into the eye of the storm? Because that is where the growth is. Or how about this – do you know your WHY? Maybe not. Or this – why do you practice yoga? To be flexible? To be strong? To help with anxiety? Wrong answers! These are not your WHY as to why you bring yourself to your mat or meditation cushion each day. These are the results of practicing yoga. But your WHY is something else. I didn’t know too much about this until I did my teacher training and we did deep transformational work with a “touch of yoga” thrown in, (which in turn ended up being the transformational work without us evening knowing!) Mind. Blown. So, here’s my WHY: ‘To be st...

By Dr. Sat Bir S. Khalsa Perceived stress and anxiety can be a normal and healthy response to life circumstances. But for some, the fast pace and uncertainty of modern society causes debilitating levels of stress and anxiety. Chronic, unmanaged stress hurts our quality of life and is responsible for an increase in health issues and disorders across the world. It is a psycho-social crisis that has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Rates of anxiety in the U.S. have more than tripled in the second quarter, from 8.1% in 2019 to 25.5% in 2020. [1] The resulting negative emotions are not only traumatic, but also make our immune systems more vulnerable. Managing these draining emotions is difficult but doable.  Exercise, breathing techniques, relaxation and meditation have all been shown to mitigate anxiety. It is no surprise that traditional yoga — a practice that combines all four techniques — is what more people are relying on to manage their anxiety. However, yoga has ...

By Kyle Shrivastava When people think about yoga, strength isn’t always the first thing that comes to mind. But this doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t be a part of your practice! Traditional asana practices often feature long holds (which build endurance) and passive stretching (which increases passive flexibility). However, as yoga evolves we’re seeing a shift towards building power and increasing active flexibility through dynamic movement. Perhaps the most distinct shift is the strength that yogis are now cultivating. This is partly spearheaded by yogi’s bringing in lessons and knowledge from other athletic disciplines such as dance, martial arts, and calisthenics.  The physical practice of yoga is actually quite well-suited for strength building for two reasons. The first is that it utilizes repetition . When we repeat a motion, whether it be a Chaturanga or Warrior II, we progressively fatigue our muscles which allows them to grow back stronger. Secondly, each posture in y...

When you see the likes of Rafael Nadal battering the ball around a tennis court, it might not be immediately clear how yoga and tennis fit together. However, yoga has been a key ingredient in improved tennis fitness, and it’s changed the way the game is played. Over the last 15 years, professional tennis has become a much more physical sport. Gone are the days of serve and volley and part time professionals; tennis is now a very demanding full-time job.  Where a normal person will have the weekend to recover from a long week at work, a professional tennis player must recover from gruelling long matches while travelling and keeping up intense hours of practice. This means pros need to find a way to effectively and efficiently look after their bodies, engage in active recovery and improve their on-court performance in a time effective manner. If only such a thing existed… Here’s where yoga has shown to be a vital to...

By Shanti Kaur Khalsa The COVID-19 pandemic has made the world far more uncertain. It’s impacted our work and finances, our relationships, and of course, our physical and mental health. Finding the sense of surety we all crave is almost impossible, which leads to stress, anxiety, and powerlessness that drains us emotionally. These feelings of helplessness can be traumatic, putting our body and mind in a constant “flight or fight” state. Staying in this tense state for too long not only hurts our quality of life but makes our immune systems more vulnerable.  It’s important to recognize that this stress is a natural response to what’s happening in the world. After being gentle with ourselves, we also need to find a self-care routine that treats both the body and the mind, helping us to break the cycle of endless “what-ifs” about tomorrow’s challenges.  There are plenty of ways to cope with anxiety from uncertainty. Exercise, meditation, and breathing techniques...

Meditation. Yoga. The two go together like Batman & Robin (though with less capes… usually). As spiritual health practices that have both found popularity in the West over the past 50 years, we tend to lump yoga and meditation together. Whenever we read of one, the other usually isn’t far behind. And when we’re shopping for yoga pants it’s no surprise to see a meditation mala in the vicinity. Yet despite the obvious correlation between yoga and meditation, there are still countless people who do one or the other and not both. Big mistake.  Yoga makes you better at meditation because it creates a relaxed body that is conducive to a relaxed mind. Not to mention, it also makes it far easier to get into lotus position without feeling like your legs are going to snap in two.  And meditation makes us better at yoga in five key ways. Let’s take a look. How meditation makes us better at yoga 1. Meditation helps us focus on asanas When we’re practicing yoga, we are, of ...

Approximately 1 in 4 people (in the UK) suffer from a mental health condition . Couple this with recent research suggesting that 300 million people practise yoga worldwide, and it is reasonable to assume that someone in your yoga class has experienced, is experiencing or will experience an episode of poor mental health. Given our current circumstances, this likelihood is significantly higher, as mental health charities have reported an increase in cases of anxiety, OCD and depression due to the COVID-19 pandemic . Yet for all this, yoga teachers are not therapists, nor should they be dealt with the responsibility of counselling their students. Mental health is a delicate matter that requires a unique sensitivity and education, knowledge not obtained in a foundation teacher training. What yoga teachers can do is take steps to ensure their students feel safe and supported in class. Below are some suggestions on how to do so. “How are you, really?” Ask your students how they are. It ...

By Ram Jain People have been practicing fasting for many years for religious, spiritual or health reasons. Yogic philosophy also approves of fasting as a way to cleanse the body and to control both mind and body.  When you practice fasting you learn to control the senses and not to react on the tendency to eat food out of habit or routine.  Fasting allows the intestines to take a rest. They always work and because we keep eating, they never get to rest. While fasting, the intestines get the chance to digest all the food, to clean itself and to rest.  Fasting has always been a consistent part my lifestyle and has proven to be very beneficial, both physically and mentally.  Fasting can be done in many different ways. There are differences in length of fasting:  1-day fast every week 3-day fast every month one week fast a few times a year 10-day fast once a year or even several week fast A 1-day fast is the best way for beginners to experience fasting f...