Saint Nicholas Parade in Belgium by Brad GibsonThe staff of Yoga for Healthy Aging is taking a holiday week between Christmas and New Year's. But we'll back back on the first of January with a surprise for the New Year. See you th...
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Monday, December 24, 2012
Wondering What to Practice at Home? Consider a Private Lesson
by TimothyDoor by Brad GibsonIn a recent post Home Practice: The Best Way to Improve Your Health and Well-Being, I wrote about the value of a regular home practice. Practicing at home is particularly important for people with a medical condition who can’t do (or at least probably shouldn’t be doing) most public classes. But medical condition or not, the question remains, which yoga practices should you be doing at home? One of the best ways to find...
Friday, December 21, 2012
Friday Q&A: Death of a Student
Q: I am a yoga teacher on the East Coast & have been teaching for 6 years. Last week, I found out a young student in one of my gym classes died (suicide, 2 weeks ago). He had been attending this class fairly regularly for the past 2+ years. The class is small, but it is not the type of environment where the students have developed close relationships with one another. They show up, practice & leave (it’s an evening class). We would have a few minutes before class to sit & wait for the earlier class to finish, but that’s the extent of...
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Keeping Your Sacrum and SI Joints Happy and Healthy
by ShariKeeping His Sacrum Happy and HealthyNow that I’ve described how the sacrum moves (see Yoga and the Sacrum), let’s look at how the sacrum and sacroiliac joints work in some of the typical yoga poses we encounter in a class, and how to keep your SI joint healthy and happy while you do them. Hopefully this will provide help for people who are already suffering from sacroiliac joint problems as well as for people who would like to avoid developing...
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Yoga and the Sacrum
by ShariNina asked me to expand a bit on Baxter’s previous post on sacroiliac challenges with asana practice (see Friday Q&A: Sacroiliac (SI) Joint Injuries). I wanted to start by giving a little more background on sacroilac anatomy. As Baxter previously stated, the sacrum is nestled in between the two ilia bones that comprise the pelvis. The front of the pelvis is the symphysis pubis and the back is where the sacrum is located.The sacrum is...
Monday, December 17, 2012
Bringing Yoga to Her Community: An Interview with Muriel Zimmerman
by NinaStarting this blog with Brad and Baxter was the beginning of an adventure. Naturally we hoped there was an audience for our information on yoga and aging, but we didn’t think too much about who those people would be. Now, just over a year later, we find that we have readers not just all over our country, but also all over the world. And the information we’ve been providing has not only influenced the way people have been practicing and teaching...
Friday, December 14, 2012
Friday Q&A: To Roar or Not To Roar (Lion Pose)
Q: I am a devoted Swedish yogini and also a physiotherapist, and I am following your posts with great interest. I was searching for the "roaring lion pose" but did not find any on your site. I understand that there are a lot of benefits to this yoga exercise and I am interested to know how you think about it. I am really into yoga "as medicine" and I am very devoted learning about yoga so I can inspire and help people. So what do you think about the pose? When would you apply it in a sequence? What are the contraindications?A: Thanks for such a...
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Yoga, Stress, and Weight Management
by NinaChocolate-Almond Candy Heart by Brad GibsonAre you planning to relax over the holidays? Because if you’re not and you are worried about gaining weight, perhaps you should set aside some time for yoga.You see, I’m helping Baxter with research for his upcoming workshop on Yoga for Healthy Eating at the San Francisco Yoga Journal Conference in January and I’ve learned exactly how stress can induce weight gain. Of course, we all know about so-called...
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Yoga is a great thing but...
by Nina Stop Sign by Brad Gibson“Yoga is a great thing but it is not everything or the only thing.”That’s the sentence that popped into my mind while I was practicing yoga yesterday afternoon (a very enjoyable backbend practice, by the way). In the back of my mind, I was obviously mulling over a post I read on the It’s All Yoga Baby blog (see when the yoga doesn’t work: depression, failure & the purpose of practice), in which Roseanne talked...
"Transferring" and Yoga: Wisdom from Jane Fonda
by BaxterNina recently shared with me some fascinating information about Jane Fonda, who has lived many lives, from actor to fitness guru to political activist, just to name a few. Fonda reportedly used to practice a more strenuous yoga two hours a day. “But” she says now, “those days are long gone. It got to be too hard.” All of that hard work has paid off even as Fonda approaches her golden years, though. She puts it this way: “Every single...
Monday, December 10, 2012
Practicing Yoga Mindfully
by NinaRaindrops and Reflections by Nina ZolotowAlthough it’s a rather new concept, approaching yoga poses as a mindfulness practice is a very powerful tool for improving your physical and mental health. Whether you are trying to change your eating habits, reduce your stress, or heal from disease, learning to listen to your body is crucial. In his wonderful book Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn points out what happens if we simply operate...
Friday, December 7, 2012
Friday Q&A: Sacroiliac (SI) Joint Injuries
Q: I have been having problems with low back pain caused by my sacroiliac joint (SI joint) going out of alignment. It seems like something I'm doing in my yoga practice is making it worse. I’m looking for both techniques to snap the sacrum and pelvis back into place and alignment, and advice on how to prevent this from happening. I would appreciate any help with this. I want to keep practicing!A: I asked Baxter to answer this question because he’s the back care expert (and MD), but since I’ve had this problem myself, I know a little something about...
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Featured Sequence: Travel Mini Sequence
by NinaMy chiropractor, Dr. Claire-Marie Holman, in Berkeley, California is also a yoga teacher. (I get adjustments for my scoliosis—for some conditions, yoga can only do so much.) As part of my self-care, Dr. Holman discusses my home practice with me, recommending certain poses for their therapeutic benefits. When I recently went in for a treatment, I was in between trips. So I asked Dr. Holman to recommend just a few poses for me to do while I...
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Knee Replacements and Yoga
by ShariNina asked me to add to Baxter’s previous post Arthritis of the Knee and Yoga about what the next step might be when your own self-care management techniques are not as effective and your quality of life is severely impacted. So I thought I would you give some background about the elective procedure total knee replacement and why you might elect to have it done. Professionally, I see a lot of total knee replacements in my work as a home health...
Arthritis of the Shoulder and Yoga
by BaxterIf you have been following our blog for any amount of time, you’ve become familiar with the wide variety of joints and areas of our boney spine that can be affected by osteoarthritis. From your hands to your toes, any movable joint is subject to this condition of wear and tear on the end surfaces of the bones and their slick, cushiony covering, the cartilage. The older we get, the more likely we are to develop osteoarthritis somewhere in...
