I realize that this blog entry was in my drafts page; I never hit the publish button. As I ponder the few intervening weeks of snow (in some ways it feels as if time just stopped, except for the work… (READ MORE)
A key therapeutic alignment principle is “curvature before length.” This in essence means that we want to get our skeleton into the basic form of its “optimal blueprint” before trying to create length or extension. Making sure the spine has… (READ MORE)
When I think about the Anusara alignment principles in the context of the tattvas (see earlier posts), I think about “opening to grace” appearing in two places on the tier. As “first principle” it is the first among a larger… (READ MORE)
By order, I mean how things are arranged in space or time. Even chaos theory presumes order in that sense. On and off the mat, there is a certain order to things that is optimal. We do not plant seeds… (READ MORE)
I think one of the most wonderful things about the Anusara principle of skull loop is that it uses the head to bring mind into connection with the body. Far too often, staying in our heads or using our mind… (READ MORE)
My students this fall and those of you following the blog know that I have been teaching the basic Anusara physical principles of alignment in sequence as the focus of my weekly classes. I did not set out to do… (READ MORE)
I contemplated long and hard about how to teach the Anusara principle of pelvic loop. If students are already tending to bring the tops of the thighs forward, without doing enough inner spiral enhanced by thigh loop (which together take… (READ MORE)
A couple of years ago, I took a brilliant class with Desiree Rumbaugh in which she used the theme of “getting out of our own way” to lead us to a place to better integrate our shoulders. As I was practicing… (READ MORE)
When I think of the Anusara principle of calf loop, I think of playing with drinking straws as a child. I’d take the straw out of the glass and bend it back and forth. The straw would end up with… (READ MORE)
When I was meditating this morning, the last lines of Keats’ ‘Ode on A Grecian Urn’ welled up in my thoughts: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” … (READ MORE)