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New Podcast Interview: How Our Obsession with Alignment is Causing Anxiety

Cover image for The Mentor Sessions Podcast featuring Dr. Ariele Foster on How to Respond to Students Who Want "Correct" Alignment

My most recent blog post, How Our Obsession with Yoga Alignment Misses the Point, is the product of a massive paradigm shift that was at least a decade and a half in the making. Despite the indisputable fact that yoga helps many people, asana can cause harm, and is not universally “good”. Yet the idea […]

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30 Day Yoga Challenges are Popular, but are They Healthy?

Is there such a thing as too much yoga? Thirty day (or other length) yoga challenges have become a thing in the last 15 years…and therefore a staple of the yoga world every January.  Typically these challenges involve attending a yoga class (virtually or in person) each and every day for 30 days in a […]

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How to Avoid Destroying Your Hips in Yoga

yoga hip injuries, hip injuries yoga, hip injury, hip injuries in yoga, yoga mentor, yoga mentorship, yoga podcast, yoga anatomy, yoga injury

Francesca Cervero kindly invited me to be a return guest on her podcast, The Mentor Sessions: Support and Strategy for Yoga Teachers to talk about HIPS, specifically yoga hip injuries. (If you missed the first episode on anatomy-informed yoga, you can listen here). Francesca and I both experienced major hip injuries, as in the kind […]

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Posterior Chain Awakens: 5 Poses to Overcome Yoga Butt

Many patients who seek treatment in my physical therapy practice are yogis. Because I am both a physical therapist and a long time interdisciplinary yoga teacher, yoga practitioners trust me with their injuries and physical challenges. I see one yoga-related challenge (sometimes I see it before it becomes a full injury) more frequently than any […]

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Balancing the Science & the Mystery in Yoga

Teaching anatomy for yoga practitioners is about much more than relaying the nuts and bolts (muscles and bones). In order to understand anatomy in the context of the vastness of yoga, we must understand how yoga, yoga classes, and yoga teaching influence bodies and fit in to a larger conversation about the intersection of yoga […]

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Skipping Headstand to Go Straight to Handstand?

Handstand before Headstand…is that ok? YogaAnatomyAcademy has been spotted in the March 2018 edition of Women’s Health Magazine!  This was a fun, first experience: picking up a magazine in the airport and finding your own face inside. In the Ask Anything section, we (I) answer this: “I have neck issues, so headstands make me nervous. […]

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Three Anatomy Wisdom Nuggets (Podcast! + FREEBIE)

Three golden nuggets of anatomy wisdom on M.B.Om – Mastering the Business of Yoga Podcast Yoga Anatomy Academy had the great privilege of being featured on yet another podcast (the third in 3 months!), in which we share three of our most audio-friendly nuggets of anatomy wisdom. (If you missed the first two, please check […]

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Any Yoga Pose Can Harm, Any Yoga Pose Can Heal

yoga injury, harm from yoga, is yoga good for you

One of the first principles of teaching anatomically sound asana is this: Any yoga pose can harm; Any yoga pose can heal. For example, Tadasana (Mountain Pose) can reinforce poor postural habits, or it can build strength. Headstand is likely to cause excess pressure on cervical vertebrae, but may also be a skillful way to […]

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The Hidden Pulling Actions in Chaturanga or The Problem is Never the Pose

Amid the growing awareness that yoga asana is not always an infallible and complete physical workout, has been a tendency to dismiss certain poses (for example: wild thing, sleeping pigeon, chaturanga) as culprits of injury. The real culprit In reality, the culprits of injury — no matter the physical pursuit — are excessive repetition of movement […]

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