yoga teaching
7 Ways Repurposing is Vital to Your Content Strategy
Most yoga teachers I know feel that coming up with content is consistently is daunting at best, completely depleting and ego-crushing at worst. I...
How to Copyedit Your Own Yoga Blog Content
This post comes to you from a student, Zethyn McKinley, who took Content Blueprint for Yoga Teachers. She posted it in our private Facebook group...
Move Before You Meditate: A Yoga Sequence to Prepare for Meditation
I typically meditate first thing in the morning and a short yoga sequence helps me shake off sleepiness before I settle in to meditation. This is...
A Balanced Yoga Sequence to Lotus Pose
QUESTIONI struggle with tight hips and I want to learn Lotus Posture (Padmasana). Can you suggest a yoga sequence that will help me open my hips and...
Essential Sequence: Winning in Warrior III
WHY THIS SEQUENCE WORKS I spent my first two years of yoga avoiding Warrior III. Then, I spent another year avoiding it. Finally, after avoiding it...
10 Creative Ways to Inspire Your Yoga Practice This Summer
When summer rolls around, yoga practice can fall by the wayside -- the longer days mean we spend more time outdoors, we travel, those of us who have...
Essential Sequence: Learn to Love Camel Pose
WHY THIS CAMEL POSE SEQUENCE WORKS Students who love Ustrasana, Camel Pose, praise the pose for the way it opens the shoulders, chest and...
Revolved Triangle Sequence: Stretch Your Hamstrings, IT Band, Outer Hips, and Spinal Muscles
You know those poses that you once loathed, but now you love? At first, they had the audacity to make you feel awkward, imbalanced, and mortal....
Essential Sequence: Wake Up and Flow
Full disclaimer: when it comes to the morning, I’m a coffee first kind of guy. Yoga is a close second. But, it’s second nonetheless. It wasn’t...
Essential Yoga Sequence for Lower Back Pain
I know back pain. I’ve dealt with varying degrees of back pain—from mild to severe—for more than 20 years. I’ve also worked with hundreds of...
Essential Sequence: Neck, Shoulders, and Upper Back
WHY THIS SEQUENCE WORKS Your shoulders have a lot of moving parts. Each shoulder has 4 joints (GH, AC, SC, ST), plus layers and layers of soft...
A Smart Yoga Flow for Hamstrings
I am a vinyasa flow girl through and through. I believe that spending time studying alignment is vital to a lifelong yoga practice -- whether in the...
Essential Sequence: The Perfect Shoulderstand Prep
WHY THIS SARVANGASANA (SHOULDERSTAND) SEQUENCE WORKS I’m going to start this article with the same caveat that I included in my Headstand sequence:...
Essential Sequence: Refine Your Headstand
WHY THIS YOGA HEADSTAND SEQUENCE WORKS Let me start with a big caveat about this practice: This yoga headstand practice is NOT designed to teach you...
Twist into Eka Pada Koundinyasana I
WHY THIS EKA PADA KOUNDINYASANA SEQUENCE WORKS When I practice difficult postures I have to be strategic. Since I don’t have the natural flexibility...
Essential Sequence: Stretch into Parivrtta Janu Sirsasana
WHY THE PARIVRTTA JANU SIRSASANA SEQUENCE WORKS Nothing beats a good side-bending practice. And, truthfully, the recipe for the classic posture...
Essential Sequence: Pigeon + Chaturanga = Eka Pada Galavasana
WHY THIS FLYING PIGEON SEQUENCE WORKS Eka Pada Galavasana is not an easy posture, but it’s a simple posture. If you take a step back and look at the...
Yoga and Your Hips, Part III
These are, hands down, my 15 favorite hip opening yoga poses. Creating a balanced, effective hip-opening sequence is simple if you know how...
A Shoulder Opening Sequence to Forearm Balance
WHY THIS FOREARM STAND SEQUENCE WORKS This sequence leading to Forearm Stand focuses on creating greater range of movement in your shoulders....
30-Minute Morning Sequence
Practicing first thing in the morning has never been easy for me. But, I’ve adapted to the early hours by creating a simple, brief morning yoga...
A Yoga Hack to Get You Through an Emotional Holiday
The holidays are a mixed bag for most. They’re so often fraught with memory and expectation that it’s as though the frequency of our daily...
Abs Reboot: Four Creative Core Yoga Poses
When you regularly practice poses that strengthen your core, you’ll feel more stable in your practice and more at ease in your everyday life. When I...
16-Pose Sequence to Help You Progress in Compass Pose
I hear more sweet sighs of relief when I teach yoga sequences that focus on side-bends than any other posture category. Side-bending in poses like...
Peak Pose Sequence: Tittibhasana (Firefly Pose)
In my 500-hour Teacher-Training Programs I have my students compare Bakasana and Titthibhasana, or Firefly Pose, with the aim of learning how to...
Peak Pose Sequence: Handstand
I know I'm not alone in my love for Handstand. It's empowering, strengthening, and fun. Whether you’re working at the wall, in a studio, or trying...
Peak Pose Sequence: Build Your Vasisthasana (Side Plank)
In order to prepare your body for Vasisthasana, you need to open your hamstrings, adductors (inner leg muscles) and outer-hips. It’s also a good...
Essential Sequence: Quick Hip Openers
This sequence focuses on stretching the muscles around the whole circumference of the hip joint. It's great for relieving tension that can...
Essential Sequence: Sun Salutations (Surya Namaskar B)
After a few rounds of Surya Namaskar A (here’s your refresher on that sequence if you’re unfamiliar), you’ll be warmed up and ready to move through...
Essential Sequence: 30-Minute Whole Body Sequence
There are days when we want to work toward a peak pose, and there are other days when we're not sure what to do with our bodies. On those days, I...
Essential Sequence: Sun Salutations (Surya Namaskar A)
Surya Namaskar, or Sun Salutations, are the quintessential yoga warm-up sequence. They combine deep breathing with flowing movement, they stretch...
Essential Sequence: Evening Wind Down
I’ve spent many an evening, after a long, hard day doing these poses in our living room while family life happens around me. That might mean that my...
Essential Sequence: Parsva Bakasana (Side Crow)
I love creating sequences for Parsva Bakasana. I always have. Since the posture contains so many components, there are countless ways I can take the...
Essential Sequence: Immune Booster
This sequence is invaluable to have in your back pocket during the winter months. It’s not a high-intensity practice – it’s a healing, nurturing,...
Essential Sequence: Two Core Yoga Routines
The holidays invite us to settle in, slow down, and spend time savoring the most essential elements of our lives. They also include planes, trains,...
Essential Sequence: Fold into Lotus Pose
Lotus Pose (Padmasana) is one you were likely familiar with before you ever set foot in a yoga studio. Surely you'd seen sculptures of Siddartha or...
Essential Sequence: Open into Hanumanasana
Do you remember sliding easily into Hanumanasana (which you likely called "the splits") when you were a kid? If you don't, not to worry -- I don't...
Essential Sequence: Ease into Urdhva Dhanurasana
Urdhva Dhanurasana, aka Upward-Bow or Wheel Pose or simply "Backbend," is an iconic pose in the yoga canon. Visually it represents the acrobatic...
Essential Sequence: Bakasana
This Bakasana sequence builds up to the peak pose Bakasana, aka Crane or Crow Pose. You'll engage your core, do several poses to encourage flexion...