Geeta Iyengar is the daughter of living yoga master B. K. S. Iyengar and is the director’s of her father’s Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute (RIMYI) in Pune, India. She is a world-class teacher in her own right, and an authority on adapting yoga for the special needs of women. She is the author of Yoga: A Gem for Women, and Iyengar Yoga for Motherhood: Safe Practice for Expectant & New Mothers. In 2002, on a teaching tour of Europe, she gave a lecture in Poland on yoga for women which was transcribed and published in 2009 with many illustrations. The transcript has been made available as a fee download online by the folks at The Yoga Studio in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It’s worth downloading and reading if you are a student or teacher who wants to know more about the hows and whys of adapting asana practice to support a woman’s monthly cycle.

Download the .pdf file here.

(Lois Steinberg, of the Yoga Institute of Champagne-Urbana in Illinois, has written a comprehensive guide to yoga for a woman’s menstrual cycle based on Geeta Iyengar’s work. It can be found here.)

Thanks to Kristen Davis at Yogasana Center in Brooklyn, New York for the tip.

Tags: Restorative Poses, Therapeutics, Women's Yoga

This practice features standing poses and twists. As you go through the sequence, consider the following points:

• Lengthen the sides of your torso, keeping the back and chest equally wide to create a long and evenly balanced spine.
• As you twist, when you turn your chest in one direction, turn your hips in the opposite direction so that the twist happens safely in the middle of the torso.
• Allow yourself to be supported by your inner thighs by narrowing and lengthening them. From that support, allow your buttocks, outer hips and lower back to soften and widen.

Tags: Buttocks, Core Connectivity, Grounding, Inner Thighs, Opposing, Reaching, Standing Poses, Twists, Widening, Wrapping

This practice includes a lot of rope work, so it might not be accessible to everyone.

Back Actions:

• Widen evenly across three bands of the back: the pelvic fan muscles and the two bands that include the superior posterior serratus and the inferior posterior serratus. The pelvic fans we explored here and the posterior serratus we explored here.

Core Actions:

Support the widening of the back actions with these front body actions:

• Turn the xiphoid process towards the navel.
• Draw from the sitting bones to the pubic bone to  to the navel.
• In general, find a connection inwards, from the extremities to the core, in order to find the strength and coordination to expand back out into the limbs.

Wrist Actions in Ropes:

• Widen across the heel of the hand and thumb mound.
• Lengthen from the forearm to the fingertips across back of the wrists.
• Draw from the heel of the hand to the forearm to strengthen the hand and wrists. (more…)

Tags: Abdominal Poses, Art of Movement, Back Bends, Chest Openers, Core Connectivity, Inversions, Opposing, Reaching, Rope Work, Shoulder Openers, Softening, Upper Body Strength, Widening

Lou's Sequence (click to enlarge)

 [I enjoyed doing the first Behind the Sequence post and thought other yoga teachers might as well, so I'm turning it into an occasional series.]

Lou Asselin discovered Yoga in 1999 at Studio Yoga in Madison-NJ with Theresa Rowland who holds several Iyengar Yoga certifications and with whom she completed her teacher training in 2005. Since 2002 she has been teaching general classes as well as specialty classes. Lou has taught yoga for Athletes (weekend warriors, swimmers, and semi-pro football players), Restorative classes, Power yoga, yoga for Seniors and older adults, Gentle and Prenatal yoga, yoga for kids and teens, Yoga for Backcare, beginners and intermediate classes among others. Her training allowed her to study with many of the great, senior Iyengar teachers from all over the world. Since moving to New York in 2008 she studies with Genny Kapuler.

You can find Lou and take her classes at Yogasana Center in Brooklyn, NY, and also at Yoga Union and its sister studio Yoga Union Center for Back Care and Scoliosis in Manhattan.

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Tags: Behind the Sequence

“In Our Time” is a remarkable weekly radio show on BBC Radio 4 hosted by veteran broadcaster, Melvyn Bragg, in which a panel of experts discuss important events and ideas in the cultural history of humankind. On March of this year they did a wonderful overview of India’s beloved spiritual text, the Bhagavad Gita. It’s only 45 minutes long and gives you a real sense of its history and content. Well worth a listen.

“In Our Time: The Bhagavad Gita” (streaming via BBC iPlayer)

If the streaming link is no longer available, check the podcast archives for the download. And browse around, there’s some great stuff there.

Tags: Bhagavad Gita

In this sequence, think of lengthening the inner thighs, as in the previous practice, while softening and widening the buttocks, the outer hips, outer thighs and lower back.

Think of softening and widening the entire side body from the outer hips all the way up to the highest point of the armpits.

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Tags: Deepening the Hip Crease, Forward Bends, Hamstrings, Hip Openers, Leg Balances, Opposing, Seated Poses, Standing Poses, Surrendering, The Side Body, Widening, Wrapping

The big day is over and you still have a long weekend ahead of you. You’ve got time on your hands and an abundance of energy. Time to put it to good use. This practice has a little bit of everything in it: inversions, standing poses, core work, back bends and twists. Feel free to cut it back according to your capabilities and the time available to you. You might try doing about half of the poses in the practice today, half of the poses tomorrow and then have a go at the whole thing from beginning to end on Sunday.

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Tags: Abdominal Poses, Back Bends, Core Connectivity, Forward Bends, Grounding, Holiday Special, Inversions, Leg Balances, Opposing, Reaching, Reclined Poses, Standing Poses, Thanksgiving, Twists, Widening, Wrapping

This is practice is for when you need a time-out. Perhaps after the meal is underway, after cleaning up, or after company has finally gone. It is a quiet practice designed to restore and rejuvenate.

If you have an eye pillow or a face cloth, place it over your eyes in the supine poses.

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Tags: Dharana, Dhyana, Forward Bends, Grounding, Hamstrings, Holiday Special, Meditation, Reclined Poses, Reflecting, Restorative Poses, Sense Withdrawal, Softening, Thanksgiving, Widening

This quiet practice is designed for later in the day, after the big meal, or perhaps the next morning. It is a quiet, supported practice, designed to open the abdomen and to create space for digestion to happen.

Later on, perhaps even the next day once you’ve had a chance to digest, repeat The Fire in Your Belly Practice.

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Tags: Digestion, Holiday Special, Reclined Poses, Reflecting, Restorative Poses, Seated Poses, Softening, Stomach, Surrendering, Thanksgiving, Widening

In just two days’ time you might be finding yourself sitting in front of a table spread with all sorts of delicious holiday foods. If you’re like me, even if you put just a small helping of everything on your plate, you’re still going to end up with a huge plate of food. This practice is designed to open your abdomen, tone your organs and increase blood flow to your digestive tract, stoking your digestive fires in preparation for the occasion.

Modify the practice according to your capabilities and the time you have available, but try and keep at least one of each of the different kinds of poses: standing, abdominals, twists and inversions. (more…)

Tags: Abdominal Poses, Digestion, Holiday Special, Inversions, Organs, Standing Poses, Thanksgiving, Twists, Widening, Wrapping