by Gregor Maehle | Mar 2, 2018 | Asana, Ashtanga Yoga, Yoga Philosophy
Here is more evidence that the current Yoga-is-gymnastics-with-a-meditative-twist fad does not really stack up to what yoga truly is. In this stanza Patanjali defines the relationship between posture and the higher limbs. Included are many explanatory quotations from...
by Gregor Maehle | Feb 17, 2018 | Asana, Ashtanga Yoga, Yoga Philosophy
With yoga in they eyes of many modern practitioners reduced to posture (asana) here a timely revisit of what Patanjali, the ancient codifier of yoga, said about this third limb. This is the first part of Patanjali’s definition, given in sutra II.46. II.46...
by Gregor Maehle | Nov 11, 2017 | Anatomy/Rehabilitation, Asana, Ashtanga Yoga
Today unfortunately many students hurt their knees when performing postures and as the main culprit often the lotus and half-lotus postures are singled out. These postures, however, are completely safe as long as two things are observed: they are attempted only if the...
by Gregor Maehle | Oct 11, 2017 | Anatomy/Rehabilitation, Asana
I still find that the basics of forward bending are often poorly understood. Especially the importance of sacrum nutation and active release in forward bending are frequently ignored. Let’s have another look at Pashimottanasana: Sitting in Dandasana with legs...
by Gregor Maehle | Sep 28, 2017 | Asana, Yoga Philosophy
Yoga Sutra I.14: One becomes firmly established in practice only after attending to it for a long time, without interruption and with an attitude of devotion. We might practise for a while and then all at once find our past conditioning overwhelms our practice...
by Gregor Maehle | Sep 16, 2017 | Asana, Ashtanga Yoga, Teaching
In this article I have described Karandavasana in a way that it can be learned without a teacher lifting us up from the floor. While this may provide good exercise for the teacher I don’t think that it does much towards the student being able to perform the...
