• QUOTES:
  • T.K.V. Desikachar: “Your yoga practice must aways be a little more clever than your habits (tapas).”
  • T.K.V. Desikachar: “The recognition of confusion is a form of clarity.”
  • T.K.V. Desikachar: “Yoga therapy is 90% waste removal.”
  • T.K.V. Desikachar: “The form of the practice should serve the function.”
  • T.K.V. Desikachar: “The success of Yoga does not lie in the ability to perfom postures but in how it positively changes the way we live our life and our relationships.”
  • T.K.V. Desikachar: “Whenever you are in doubt, it is best to pause. Few things are so pressing that they cannot wait for a moment of breath.”
  • T.K.V. Desikachar: “The form of the practice should serve the function.”
  • T.K.V. Desikachar: “Without the breath it’s not Yoga.”
  • Amy Matthews: “An asana is a container for an experience.”
  • Amy Matthews, paraphrasing Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen: “Alignment is a clear pathway of weight passing through balanced joint spaces.”
  • Amy Matthews, paraphrasing Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen: “Healthy movement is well-distributed: a little bit of movement from a lot of places.”
  • Conversely, Leslie Kaminoff says “Unhealthy movement is too much movement coming from too few places repeated too many times (repetitive stress).”
  • Leslie Kaminoff/Amy Matthews mash-up: “It is far more powerful to engage someone in an inquiry than issue a series of instructions and corrections.”
  • Leslie Kaminoff: “Yoga is not about doing the asanas; it’s about undoing what’s in the way of the asanas. Similarly, when you learn a new way to breathe you have to remove the obstacles created by how you are used to breathing.”
  • Leslie Kaminoff: “There is no such thing as an asana without the person making the shape. You can’t abstract asana outside of the person doing it.”
  • Leslie Kaminoff: “Asanas don’t have alignment, people have alignment.”
  • Leslie Kaminoff: “There are correct ways to do techniques. There is no one right way to breathe.”
  • Leslie Kaminoff: “If you can make even a tiny bit of change in something you do a lot of, that’s a lot of change.”
• WATCH/LISTEN:
  • Prana chant video
  • The Warrior Series: Upwardly Mobile video and article on Yoga Journal website
  • Tom Myers’ Deep Front Line dissection video
  • Gil Hedley’s YouTube channel
  • Breath-Centered Yoga with Leslie Kaminoff (DVD from Amazon UK)
  • Freeing the Breath: Health, Relaxation, and Clarity Through Better Breathing with Leslie Kaminoff (audio CD from Amazon UK)
  • Yoga Anatomy YouTube channel
  • Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing DVD (from Amazon – UNAVAILABLE IN UK)
  • Yoga Alliance’s Yoga Talks with Leslie Kaminoff on Regulation
  • Louis C K on getting off the food chain
  • Fallout from the mess made by William J. Broad, author of “The Science of Yoga: The Risks and Rewards”: Yoga Shouldn’t Hurt Panel, part of Yoga Journal Live conference, New York 2012 and Leslie’s blog post and video Video Review of “The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards,” by William J. Broad and a defense of my friend Larry Payne
  • David Hykes albums: Hearing Solar Winds, Harmonic Meetings
  • Igor Ezendam’s Red Moon
• RECOMMENDED READING:
  • ANATOMY:
    • Yoga Anatomy, 2nd edition (Amazon UK)
    • Yoga Journal article: Anatomy 101: Understanding Your Tailbone by Amy Matthews and Leslie Kaminoff
    • More Leslie Kaminoff content on Yoga Journal
    • Anatomy Trains: Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Therapists by Thomas W. Myers (Amazon UK)
  • HISTORY / BIOGRAPHY / PHILOSOPHY:
    • Sri T. Krishnamacharya’s history of classical alignment in the Yoga Makaranda, part I (PDF) and Yoga Makaranda, part II (PDF)
    • Religiousness in Yoga: Lectures on Theory and Practice by T.K.V.Desikachar (Amazon UK)
    • Health, Healing, and Beyond: Yoga and the Living Tradition of T. Krishnamacharya by T.K.V. Desikachar and R.H. Cravens (Amazon UK)
    • Yoga Yajnavalkya (PDF) or book (Amazon UK), by A. G. Mohan
    • Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham (Amazon UK)
    • The “Yoga Sutra of Patanjali”: A Biography (Lives of Great Religious Books) by David Gordon White (Amazon UK)
    • Leslie’s original post on providing certificates. DOWNLOAD your own certificate: Friday; full weekend.
    • Yoga Alliance “Statement on Yoga Therapy”
    • Leslie’s blog post from 2008: I’m Not a Yoga Therapist Anymore
    • “Seizing the Whip: B. K. S. Iyengar and the Making of Modern Yoga” by Eric John Shaw, California Institute of Integral Studies, Asian and Comparative Studies
    • Leslie’s friend Lynda Huey who, as a woman athlete before Title IX in the United States, trained with members of the 1984 Olympic track team at San Jose State University: A Running Start: An Athlete, A Woman
  • SCIENCE / PAIN / MEDICINE:
    • John E. Sarno’s Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection (Amazon UK)
    • Spine research on Chirogeek.com
    • Paul Grilley’s Bone Photo Gallery
  • YOGA PRACTICE:
    • The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice by T.K.V. Desikachar (Amazon UK)
    • Yoga for Wellness: Healing with the Timeless Teachings of Viniyoga by Gary Kraftsow (Amazon UK)
    • Claude Marechal Teachings
    • Amy Matthews’ article Wild Thing Is Not Impossible (but it still might not be worth doing)
    • Vyaas Houston’s American Sanskrit Institute
    • “Thermometer” bandhas exploration:
      
    • Intelligent Yoga: Re-educating Mind and Body by Peter Blackaby

Leslie performing kapalabhati on a bathroom scale

Leslie Kaminoff performs kapalabhati on a bathroom scale, illustrating Sir Isaac Newton’s law: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

Should We Keep Mula Bandha All The Time?

Have you heard advice about maintaining mula bandha all the time? Have you heard advice about maintaining any body position all the time? Join Leslie and students as they examine well-meaning advice, habits, and practices you can follow to honor the balance into your system.

Soma / Psyche – Introduction to a Talk by Frances Sommer Anderson

What is Flexibility, and How Much Do We Really Need?

Do you do yoga to live a better life, or do you live to do better yoga? Your answer may surprise you, and it will help you learn where to set healthy limits in your own practice.

Honesty in Yoga Credentialing

If you’re ready for a learning experience that will make you a more sought-after teacher, re-charge your personal practice, and change the way you think about yoga, breath, and movement, join our online community.