Flickr set available. You’re welcome to use these as long as you credit them “Photo: Lydia Mann” and tag them “lkaminoff” (on social media sites).

• QUOTES:
  • Leslie Kaminoff: “Asanas don’t have alignment, people have alignment.”
  • T.K.V. Desikachar: “Your yoga practice must always be a little more clever than your habits (tapas).”
  • Leslie Kaminoff: “The more experienced you are the harder it is to get back to a beginner’s mind.”
  • T.K.V. Desikachar: “There can be no Yoga without Viyoga.”
  • Leslie Kaminoff: “Breath is the great teacher of tapas, svadhyaya, isvarapranidhana. Tapas refers to that which you can change; isvarapranidhana relates to the stuff you can’t change; svadhyaya refers to self-reflection, the introspection that allows us to distinguish one from the other.”
  • Leslie Kaminoff on teaching bandhas: “If you’re going to ask someone to engage a muscle, you better make sure they can release it first or it’s just tension on top of tension.”
  • Leslie Kaminoff: “There are correct ways to do techniques. There is no one right way to breathe.”
  • Leslie Kaminoff: “The benefit of learning a new breathing technique is unlearning your old way of breathing.”
  • Leslie Kaminoff: “In yoga we’re not looking to add anything that is missing from the system. It’s to focus on what is still going right in the body and help unblock what is in the way.”
  • Leslie Kaminoff: “Yoga as a therapeutic intervention recognizes that everything that is needed for healing is already present. Prana may need to be uncovered, but nothing needs to be added.”
  • 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.”
  • 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.”
  • 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).”
  • Amy Matthews, paraphrasing Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen: “Alignment is a clear pathway of weight passing through balanced joint spaces.”
  • Amy Matthews: “An asana is a container for an experience.”

• 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
  • Freeing the Breath: Health, Relaxation, and Clarity Through Better Breathing with Leslie Kaminoff (audio CD from Amazon)
  • Yoga Anatomy YouTube channel
  • Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing DVD (from Amazon)
  • Yoga Alliance’s Yoga Talks with Leslie Kaminoff on Regulation

• RECOMMENDED READING:
  • ANATOMY:
    • Yoga Anatomy, 2nd edition
    • 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

  • 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
    • Claude Marechal’s article describing some of the teaching of Professor Krishnamacharya: Teachings
    • Health, Healing, and Beyond: Yoga and the Living Tradition of T. Krishnamacharya by T.K.V. Desikachar and R.H. Cravens
    • Yoga Yajnavalkya (PDF) or book, by A. G. Mohan
    • Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham
    • The “Yoga Sutra of Patanjali”: A Biography (Lives of Great Religious Books) by David Gordon White
    • Leslie’s original post on providing certificates.
      DOWNLOAD YOUR OWN CERTIFICATE HERE
    • Yoga Alliance “Statement on Yoga Therapy”
    • Leslie’s blog post from 2008: “I’m Not a Yoga Therapist Anymore“
    • Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall

  • SCIENCE / PAIN / MEDICINE:
    • John E. Sarno’s Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection
    • Spine research on Chirogeek.com
    • Paul Grilley’s Bone Photo Gallery
    • The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) by Stephen W. Porges

  • YOGA PRACTICE:
    • The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice by T.K.V. Desikachar
    • Yoga for Wellness: Healing with the Timeless Teachings of Viniyoga by Gary Kraftsow
    • 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.