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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:
- T.K.V. Desikachar: “Your yoga practice must always be a little more clever than your habits (tapas).”
- T.K.V. Desikachar: “Yoga is relationship.”
- T.K.V. Desikachar: “The recognition of confusion is a form of clarity.”
- T.K.V. Desikachar: “Without the breath it’s not Yoga.”
- 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: “Sometimes you need to give people 90% of what they want so you can slip in 10% of what they need.”
- Leslie Kaminoff: “There are correct ways to do techniques. There is no one right way to breathe.”
- Leslie Kaminoff: “What we are after in our Yoga practice is freedom. One of the first things to get free from is the idea that there is a *right* way.”
- Leslie Kaminoff: “The benefit of learning a new breathing technique is unlearning your old way of breathing.”
- 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: “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: “Figuring out (swadhaya) what is negotiable (tapas) and what is not (ishvara pranidhana) – based on your anatomy – is the basis of Yoga practice.”
- 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: “Yoga is not about doing the asanas; it’s about undoing what’s in the way of the asanas.”
- Leslie Kaminoff: “Asanas don’t have alignment, people have alignment.”
- 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.”
- 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
- Dynamic Alignment Through Imagery – 2nd Edition (Revised) by Eric Franklin
- 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
- “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 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“
- SCIENCE / PAIN / MEDICINE:
- 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
- J Brown Yoga
- “Thermometer” bandhas exploration:
- ANATOMY:
Online course discount offer
- Students who study with Leslie in-person are eligible for 10% off the single-enrollment option for either of his online courses ($1997-$199.70 = $1,797.30) (Not valid on the payment plan)
- Offer is good only through calendar 2016
- To take advantage of the discount, they need to send an email to including:
- Their name
- Studio where the workshop took place
- Workshop date
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.