Mysuru Yoga Utsava, 12-15 December, 2024
QUOTES from T.K.V. Desikachar:
- “Our yoga practice must always be a little more clever than our habits.”
- “The recognition of confusion is itself a form of clarity.”
- “If we take care of the exhale, the inhale takes care of itself.”
- “Yoga therapy is 90 percent waste removal.”
- “Yoga is relationship.”
- “The success of Yoga does not lie in the ability to perform postures but in how it positively changes the way we live our life and our relationships.”
- “Whenever you are in doubt, it is best to pause. Few things are so pressing that they cannot wait for a moment of breath.”
- “The quality of our breath expresses our inner feelings.”
- “However beautifully we carry out an asana, however flexible our body may be, if we do not achieve the integration of body, breath, and mind we cannot claim that what we are doing is yoga.”
QUOTES from Leslie, inspired by Desikachar:
- “A tiny bit of positive change to something we do a lot can add up to a tremendous amount of positive change over time. That is why put a lot of focus on standing, walking and breathing.”
- Asanas don’t have alignment, people have alignment.”
- “You can’t abstract asana outside of the person doing it. There is no such thing as an asana without the person who’s making the shape.”
- “Breathing is the shape change of the abdominal and thoracic cavities.
- “Your spine is the back of your cavities…your breath is the front of your spine.”
- Posture in how we stabilize ourselves in space – breath is how we mobilize the space in ourselves.”
- “If we resist the change that’s inevitable (isvara pranidhana), we miss the change that’s possible (tapas). The trick is in learning which is which (swadhyaya).”
- “There is a correct way to do breathing techniques, but there is no single correct way to be be breathing.”
WATCH/LISTEN:
- “Ananda” excerpt from 1992 interview (audio only)
- Excerpt from “Awakenings,” (video) Recorded at Aperture Conference at KYM, Madras, February 1996
- 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 courses and video clips
- Freeing the Breath: Health, Relaxation, and Clarity Through Better Breathing with Leslie Kaminoff
- YouTube channels: free shorts from YogaAnatomy.net online courses and Leslie’s Breathing Project Q&A series. Got a yoga or anatomy question you’d like Leslie to address? Send it to questions@yogaanatomy.org.
- Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing
- Yoga Alliance’s Yoga Talks with Leslie Kaminoff on Regulation
- Jill Miller – “Hip Replacement Surgery” on J. Brown’s podcast
- The Man Who Lost His Body, documentary about proprioception
RECOMMENDED READING:
- ANATOMY:
- Yoga Anatomy, 3rd edition
- Yoga Journal article: Anatomy 101: Understanding Your Tailbone by Amy Matthews and Leslie Kaminoff PLUS: the missing illustration
- More Leslie Kaminoff content on Yoga Journal
- Anatomy Trains: Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Therapists by Thomas W. Myers
- Your Body, Your Yoga and Your Spine, Your Yoga: Developing stability and mobility for your spine by Bernie Clark
- HISTORY / BIOGRAPHY / PHILOSOPHY:
- Leslie Kaminoff Interviews T.K.V. Desikachar in Madras, October, 1992 (blog post version)
- Namarupa Magazine version of 1992 interview (PDF)
- Sri T. Krishnamacharya’s history of classical alignment in the Yoga Makaranda, part I (PDF) and Yoga Makaranda, part II (PDF)
- 100 Years of Beatitude – T. Krishnamacharya’s Centennary (low-resolution VHS transfer)
- 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 (PDF)” by Eric John Shaw, California Institute of Integral Studies, Asian and Comparative Studies
- “Sacred Thread: A Comprehensive Yoga Timeline: 2000 Events that Shaped Yoga History” by Eric Shaw
- “The Goddess Pose: The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, the Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West” by Michelle Goldberg
- Leslie’s original post on providing certificates.
- 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
- Intelligent Yoga: Re-educating Mind and Body by Peter Blackaby
- Wild Thing Is Not Impossible (but it still might not be worth doing) by Amy Matthews
- Teaching Inclusive, Safe And Ethical Yoga – Part 1: Empowerment by Yonnie Fung
- Yoga for Bendy People: Optimizing the Benefits of Yoga for Hypermobility by Libby Hinsley
- Some students of T.K.V. Desikachar:
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.