Workshop handout (PDF)
Signed certificate (Fillable PDF)
Student Survey
QUOTES:
- Leslie Kaminoff: “Asanas don’t have alignment, people have alignment. Asana is something people do, it does not exist outside of an individual’s body.”
- 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.”
- From Leslie’s work with Amy Matthews, which references her work with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen: “Alignment is a clear pathway of weight passing through balanced joint spaces.”
- T.K.V. Desikachar: “The recognition of confusion is a form of clarity.”
- 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.”
- T.K.V. Desikachar: “You cannot have yoga without viyoga.”
- 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.”
- T.K.V. Desikachar: “Yoga is relationship.”
- T.K.V. Desikachar: “Without the breath it’s not Yoga.”
- Leslie Kaminoff: “Difference is the norm.” and “Variation is normal. Your body is normal for you.”
- T.K.V. Desikachar: “Your yoga practice must always be a little more clever than your habits (tapas).”
- Leslie Kaminoff: “If once you arrive in an asana it needs correcting, reconsider how you got there.”
- Amy Matthews, paraphrasing Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen: “Healthy movement is well-distributed: a little bit of movement from a lot of places.” This was further clarified by Leslie: “a little bit of movement, coming from a lot of places, repeated a reasonable number of times.”
- Conversely, Leslie Kaminoff says “Unhealthy movement is too much movement coming from too few places repeated too many times (repetitive stress).”
- T.K.V. Desikachar: “The form of the practice should serve the function.”
- Leslie Kaminoff: “Yoga is not about doing the asanas; it’s about undoing what’s in the way of the asanas.”
- Sthira/sukha as defined by T.K.V. Desikachar: “Alertness without tension/ relaxation without dullness.”
- Leslie Kaminoff: “Flexibility without strength is instability. Strength without flexibility is rigidity.”
- 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: “It is far more powerful to engage someone in an inquiry than issue a series of instructions and corrections.”
- Leslie Kaminoff: “The benefit of learning a new breathing technique is unlearning your old way of breathing.”
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 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
- The Ross Sisters’ Solid Potato Salad, 1944
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:
- 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.
- Yoga Alliance “Statement on Yoga Therapy”
- Leslie’s blog post from 2008: “I’m Not a Yoga Therapist Anymore“
- SCIENCE / PAIN / MEDICINE:
- John E. Sarno’s Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection
- Spine research on Chirogeek.com
- Research study abstract: At least half of herniated discs spontaneously de-herniate
- Paul Grilley’s Bone Photo Gallery
- Blog post on Leslie’s back pain related to suppressed emotion: “My teacher is gone…the sequel”
- Amy Matthews’ and Sarah Barnaby’s Babies Project and developmental movement
- 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
- Leslie’s original stick figure drawing of his Warrior Series
- Thermometer Breath exercise
- BoS : CoG : RoM – Leslie’s movement philosophy: start with BoS before moving on to changing your center of gravity (core in motion) before RoM (full expression of the pose). If at any point you experience difficulty, go back to the prior step:
- BoS: Base of Support
- CoG: Center of Gravity
- RoM: Range of Motion
- 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.
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.