Tag: yoga
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On Soles and Souls: A Running Parable
To figure out if a running shoe works for me, I have one criterion: When my foot lands, I should be able to feel the ground, not the shoe. This feels better, as my feet can react to the slope and traction of the terrain. I’m in communion with the path I’m on. Severely padded […]
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2020 Wrecked My Attention Span. Here’s How I Got it Back.
The last public class I taught in 2020 was on March 13, and I spent the remainder of the year producing a yoga video series in my home. The three videos I produced each week were released the following Friday. I knew something was off with my memory when I received questions and feedback from […]
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Can you be too blissed? In a car, yes.
I started practicing yoga in 2003, with my heart set on figuring out what bliss felt like. Bliss is one translation of samadhi, the last limb listed in the Yoga Sutras. It’s also translated as absorption, boundlessness, or integration. Whatever you call it, it’s elusive. At the beginning of my teaching career I tried to […]
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In Praise of Yawning
(Based on the lecture portion of my sleep workshop “Snoozefest: How to Practice Yoga for a Good Night’s Sleep”) Yawns are the best. Virtually all vertebrates do it, with humans yawning as early as 12 weeks in gestation. A unstifled yawn is literally a breath of fresh air. It feels fantastic. Humankind doesn’t fully understand […]
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Yoga on Lockdown: Teaching Students During an Active Shooter Emergency
I’m not sure how long I’ll teach yoga—it could be two months or 30 years—but I’m sure the class I taught in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, on Saturday, October 27 will be the hardest class I ever lead. I’m okay. The students I’ve checked in with are okay. We will get better and be better, as people, […]
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Do You Have a “Triage Yoga” Routine?
In catastrophes and medical emergencies, caregivers rely on a process called triage. Stemming from the early 1800’s, triage is a method of prioritizing the care of many people based on the severity of injuries and conditions. Triage allows doctors to make very difficult decisions in the moment, so they can do the most good. If […]
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“Acknowledgements” from the Frameworks 300 manual
Too often I had assumed that others knew the intensity of my appreciation for them, only to discover otherwise. —Marshall Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication My journey as a yoga teacher was picked for me by a random series of fortuitous events. My first class was at the X Shadyside, which, back in 2003, had the foresight […]
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Life Half-Dead: A Valentine’s Day Post
I turned 40 last year. Even if I’m lucky and try to keep myself in good health, I’m halfway done. This Valentine’s Day post begins with the Pali Canon, the earliest collection of Buddhist scriptures. It starts with the most evocative description of death I’ve ever read. Buddha is speaking to the king and describes […]
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Is your yoga teacher a wanna-be cult leader? Ask this question.
It’s reasonable to assume there are no simple answers when it comes to self-inquiry. Each of us has our own unique experience. Teaching and sharing our experiences in a yoga class isn’t easy. Some teachers rise to the challenge and become dynamic, thoughtful teachers. These teachers are dedicated to self-study, which means they are also […]
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Empathy on World Kindness Day
Today is World Kindness Day, which for 19 years has been suggesting we explore the question “What does kindness mean to us?” It comes in many forms. For me, the most intriguing is empathy. It started with a conversation my wife and I had over the defintion. We realized we had different notions of what […]
Richard Gartner | Frameworks Yoga 