7/11/23: “Without awareness of breath, there is no Yoga.”

Yoga, of course, is all about the breath. The breath plays a major role in workouts, too, and like in Yoga, there are inhale moves and exhale moves. There are also times when you don’t need to match breath precisely to movement.

Just like in yoga, there are times in a workout when you breathe to calm yourself, and times when you breathe for power (and even use mouth breathing!). To me, that means that if Yoga is awareness of breath, then you can be a yogi when you’re working out.

Next time you’re exercising, check in from time to time to pay attention to what’s going on with your breath. (If you already do this, good for you!) Don’t concern yourself with whether you’re doing it right – just notice. Some ideas to try:

• For any brisk exertion (running, biking), notice at what point you transition from nose- to mouth-breathing
•  For weight-moving exercises, notice which movements happen on inhale, which on exhale
• For periods of rest, try to recover your full breath (nose to navel center on inhale, navel center and out the nose on exhale)

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7/19/23: Balance

One-legged balance builds mental focus and physical endurance. Your ability to balance is also an important indicator of your ability to avoid and recover from falls. (I’d be happy to share more with you about some really good scientific studies of balance!)

In exercise talk, the holding of a position is isometric engagement or time under tension. And it’s also useful to be able to accomplish dynamic (body in motion) physical tasks while standing on one leg.

See below a short video I made about Tree pose – I show the alignment for how to hold it, and some movements in and out of it.