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First, why do we need to meditate? Meditation is a process of deeply relaxing the mind by focusing on only one thought.

If you think about meditation, what comes into your mind? Do you imagine sitting Down cross legged on the floor, palms up, and eyes closed? Add some lighted candles in the scene and it would look like a vooDoo thing to me.

By Sangeetha Saran After finishing my first yoga teacher training, I was lucky enough to land my first teaching position at a local dance school. Yoga and dance are natural partners. In fact, vinyasa flow seems like a sort of dance, as the practitioner moves smoothly through a variety of asanas in time to the rhythm of their breath. A whole class full of practitioners doing their cued sequences looks a bit like a chorus line. Dancers who practice yoga experience many benefits to their minds, bodies and spirits.

By Dr. Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500 What would you do if a health club manager had to substitute your class for an aerobic step class? What if one of the step aerobics students gave you a case of misplaced aggression because he or she was disappointed the step aerobics class was canceled? If you are considering teaching Yoga in a fitness center, or health club; imagine the following situation. A Power Yoga teacher is called, by the fitness center she works for - to substitute her class for the regular step aerobics class; this is her story.

By Kathryn Boland Yoga Rx: What does it mean and where is it going? Have you noticed that yoga is coming more into our Western culture's medical "mainstream"? do you wonder where you might factor in, as a yoga instructor, in this trend? My father practiced for several decades as an orthoped...

By Dr. Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500 How can Yoga be a cure for everything? Can Yoga really help prevent depression? Let's take a look at some solutions for depression and see how Yoga can be useful. While it is arguable that depression is not always preventable, there are many cases, when using the following ideas, will keep you in good spirits - most of the time. Unfortunately, we cannot be happy all of the time, but there is something we can do about it.

By Dr. Paul Jerard, E-RYT 500 The importance of warm-ups, before asana practice, cannot be overstated. The number one reason why we should teach warm-ups is to reduce the chances of student injury. It is amazing to listen to educated people, who believe that experienced students and teachers, do not have to warm up. This mindset that believes warm-ups are only for beginners should have its own mantra: "I am all that!" If you practice a physical form of Yoga, it only makes sense that you should warm up before asana practice.

Do you want to live life stress-free, lose extra weight, or heal your overall body? If so, you can get all the solutions in "Yoga for Beginners" You will find all the remedies here. Along with beginners, this book is helpful for people of all ages who want to live stress free, peaceful and healthy lifestyle. In this guide, you will learn several types of yoga postures with clear images and know the benefits of each pose. You have to follow the rules mentioned in this guide to get all the benefits. The book also features the poses for weight gain and weight loss.

By Faye Martins Many people find yoga to be a great way to relax and get exercise. Yoga is a great way to mentally unwind and it promotes sports recovery. You may have thought about how great it would be to learn how to teach yoga students. If you are interested in teaching yoga, you probably have already taken classes before. If you are new, you may wish to try different types of yoga to see which types you would most enjoy teaching. You may wish to sample a few different classes if you have been with one instructor for most of the time you have been learning. By sampling different instructors you can also get ideas based on what other teachers do for your own classes. When you are planning to teach your first class, you may want to focus on a beginner class to keep the moves simple.

By Faye Martins Do you get any requests for asanas or Yogic techniques to heal the feet? Most of our students ask us about techniques for reducing stress, back pain, and body weight. As essential as our feet are to Yoga, we give them little thought. Maybe we would treat them differently if we realized how great an impact they have on the rest of our body and the clues they hold to its general condition.

By Kathryn Boland Language in yoga instruction is extremely important. Being invited to something - to a party, to a meaningful life passage event, even to do something that just plain feels good - carries its own special joy. It's even difficult; at least for me personally, to put into just the right words that special feeling of allowance and/or inclusion. Invitation can also be part of when one seeks to direct another in more formalized, structured activity (that which we might not commonly associate with such simple joy). As yoga instructors, we can both direct and ease our students through using "invitatory" language. Furthermore, it opens up opportunities for students to make their practices truly their own - versus our ideas of what we think those practices should be.

By Sangeetha Saran There are people who will tell you the best way to get through an anxious situation is to do some deep breathing. This isn't just an "old wives" tale, or some cliché way of thinking, the truth is that there is medical fact that backs up this advice. The more stressed a body gets, the less it takes in oxygen. Someone who is panicking is apt to not take deep breaths, meaning that they are not getting all of the oxygen they need for their body. By deep breathing, a body doesn't just get the oxygen that it needs; it also is a therapeutic act that gives the body, and the brain, something to focus on instead of the stress that they are feeling. With this in mind, one of the best ways to help lower one's anxiety level is to learn basic breathing techniques, and to also learn yoga techniques for breathing.

The connective tissues in the body often hold surgical trauma and emotional bracing. Yin Yoga postures are very effective for releasing some of this deeply held fear and tension, by undoing the physical constriction in the body and washing away some of the anxious thoughts in the mind, in a safe and effective manner. The deep sense of relaxation and release that comes from a practice of Yin Yoga will help to further support you during your cancer recovery process, which is understandably a very challenging and difficult time for most Yoga practitioners.

By Amruta Kulkarni, CYT 500 If you teach pranayama in your classes, you may have come across a student who has a lung disease. We may learn how to modify asanas in a yoga certification course, but how do you modify pranayama? Think from the perspective of a student who struggles to breathe all day long. You have to make your modifications simple, but effective.

By Kimaya Singh How many of your students have insomnia and how frequently do they have it? A conservative statistic regarding adults who experience nights with sleeplessness is 30%. Some people claim the number to be much higher than studies and reports. This subject may not have come up in your yoga teacher training, but you should know which yogic techniques help one get a night's sleep. Yoga for insomnia is a viable solution and there are no bad side effects that occur with practice.

By Faye Martins What you are about to read applies to any style of Yoga. The point is: There is much potential in teacher training of any kind. Why would you want to take a Yin Yoga teacher course? For those who are interested in yogic methods, it could be a worthwhile way to combine a hobby with a career. When you are doing something that you love, you won't feel like you have worked a day in your entire life. What are some other reasons to take such a course?

By Faye Martins When you teach yoga classes, how often do students ask about techniques to reduce back pain? Study after study shows that yogic exercise helps significantly with managing back pain in conjunction with medical treatment. Yoga strengthens and balances the body while it grants students more control of their minds. Each of these factors alone become huge benefits, when dealing with back pain, but together, they feel like a miracle. Participants of one study reported a decrease in pain, functional disability, and depression. Sixty-eight percent of the participants of that study assigned to practice yoga training also continued to practice the art after the study concluded. Even though chronic back pain can be one of the hardest common conditions to live with and treat, yogic exercise can significantly improve the quality of life of back pain sufferers.

By Gopi Rao Chair Yoga Offers Several Benefits There are multiple benefits from chair yoga exercises, and you can engage in these poses all of the time or occasionally. For individuals with mobility issues that require the use of a wheelchair or someone who is aging and finds it difficult to get on the floor, chair yoga is probably the only wait to perform yoga movements.

By Faye Martins In this contemporary era, yoga has become an incredibly popular form of exercise to help promote physical and mental health. In order to ensure that one gets the most out of this physical activity, it is important to get some basic information regarding yoga student safety. With this idea in mind, there are four tips Yoga teachers can implement to ensure that students do not harm themselves while participating in activities at your Yoga studio. Feel free to use the list below as a handout for your students.

By: Virginia Iversen, M.Ed As the coldness of winter begins to recede, you may be noticing that the pulsation of new life all around you is propelling you to dissolve and release stagnant energy. This stagnant energy is often located in the hips, shoulders and throughout the thoracic spinal area. You even find that there is quite a bit of stagnant energy in your home, after several months of spending your time indoors with the windows closed. In the same way that doing a deep spring cleaning of your home lightens up and energizes your living space, dissolving stagnant energy in your body will help to lift your spirits and revitalize your life force energy or prana.