...lways be referred to another instructor, or class, to allow them to get the most from their yoga instruction. The yoga studio needs to be a safe place for everybody, regardless of where they are in their own lives. The instructor is responsible for creating and maintaining a safe environment.

The yoga sutras, which are at the core of yoga ethics, have eight branches, or arms. The personal and social ethics that apply most substantially to yoga instruction are yama and niyama. These ethics require peacefulness, honesty, acceptance, truthfulness, temperance, and restraint.

Niyama sets forth the goals of purity, contentment, self-study, and dedication to holiness. These essential ethics cannot be upheld if instructors do not seek them. Ahimsa,...more

What Should a Hatha Yoga Teacher Know? Part 4

...ome to classes regularly, and practice what you have taught in your Hatha Yoga classes. It is up to the Hatha Yoga teacher to fill the students mind with knowledge and encouragement.

If it took decades of neglect for a new student to achieve poor health, how can he or she expect a little bit of Hatha Yoga practice to perform miracles? Every aspect of a students health will be changed for the better by regular Yoga practice; but this is an on demand world, where some people are willing to risk the side-effects of a pill rather than take positive action toward better health.

The natural effects of regular exercise, proper breathing, better posture, improved diet, and self-discipline will result in a Yoga student who is less stressed, has fewer ailmen...more

Yoga, Dogma, And Faith

...onal Chinese Medicine meridians. The meridians can be thought of as channels similar to blood vessels, in that they have a particular location on the body, and a perceivable form. But instead of holding blood, they hold energy, or 'ki'.

They don't hold the energy of a particular religious affiliation. There are not Muslim meridians, Christian meridians, Jewish meridians, Hindu meridians, Buddhist meridians, or any other particular group's. These meridians are shared by everyone who has a human biology. And the yoga exercises are simply a way of facilitating the organic flow of energy in each individual. They are designed to release any blockages, and improve the circulation of energy, in the same way that exercise does for blood.

It was in this spirit that I suggested some oki yoga exercises to my cousin when I was 20. My cousin, however, declined. That branch of my family held a particularly strict interpretation of Christianity. When ...more

Who Me, Yoga?

...Part of my quest for self improvement is the implementing of an exercise program that really fits my interests and capacities. I'm no couch potato, but neither am I a pumped up muscular guy. I am the average height and weight proportional guy.

I have given alot of thought to the style of regular exercise that I would partake of regularly. The stationary bikes, stair climbers, and weight machines at the standard gym tend to bore me fairly quickly, andd thereby I tend to drop my routine. Swimming and jogging are ok by me. However I am not particularly interested in either one for long term regular exercise.

A, what I thought at the time, strange idea entered my mind...more

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