"I needed my yoga to find me, to comfort me -- not be another box to check off." An open and inquisitive conversation about navigating the challenges, grief, and joys of perimenopause and menopause -- and how to craft a yoga practice that meets you in the moment. For shownotes, go to yogalandpodcast.com/episode327 Thank you for listening and for sharing the podcast with friends and students! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Jason and I talk about why a home practice is essential if you want to integrate yoga in your day to day life. We also offer our thoughts on what constitutes home practice so that you give yourself a break and focus on what's important -- getting on your mat! Our hope is that home practice can be the thing in your life that consistently feels like a respite, a refuge, a haven. We hope you enjoy this conversation where we talk through these 7 distinct reasons that developing a home...

Take a deep breath and get ready to take notes for this one: Jason hones in on 5 of the most common mistakes yoga teachers make. They're so common, in fact, that there are a few Jason still has to be mindful of from time to time. This episode is packed with simple, straightforward ideas to help you teach more skillfully and with more confidence. ⭐️ Join us in at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts for a morning of yoga to benefit Boston Children's Hospital! The event is April 28th....

You might look at yoga teacher Brett Larkin, with her 500K YouTube followers and think it all came easily and naturally to her. Not so — over the course of a decade, Brett slowly but surely kept publishing videos while working full-time as a game developer job and mothering her two small boys. On this episode, Brett shares the details of how she overcame imposter syndrome with the help of her online yoga community and ultimately created a thriving online teacher training business. She also...

Are you still vying for a decent time slot to teach at your local studio? According to Office Yoga founder Maryam Sharifzadeh, your efforts would be far better spent finding a few corporate teaching gigs. Consider this statistic from Sharifzadeh: In the US there is one yoga studio for every 10,000 businesses. That's a lot more premium time slots, with better pay and, in all likelihood, shorter classes! Sharifzadeh founded her business, Office Yoga, in 2014 and shares all the goods about how...

Jason joins me this week to answer questions that have been asked during the group live calls of his online course about preventing yoga injuries. He talks through: Knee pain in Upward Bow (Wheel Pose) and Bow Pose (Dhanurasana)What causes sore hamstring attachments and whether or not to bend the knees to make this pain go awaySacroiliac pain that occurs in twistsSeveral different options for coping with sore wrists in Plank and Chaturanga! Jason will be teaching at LoveStory Yoga in San...

More than a decade ago, Sarah Gardner was a yoga teacher with a dream: She wanted to bring a thousand yogis together at Gillette Stadium in Boston to raise money for Boston Children's Hospital. Years before, Sarah's son had spent seven life-saving weeks in the NICU at Boston Children's. After experiencing the love, care, and devotion that the doctors and nurses gave to her family, Sarah knew she wanted to give back.  She has spent more than a decade doing just that -- rallying the yoga...

In the modern era of practicing yoga, we've come to terms with the reality that alignment alone is not the sole consideration when it comes to preventing yoga injuries. Today's episode draws from Jason's recent webinar, The Yoga Injury Matrix, and focuses on eight best practices for minimizing yoga injuries. The talk dives into the following ideas: Mindful, skillful alignmentPace, duration, and intensity are keyIntensification adjustments and their role in modern yogaWell-rounded sequencing...

It was such a delight to have Jivana Heyman back on the show to talk about his latest book, The Teacher's Guide to Accessible Yoga. (You can listen to our first chat at yogalandpodcast.com/episode176). The episode explores: What it means to be more collaborative in your teaching, how being more collaborative could help break down traditional hierarchical power dynamics that have led to teacher-student abuses in the past, the importance of overcoming impostor syndrome (especially if you don't...

Welcome back to a new season of Yogaland! Jason is my inaugural guest this season and our conversation focuses on the hips: What are the five compartments of the hip?Why is it important to strengthen them?How do you strengthen them in yoga? Jason lays it all out for you step-by-step. Take a listen and take notes! Also: Jason will be leading his Preventing Injuries online course very soon! Join the waitlist and we will send you all the details as soon as they become available:...

This time of year is often so fraught with busyness, overwhelm, expectations, even loneliness that we forget the goal: To feel present, joyful, connected. Here are my thoughts on how to gather up all of the skills that you cultivate on your mat (and cushion) and utilize them to navigate the challenges of this time of year. Check out the shownotes fo rmore helpful episodes: yogalandpodcast.com/episode318 Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland. Hosted on Acast. See...

So thrilled to have Daya Grant join me again on the podcast this week! You may remember Daya from episode 258 (This is Your Brain on Yoga). In her role as a mental performance coach, Daya utilizes tools from her background as a neuroscientist, athlete, and yogi. On this episode, Daya shares some of the fascinating research that shares in her online course, Mind-Flow Masterclass. She shares: Which mental performance tools she used to finish a half marathon (less than a year after giving birth...

You know what feels really terrible? Teaching yoga when you don't feel inspired. And yet, realistically, we all encounter dry spells in our own practice. This week's conversation with Jason will give you ideas for reigniting your inner spark and feeling inspired to practice again. If you'd like even more inspiration, join us in January for our newest online course, Mind-Body Reset! Get all the details here: learn.jasonyoga.com/reset Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/yogaland. ...

We're back! This week we're talking through four life skills for every yoga teacher to master. These four skills are attributes that we work on in our own work and personal lives through our practice. They are also the four pillars around which our upcoming January program -- Mind-Body Reset -- is built. The four skills are: Self-compassion -- the skill of being an ally to yourself and accepting yourself, as you are.Self-awareness -- taking a look inward and acknowledging your areas of...

Fall doesn't just mean pumpkin spice lattes. It means that you will likely start to hear a cacophony of sniffles and coughs when you're ordering said pumpkin spice latte -- or wherever you go. It's a great time to thinking about your yoga practice as a tool for building your resilience. Iyengar Yoga teacher Lisa Walford joins me this week to talk about her approach to immune health and how to use asana, pranayama, and meditation as part of your support system. Lisa also opens up about her own...

Inversions can be fun, empowering, and strength-building -- if they are introduced thoughtfully and systematically. On this episode, Jason walks through how to introduce four key inversions to beginners: Handstand, Forearm Balance, Headstand, and Shoulderstand. He shares the building blocks that will create a blueprint for each pose, keeping them safe and beneficial. We have companion sequences for these poses on our website! Find them on the shownotes page here:...

Carving out a place for yourself as a yoga teacher is no easy task. It was such a treat to have multi-hyphenate Neeti Narula on the show to hear how she has done it. Neeti is an NYC-based yoga and meditation teacher, as well as a mother of two, a contributor at Yoga Journal and now, a freshly minted contributor on the lifestyle platform, Melissa Wood Health. Neeti shares so many helpful gems on this episode including: How yoga came into her life and helped her begin to heal from lossThe...

This week we continue on with our series for beginners (and those teaching beginners): Our focus is the best arm balances for beginners. Arm balances are typically poses that beginners really enjoy playing around with, because they offer shapes that we don't typically do in other disciplines (unless you're a gymnast or a pro skateboarder). Arm balances can build stability, balance, strength, mobility. They're also aesthetically beautiful and novel -- unless you're a gymast or a pro...

Modern life is not great for your back -- sitting in chairs tightens the hip flexors, which can lead to a chain reaction that stresses the low back. When we type at a computer, we typically roll the shoulders forward or hunch the upper back. And looking at our phones constantly can lead to the dreaded and painful "tech neck." -- chair sitting, typing, and looking at our phones. Simple backbends are a fantastic antidote. But which backbends are most beneficial for beginners and why? Jason...

Jason joins me on this week's episode to talk about how yoga teacher training goes beyond skill acquisition and can become a catalyst for self-transformation. We just hosted a webinar on the topic last week and we enjoyed it so much we thought we'd re-record the episode especially for the podcast. This is a fun episode if you're considering YTT or if you've already done a YTT and you'd like to reminisce about all the ways that learning this discipline deepens your understanding of yourself...

Today's conversation is with Alison Zak, who recently published her first book, "Wild Asana: Animals, Yoga, and Connecting Our Practice to the Natural World." Zak's unique nature memoir artfully weaves together her personal stories, ecological context, and yoga asana. Her book is a moving and urgent call for us to remember our connection to the natural world. As Zak says, "We're more alike than different from even the animals that might seem quite different from ourselves, like a scorpion or...

There’s something about fall that just feels like back to school time for me, even as an adult.  Jason’s 200-hour YTT is coming up October 24th, so we thought we’d review what to look for if you’re thinking about going back to yoga school!  We talk through the importance of adapting asana to modern knowledge and safety standards, the significance of understanding yoga anatomy in a functional context, and prioritizing strength and stability in practice. We also tough on the need for a thorough...

On our live episode two weeks ago, we answered the question, ‘Is this thing that we’re doing still yoga?’ Jason shared five principles that make even the most modern practices a yoga practice. On this episode, we will walk through how yoga teachers can bring these principles to life in their teaching. Here are some of the ideas we talk through:Reflecting on whether classes still have liberatory qualities, inviting students to grow beyond self-limiting beliefs and identifications.Introducing...

As many of yoga know, Sally Kempton was hugely influential to me. She was an expert guide, a loving presence, and a creative inspiration. She passed away on July 10th and has been on my mind constantly since then. I put together this episode to honor and remember her with my friend, the former editor-in-chief of Yoga Journal, Kaitlin Quistgaard. We had a lot of fun sharing stories and memories of Sally. The second part of this episode features my favorite episode that I did with Sally a few...