Yoga practices

LATEST PRACTICE

25 Jan 2026

Shoulder flexion test: Assess the mobility of your shoulders

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How often do you lift your arms fully overhead in daily life? For many of us, shoulder movement is limited to a small box directly in front of the body, typing, driving, cooking, or scrolling on a phone. When we suddenly need to reach a top shelf or place luggage in an overhead bin, the shoulders can feel “caught off guard” and respond with stiffness, discomfort, or pain. The ability to raise the arms fully overhead is an important indicator of upper-body mobility, shoulder range of motion, and postural integration. This movement requires coordinated action between the arms, shoulder blades,...

Shoulder flexion test: Assess the mobility of your shoulders

Posted on25 Jan 2026

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The 10-second movement linked to longevity: Try it for yourself

Posted on30 Nov 2025

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When was the last time you sat down on the floor and then stood back up without using your hands or leaning on something for support? It might sound simple, but this basic movement says a lot about your overall health, strength, and longevity. In 2014, researchers conducted a study with over 2,000 men and women ages 51 to 80...

Everyday strength: Simple moves for daily challenges

Posted on09 Nov 2025

Comments2

Functional strength is all about building strength you can actually use in daily life. It focuses on movements that support real-world activities, like lifting, bending, reaching, or getting up and down with ease. Rather than isolating muscles, functional strength training works multiple muscle groups together to improve stability, mobility, and overall body coordination. The goal isn’t just to get stronger, but to move...

Ease into motion: A standing practice to relieve stiffness

Posted on26 Oct 2025

Comments5

In daily life, the hardest part of any physical activity is often just getting started, especially when your body feels stiff, heavy, or slow to wake up. This is called initiation energy; it’s the energy or motivation needed to begin something, whether it’s movement, a creative project, a conversation, or even a simple task. You have to generate just enough momentum...

Low and slow: Simple grounded movement to awaken the body

Posted on12 Oct 2025

Comments2

Sometimes, less is more, especially when your energy is low and your body just wants to take it easy. On the days when you’re not quite up for a full practice, but you also don’t want to be a couch potato, you can start with some simple, floor-based movement and see what happens. It’s a way to meet yourself exactly...

Ventilate the mind: A breathing technique for mental clarity

Posted on28 Sep 2025

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This breathing technique acts like a ventilator for the mind; it helps clear out mental fog and relieve internal stuffiness or congestion. Imagine it as opening the windows of your mind and letting a fresh breeze flow through. To practice it effectively, focus on two key elements: controlled abdominal movement and overall bodily relaxation, especially through your neck, shoulders, and...

Shrug It Off: Release tension in your trapezius muscles

Posted on14 Sep 2025

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When stress builds, the shoulders often creep up toward the ears and hold more tension than we realize. This short, gentle yoga practice is designed to help you reverse that climb. Through mindful breath and slow targeted movements for the trapezius and upper back, you’ll invite your shoulders to soften, slide down, and settle into a place of ease. This...

Quick neck tension relief on the planes, trains, and automobiles

Posted on17 Aug 2025

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Summer is the season of adventure filled with road trips, flights, train rides, and spontaneous getaways. But all that movement (and the sitting that comes with it) can leave your body feeling stiff, especially in the neck and shoulders. If you’re starting to feel the tension creep in, try this quick, travel-friendly yoga practice designed to relieve neck tension wherever...

Daily 5: Rehydrate your tissues and lubricate your spine

Posted on03 Aug 2025

Comments4

For your body to move with ease and fluidity, your connective tissues, like fascia, tendons, and ligaments, must be well-hydrated. Hydration isn’t just about drinking water; it’s also about encouraging the movement of fluids within the tissues themselves. When fascia and surrounding structures are hydrated, they become more pliable, responsive, and able to glide smoothly over one another. This internal fluid exchange...

The gesture of letting go: Release stagnant excess energy

Posted on20 Jul 2025

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In our fast-paced, overstimulated world, we often accumulate more energy than we realize, including emotional tension, mental chatter, stress, and physical restlessness. As it builds up, this excess energy can manifest as anxiety, irritability, fatigue, or a general sense of overwhelm. Just as a cluttered room can feel suffocating, a buildup of stagnant energy in the body and mind can...

Daily 5: Relieve stiffness and move with greater ease

Posted on06 Jul 2025

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When we move, our muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves, and fascia must slide smoothly over one another. This gliding quality of connective tissue allows all structures to move with minimal friction, supporting efficient movement, reducing wear and tear, and helping prevent injury. In this short yoga practice, we focus on enhancing that gliding quality through smooth, fluid movements that involve the whole body...

Steady your mind and soothe your system with Pratiloma Ujjayi

Posted on22 Jun 2025

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Feeling unbalanced or out of sorts? Try Pratiloma Ujjayi. Pratiloma Ujjayi is a powerful pranayama technique for regulating the breath, calming the nervous system, and anchoring the mind. It is considered a more advanced pranayama technique because it is a bit more complicated. It combines the elements of Ujjayi breath and alternate nostril breathing. You have to pay close attention...

The key to restful sleep? Finish your day first

Posted on08 Jun 2025

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Do your thoughts keep racing at bedtime? Many of us carry the weight of unfinished tasks, lingering emotions, or mental to-do lists into the night, often without realizing it. But without a clear transition from activity to rest, true relaxation can be hard to find. It is essential to resolve your day before going to bed because it helps calm...

Sleep easy on your side: Yoga for outer hip release

Posted on04 May 2025

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Achy hips can keep you from getting a good night’s sleep, especially if you are a side sleeper. Outer hip tension, often caused by tight glutes or IT band discomfort, can make it difficult to find a comfortable sleeping position and stay asleep through the night. This calm, floor-based sequence increases circulation to your hips and helps release built-up tension....

Grounding through the breath: A simple way to release overwhelm

Posted on20 Apr 2025

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According to the yoga tradition, Prana Vayu is the current of energy that governs intake—this includes food, water, air, information, and sensory experiences. Sometimes, we take in more information than we can process, and our minds start to feel crowded or overstimulated. This can be a sign that Prana Vayu is too concentrated in the head. To release this excess energy, we need to...

Reclaim your back: A yoga practice for better posture and strength

Posted on06 Apr 2025

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Our bodies often reflect our lifestyles. In today’s digital era, many of us find ourselves sitting for hours—whether at a desk, in front of a screen, or on the couch. Our bodies are built for movement, and extended periods of sitting can take a toll on our posture, muscles, and overall well-being. To combat the effects of sitting for long...

Daily five: Take care of your hips when you sit a lot

Posted on23 Mar 2025

Comments2

If you spend long hours sitting, you’ve probably felt the stiffness and discomfort in your hips. This simple, no-mat-needed 5-move practice is designed to help release that built-up tension and improve hip mobility. With just a few simple moves, you can ease tightness, increase flexibility, and prevent pain—all you need is a sturdy chair. Whether you’re at home, at work,...

A simple action to keep your diaphragm working properly

Posted on09 Mar 2025

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Your diaphragm is the primary muscle responsible for breathing. Like any other muscle, it contracts and can be controlled voluntarily. Maintaining tonicity in your diaphragm is essential for it to contract properly, moving downward during inhalation and returning to its resting position easily during exhalation. This allows for proper lung expansion and continuous visceral massage. Full diaphragmatic breathing exercises your...

Yoga for young adults: Strength and balanced body development

Posted on23 Feb 2025

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Traditionally, yoga practices for young adults were vinyasa-based and centered around a Sun Salutation. Sun Salutation sequence works particularly well for young adults because it warms up the body quickly, keeps a fast pace, and makes you feel strong and capable. The Sun Salutation was also meant to teach kids discipline; it has an element of boot camp training similar...

Daily Five: Essential yoga moves to stay strong and healthy

Posted on16 Feb 2025

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We all know that we need to move and strengthen our bodies every day, but some days, we get busy or feel uninspired. For days like these, it is great to have a routine that reliably makes you feel strong and capable but also doesn’t require too much thought or preparation. The five familiar yoga moves in this routine are...

A simple trick to manage agitation throughout the day

Posted on02 Feb 2025

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Throughout the day, we usually move from one thing to the next, taking more and more information and experiences in and often neglecting to process it all properly. All those unprocessed experiences build up and can make us feel distracted and agitated, increasing stress and affecting our sleep quality. There is a simple trick we can use to deal with...

Challenge your vestibular system with short multi-directional practice

Posted on19 Jan 2025

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Your vestibular system, working in tandem with your eyes, proprioception, and pressure sensors in your feet, constantly monitors your body’s position in space. To improve balance, we need to move the body in specific ways that foster better coordination between these systems. This short yoga practice includes simple movements that medical practitioners use to assess balance and improve it. The...

Ease into arm balances: Final stage

Posted on10 Nov 2024

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Some yoga students view arm balance poses as an invigorating challenge and others as an insurmountable hurdle. The yoga practice below is for those who fall into the latter category—those who feel their stomach clench when their yoga teacher mentions arm balances. You can consciously decide that arm balances are not appropriate for you (if you have wrist or shoulder...

Relieve stress and settle your nervous system

Posted on27 Oct 2024

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A couple of weeks ago, I read an article in the New York Times that featured a short movement practice for stress relief. I was excited to see that many of the movements in the article are very similar to the ones I like to use with my private yoga clients whose nervous system needs a bit of extra care. Whenever...

Strengthen your upper body with arm balances: Stage 2

Posted on13 Oct 2024

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When you prepare your body for arm-balancing postures, you need to make sure that you warm up your upper body and loosen up your neck and shoulders. This is particularly important if you do arm balances that place your arms in different positions – in front of you, behind you, and above your head, which places different kinds of load...

Strengthen your core to prepare for arm balances

Posted on29 Sep 2024

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Arm-balancing postures require core strength, usually of a particular kind. In arm-balancing postures, we often lift the legs up off the floor, which requires strong lower abdominal muscles, hip flexors, and pelvic floor. We train these muscles with very particular movements that prepare you for arm-balancing postures and also help you develop a stronger core in general. In this yoga...

Strengthen your upper body with arm balances: Stage 1

Posted on15 Sep 2024

Tagsarm balances, yoga for balance

Comments1

Practicing arm balance postures can give you a sense of accomplishment and body mastery. Most arm balance postures both require and develop upper body and core strength. There are three main types of arm balances. They place your arms and shoulders in three different positions: arms above the head, like in Handstand; elbows bent in front of you, like in...

Travel yoga: Loosen up and oil up your whole body

Posted on18 Aug 2024

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How your body handles traveling depends on many factors: your mode of transportation, how well you can sleep in a new place, what kind of activities you engage in, and so on. The aftermath of all these things seems to settle in our backs, necks, and hips. That is why it is useful to have a handy yoga practice that...

Travel yoga: Release tension in your upper body

Posted on04 Aug 2024

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Traveling can take a toll on your body. After sitting in static positions for long periods of time, hauling luggage, and sleeping on unfamiliar mattresses, physical stiffness can prevent you from enjoying your exciting vacation spots. Doing a short movement practice in the morning can help you limber up and get ready for your day of adventure. Not all locations...

Train your balance with side bending Tadasana

Posted on07 Jul 2024

Tagsbalance training, short yoga practice

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In our daily lives, we often live inside a so-called “movement box,” meaning that the range of our habitual daily movement is limited. For example, we infrequently raise our arms over our heads, and we never bend sideways. However, for balanced physical development, it’s important to maintain a full range of motion in all our joints, including our spines and...

Train you balance with twisting Tadasana

Posted on22 Jun 2024

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The classic version of the Mountain pose is as stable as any standing pose gets – you are just standing there on your two feet, trying to keep the weight equally distributed from side to side and from front to back. But if we change the form of the pose a bit, we can successfully use it to train your...

Strengthen your legs, hips, and upper back while training your balance

Posted on09 Jun 2024

Tagsyoga for balance training

Comments0

When we work with balance, we need to train our bodies to recover balance no matter what direction the challenge comes from: the front, side, or back. This is why, in this full yoga practice, we work with three common balance postures: Standing Toe Hold to train our balance with one leg extended forward, Warrior 3 to train balance with...

Train your balance with three-directional challenge

Posted on26 May 2024

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When our balance is challenged, we want to be able to recover it quickly, regardless of where the challenge came from: the front, the side, or the back. However, during our balance training, it helps to work with each of those directions separately to ensure that we are adequately prepared for any challenge. In this short, simple yoga practice, we...

Train your balance by moving within a pose

Posted on28 Apr 2024

Tagsdynamic balance, proactive balance, train your balance, yoga for balance

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When we work on balance training, we also need to train our proactive balance that reflects anticipation of a predicted perturbation. This means that we need to be able to handle challenges to our balance that can be expected, for example, when we stand up in a moving boat or a bus. In our yoga practice, we can train proactive balance...

Train your balance by moving between two poses

Posted on31 Mar 2024

Comments2

Static balance postures work well for developing the muscle strength required to maintain balance and promote overall structural integration, but they do not directly train us to stay balanced while we are in motion. Yet this is when our balance is most challenged in our daily lives—when we are walking (especially on uneven surfaces), going up or down the steps,...

Challenge your calves to train your balance

Posted on17 Mar 2024

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Your calves consist of three different muscles: gastrocnemius, soleus, and plantaris. Together, these lower leg muscles enable us to walk, jump, and stand on our toes. Recent research conducted by Dr. Franz, an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at NC State University, shows that in younger adults, the tendons of the calf muscles slide against each other, which might help...

Strengthen your ankles to train your balance

Posted on18 Feb 2024

Tagsyoga for balance

Comments4

Our lower legs, particularly the Achilles tendon and the muscles and tendons of the calf, are critically important for both walking and balancing. Our calf muscles alternately stretch and contract to generate propulsive force that moves the body forward. Ankle strength, range of motion, selective control, and muscle tone around them are all important for us to walk with ease...

Train your balance with heel raises

Posted on04 Feb 2024

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The best way to train your balance is to … balance! This seems so obvious, yet how often do we intentionally challenge our balance in the course of the day? Attempting to stand on tiptoes is easier for most people than many other balancing postures, but it still requires effort and coordination between all the systems that affect our sense...

Test your balance with 3 simple moves

Posted on21 Jan 2024

Comments4

How good is your balance? How sturdy do you feel on your feet? Test yourself with these three simple moves. If you can hold the position for 45-60 seconds, your balance is good; over 60 seconds, your balance is great; less than 45 seconds – you might need to put extra effort time into balance training. Starting next month, we...

Work your core to take the load off your back

Posted on03 Dec 2023

Comments2

Are you planning on lifting suitcases anytime soon? Shoveling snow? Hauling a Christmas tree? If your core muscles are not in the habit of working together, any type of lifting, pulling, or swinging activity will end up loading your lower back. To avoid stressing your back, you need to regularly train your core muscles to work together and redistribute the load...

Stretch and strengthen your hamstrings and back

Posted on05 Nov 2023

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Our contemporary sedentary lifestyles are not kind to our backs (weakening them) and our hamstrings (tightening them). Tight hamstrings can pull your pelvis out of alignment and increase the strain on your lower back. We all know how committed the yoga world is to stretching the hamstrings, but whenever we embark on that journey, we need to be sure to do...

Bend sideways to improve energy flow

Posted on08 Oct 2023

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Yoga poses are meant to be “prana pumps”, because the ultimate purpose of asana is to move the life force (prana) into different parts of the human system via the energy channels (nadis), using breath as a vehicle. For the energy to flow freely, we need to position the body in a way that creates organic, open energy lines, otherwise,...

Wind up to unwind: Strengthen your upper back

Posted on10 Sep 2023

Comments2

One of the most important things twisting postures do is realign the relationship between the shoulder girdle and the spine. This means that they alternatively stretch and strengthen all the muscles that bind together your arms, shoulder blades, and collar bones to your spine and ribcage, increasing circulation to your upper back and rinsing out tension. If you also add...

Put a spring in your step: Strengthen your hips and legs

Posted on13 Aug 2023

Tagsyoga for hip strength, yoga for leg strength

Comments2

Would you like to feel a spring in your step? When our hips feel stiff, stretching them seems like a good idea. However, strengthening your legs and hips might be more effective in relieving stiffness because contracting your muscles increases circulation into the area, improves muscle tone, develops stability at the joint level, and makes you feel stronger and more...

Yoga for core strength and integration

Posted on16 Jul 2023

Comments15

Strong core muscles that work together make any movement you engage in more stable and powerful; they also help protect other joints (especially the shoulders) from overuse. The following short yoga practice will help you connect to the center of your body, strengthen various muscles that comprise your core, and facilitate better integration between those muscles. You will also use...

Soothe your back and sense the reasons for back pain by talking to your body

Posted on04 Jun 2023

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Oftentimes our bodies try to get our attention through physical pain and discomfort. The messages that the body is trying to send us range from simple “Quit lifting heavy things in awkward positions” or “Stop sitting so much and move me” to more complex “You’ve been carrying this emotional burden for years, isn’t it time you address it?” The body...

Relieve neck and upper back tension by listening to your body

Posted on21 May 2023

Comments3

Our bodies reflect our personal stories and our journeys, both physical and psychological. They hold traces of our daily movement patterns, history of injuries (physical and emotional), and hints of internal imbalances. If we learn to read the messages that the body displays and make sense of our own body stories, we can effectively deal with any tensions that show...

Yoga Boost: Strengthen your knees and ankles to find stability and ease

Posted on09 Apr 2023

Comments4

The movement of your legs and rhythmic respiration work together to facilitate an upward flow of fluids within your body, specifically lymph and blood. Exercising and toning the muscles of your legs helps to improve circulation and keeps you stable and mobile. In this short practice, we direct our energy and attention to our legs to stabilize the knees, stretch...

Yoga boost: Release tension in the hips and integrate your brain hemispheres

Posted on26 Feb 2023

Comments6

Your right and left brain hemispheres approach the tasks you do throughout your day a bit differently: the left one looks at things linearly, as a sequence, and the right one more whole-istically. The curious thing is that, although the hemispheres need to cooperate, they can instead be involved in a power struggle. The cooperation between the right and left brain is...

Yoga Boost: Strengthen your core and embrace every part of you

Posted on12 Feb 2023

Comments4

According to the yoga tradition, the navel area is the location of the Manipura Chakra, an energetic center of the body responsible for our self-esteem, achievement, and inner strength. Sitting too much doesn’t just weaken our physical core, but also leads to sluggish energy flow throughout the navel area and can make us feel weak and uncertain. In this short...

Yoga Boost: Release tension in the upper back and focus on what matters

Posted on29 Jan 2023

Comments2

If you spend a long time every day in front of the computer screen, you are more likely to adopt a slouched posture, which can affect you in a variety of ways. Slouching can lead to stiffness in your neck and upper back, mess up your breathing patterns, and have a negative impact on your mood and self-esteem. To prevent...

Yoga boost: Awaken your inner power

Posted on15 Jan 2023

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According to Jill Bolte Taylor, the neuroscientist, and author of My Stroke of Insight and Whole Brain Living, there are four specific clusters of cells in the brain that process the same incoming information but react to it in very different ways. That reaction depends on where they are located in the brain: the thinking or the emotional part, in...

Yoga Boost: Loosen up and let go of frustrations

Posted on01 Jan 2023

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Could you use some more daily movement this year? For the next several months, we will feature short yoga practices that make it easier to infuse movement into your life and attend to your body, energy, and mind. Every two weeks, we will release a new short (under 15 minutes) practice that you can easily fit into your day. You...

Listen to your heart and improve your circulation

Posted on06 Nov 2022

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Your heart is small but mighty. For an organ that could fit into the palm of your hand and weighs less than a pound, the heart moves huge volumes of blood daily. That blood supply ensures that every cell in your body gets nourished and does its job properly. Your heart beats harder and faster when you engage in physical...

Issues in the tissues: What are you carrying in your body?

Posted on11 Sep 2022

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According to the yoga tradition, there are three qualities, or three energetic forces, that are always present (to various degrees) in all things and beings in the world, including our emotional states and interactions. Sattva guna is the quality of light, love, and life; rajas is the quality of activity, movement, and turbulence; tamas is the quality of inertia, heaviness,...

Loosen your hips and discharge mental energy when your mind is noisy and your body is stiff

Posted on28 Aug 2022

Comments0

If you spend all day in a static position in front of your computer screen, your hips are bound to get stiff and most of your energy concentrates in your mind. This short yoga practice encourages you to move that energy down into your body, release tension from your hips, get more grounded, and “bloom” from the ground up. Please...

Gently move the body and let go of effort when you feel tired or overextended

Posted on14 Aug 2022

Comments4

When you feel like you’ve used up all your physical and mental resources, it helps to anchor your attention in the body and move it gently to replenish your energy. It also helps to let go of effort and allow yourself to rest physically, energetically, and mentally. This short yoga practice will invite you to do just that. Please try...

Connect to your inner goddess when you feel frazzled and lack self-confidence

Posted on31 Jul 2022

Tagsdevata yoga, inner goddess yoga, yoga for strength and vitality

Comments2

Are there certain qualities or character traits that you would like to strengthen within yourself? This is what Devata yoga is all about. It is not really about worshiping a certain God or Goddess; it goes much deeper than that. In Devata yoga, a Deity represents our Divine Human Potential, and by establishing a relationship with the Deity, we attempt...

Find your inner stability when you feel depleted and uncertain

Posted on17 Jul 2022

Tagsyoga for strength and vitality

Comments0

When was the last time you felt like a superhero: strong, confident, capable, and vibrant? Try this short stranding yoga practice to awaken your inner hero! This practice uses standing and balancing poses with a stable Superhero stance to get you anchored in your body and help you feel more vibrant.

Stretch out and make space inside when you feel contracted and stagnant

Posted on03 Jul 2022

Tagsyoga for strength and vitality

Comments2

Do you ever feel so overwhelmed that you have to guard yourself with a stiff body and shallow breath? Try this short yoga practice to expand your body, breath, and mind! This practice uses simple movement to create space in different parts of your body and segmented inhalation to make more room in your lungs and increase your energy.

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