Natarajasana
This pose feels great on the legs and can help strengthen the whole body! To begin, start by standing in Tadasana, with your feet hips width apart. Take a few breaths to steady yourself and root down into your right foot. This means send extra energy down there, like you were a tree sending out roots into the soil.
Secondly, inhale and bring your left knee into your chest. Hold it here for a few breaths and if this is a challenge for you today, stay there. Repeatedly bringing your knee into your chest in this fashion will start to strengthen those muscles that are important for this pose.
Next, slide your left hand down to your left ankle (knee is still pulled in close to the chest). Gently let your knee come down so that your kneecap is pointing towards the floor. Start to extend your right arm up into the air until it reaches straight up.
Once you have all of the above steps complete with confidence, you can go the next and final step. Start kicking back with your leg, and reaching forward with your arm and letting your torso come parallel to the floor. Keep kicking back with your leg to get strength and extension in this pose – no one appendage is doing all the work!
Stay in the pose for 5-10 breaths and come down. Stand in Uttanasana (Standing Forward Fold) for a time until you are ready to try the other side!
The author, Anna Ferguson, is a yoga teacher, artist, photographer and writer. She teaches weekly classes at Asheville Yoga Center and other studios in Asheville, NC. Find out more about her at ushasyoga.com.
Popularity: 12% [?]
Intrigued, I dove deeper into the archives of the internet. What other proof could I find that yoga does exactly what I know it does? Next I found a study on yoga for women with what is called the 
The story is set on the island of Crete which was ruled by the ruthless King Minos. Several years prior to the start of our tale, the Minoans mounted an attack on the Athenians for an old and unforgivable offense. As reparation, the Athenians agreed to pay a yearly tribute of seven youths and seven maidens who would become sacrifice to a Minoan monster. Theseus, the son of the Athenian King, Aegus, was a very clever youth who wanted to put an end to this bloody tradition. He offered himself up as one of the youths to be sacrificed and boarded a ship bound for Crete. Upon arrival, the 14 children were thrown into the infamous labyrinth – an impossibly intricate maze from which there was no escape: The labyrinth had walls so tall they could not be climbed or jumped. No ray of sunlight was strong enough to reach the floor, so it was blacker than a moonless night. The labyrinth was also incredibly vast, dangerous and infinitely complex. Those who were sacrificed would either die of thirst, starvation, or were killed by one of the many minor foes hidden within the folds of the maze. If the youth was lucky enough to make it past all of those obstacles, the ultimate battle was waiting for them at the center of the maze: the survivor would have to face and vanquish a most terrifying monster: a half-bull half-man called the Minotaur.
center of the maze, cut off it’s head and then wound his way back out with the help of Ariadne’s thread. Theseus, along with his fellow Athenians and Ariadne, escaped to their ship and headed back to Athens. On their way, they stopped at the island of Naxos where a festival was being held in honor of the god Dionysus. Though some versions of this tale end this chapter with Theseus coldly leaving Ariadne behind on this island, other versions report that Ariadne was seduced by this lust of the god of wine and pleasure.
The act of sitting for meditation is your heroic sacrifice of the self. When you choose to undertake the practice of meditation, you choose to hold a mirror up to your face – to throw yourself into the dark labyrinth of your own inner landscape. The landscape may be completely unfamiliar to you after a lifetime of distraction from the outside world. With no direction, you will likely wander those darkened passageways completely lost, and come up against monsters within such as doubt, loneliness, depression, confusion, fear, and regret.
And what of the Minotaur who sleeps at your center? The Minotaur is a metaphor for the mirror you do not wish to look into. It is the portrait of Dorian Grey, the man under Darth Vadar’s mask, the skeleton in your closet. Half-man and half-bull, it is all of your humanity and all of your animal tendencies wrapped up into one – then buried in a dark hole to fester. It is all that you wish to deny you are.
In fact, I’m not suggesting we need to destroy the beast at all. I suggest we make friends with the Minotaur using those same tools given by the guru, which means “one who sheds light”. With a steady breath you, both physiologically and emotionally, have a steadier mind and an easier heart. With that you are able to step up to your beast when it appears instead of running from it. With strong, quiet resolve, called sankalpa in the yoga tradition, you are able to calmly raise your eyes to look upon the beast in the light and examine it. With compassion you can then wrap the wings of your heart around it when you realize that the beast inside is just like a child or puppy who needs and cannot express so they growl or bite or scratch. And sometimes – it is really a beast. So what will you do with it? Will you throw it into a dark hole? Bury it to let it fester? Or will you continue to use your tools whenever necessary that help you master your reaction to it?
It’s summer time and the living’s easy. I’ve compiled a list of 10 facts/tips to help guide any alcohol enthusiast towards maintaining their wellness goals while enjoying the hot days of summer and having fun.
3. Empty calories. Alcohol contains 7 kcal per gram and the calories provided are “empty” meaning that they are a not providing any noteworthy nutrients. Current science suggests that we have a limited number of “discretionary” or bonus calories that we can consume outside of what calories needed to supply adequate nutrition. You can think of these discretionary calories as “freebies” and on average it is suggested that we all have some where around 250-300 freebie calories a day.
8. Prevent the alcohol munchies. Pace yourself with the alcohol and make sure to drink plenty of water to prevent the ravenous alcohol munchies that many people experience. We are mostly like to sabotage our healthy eating habits after 10pm.
Sunny lives in Asheville, NC with his wife and 3 rascally boys. He and his wife own the Asheville Yoga Center. Sunny spends his time tending to an urban micro-farm, wife, boys and business. He plays hand drums and does graphic/web design and yoga regularly. He likes riding bikes and longboards, and learning. He also tends to go off on tangents, but likes it that way. You can reach him at sunny@youryoga.com