A coworker who is a cocktail expert told me that apparently there’s a huge debate over how to prepare Bloody Mary correctly within the mixology community. There’s even a book just about that! It sounded kind of ridiculous yet painfully familiar because of how much it reminded me the yoga crowd and our ongoing debates about correct alignments and blah-blah-blah. And usually, the easier the Asana is, the more debates it provokes. For example, this one Parsvakonasana, or Extende

Looking back at 2008 (or was it 2009?), to the time when I came to my first yoga class and liked it enough to continue doing it at least onc

Question: have you ever had an irrational panic attack like you're about to die, while in fact you're safe? If so, what was the context? Roller coaster? Snorkeling? Kapotasana, anyone? These are the things that made me panic. After a week of Tim Feldmann's workshop, I've also added Pranayama to this list. Yeah, the very thing that is supposed to calm you down - breathing, if not practiced and developed. Well, holding the breath to be exact. Tim taught us some techniques that

During my lifetime, I've tried on four completely different careers: journalism, hotel management, marketing in high tech, and teaching yoga. All of that because yes, I like exploring new things, but also because I'm terrible at making decisions when predicting what career path I would enjoy. Apparently, I'm not alone: I saw stats somewhere that something like 80% of people are completely off when guessing what is going to make them happy in the future. Philosopher L. A. Paul

I was first introduced to Ashtanga back in 2012, when I moved to Ithaca, NY, for a grad school. I can still vividly remember watching my fir

How dedicated are you to yoga, or it is more of a hobby? I started yoga as an alternative to stretching (I obviously had no idea what I was getting into). It soon became my favorite hobby. It took several years for it to grow into being this essential part of my life, which where I'm now and my relationship with yoga is still constantly evolving. But I want to make this important distinction between yoga being a hobby (and there's nothing wrong with it if this is what you wan

Warrior I, or Virabhadrasana A, is one of the most common yoga poses. In Ashtanga, it is held for five breaths on each side as a part of the