Yoga Inspiration

Prachi Patankar was born and raised in rural India. She comes from a working-class and lower-caste family. Her parents and grandparents fought for worker's rights, women's rights, gender justice, and more. You may know Prachi for her writing and activism, and she's here to discuss the spiritual and political history of India and its relationship with yoga.

Many different spiritual and religious traditions existed in India for centuries. What we know today as Hinduism was known as Brahmanism in the first millennium B.C. This community organized its people into an occupational-based categorization system, or caste, with the intent of creating an ideal social structure.

Prachi discusses what a caste hierarchy is and how it entrenches injustices within the communities that are not part of the dominant caste. To go against the caste is to go against religion, and we discuss what happens when the worlds of spirituality and politics are mixed. The larger philosophy is further complicated by colonialism and the digital world of the modern age. For example, the yoga sutras we can easily find on YouTube are still not available to the lower castes in India.

Caste systems have remained in India for millennia in different forms under different leaders. It's essential to our yoga practice to acknowledge this practice and speak critically of our own participation in it. A critical analysis does not demonize your yoga practice or foster Hinduphobia in the yoga community, but it will inspire a conversation that allows you to see where and how you can foster social justice.

To learn more about the intersection of caste systems and yoga, Prachi recommends

Annihilation of Caste by B.R. Ambedkar. His invitation to deliver this speech was revoked due to how controversial it was at the time. She also recommends Mahatma Jotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule, 19th-century activists. Learn more in A Gardener in the Wasteland by Srividya Natarajan.

If you would like to get involved, visit Equality Labs for more information on how to help.

If you would like to sign up for yoga courses with me, get your free 30-day membership on Omstars.com & use code: PODCAST. Keep up with us online @omstarsofficial.

Follow me on Instagram @kinoyoga and visit my blog at Kinoyoga.com. Don't hesitate to get in touch with me at [email protected]. If you want to share what you've learned on your yoga journey, you could be invited to guest spot on The Yoga Inspiration Podcast.

Sometimes, we have to take it upon ourselves to seek out the instruction we need on this spiritual journey. When it comes to practicing meditation, I was never taught an official technique. The most technical instruction I received was "go ahead!"

And, yes, we should all go ahead and practice sitting and meditating. However, it's much easier said than done. We sit with distractions all day that can make it hard to meditate, especially with that small and convenient distraction device in your pocket. That's why I sought a technique that can work for anyone who wishes to add meditation to their spiritual journey.

I practice with a traditional Buddhist meditation known as Anapanasati, which provides a universal anchor for self-awareness. This anchor is your breath. The in-going and out-going pattern of your breath makes meditation possible by giving your mind a strategy for blocking out distractions.

The pattern of your in-going and out-going breath - anapana - gives your mind a smaller area to focus on, which sets the foundation for mindfulness practice - or sati.

The practice of yoga requires mindfulness and awareness. Without it, the architecture of your practice starts to fall apart. To be aware means recognizing what is without judgment. This begins with your breath and acknowledging its quality - the temperature, the sound, the smell - without categorizing it.

If you've never tried meditation before, I invite you to join me for an Anapanasati practice after this discussion. Join me for more at Omstars.com and use code: "PODCAST" to get your free 30-day membership on.

Keep up with us online @omstarsofficial, and keep up with me on Instagram at @kinoyoga and visit my blog at Kinoyoga.com.

If you want to share what you've learned on your yoga journey, get in touch with me at [email protected]. You could be invited to guest spot on The Yoga Inspiration Podcast.

Join me as I share some time with Peg and Megan from The Ashtanga Dispatch Yoga Podcast. They attended my first-ever class at the Miami Yoga Garage, and we're discussing all the steps it took to make the Miami Yoga Garage a reality.

The pandemic has changed a lot of things about the way we work, how we share time with friends, and even how we practice yoga. At first, the yoga community was very much against video classes. But it came to the point of necessity during global lockdowns for yoga teachers and studios to move online.

We changed the way we perceive online yoga classes, and how we engage with one another online also started to evolve. But with big change comes loss, and the pandemic has just been one unpredictable roadblock after another for so many of us in the yoga community.

Moving businesses online or physically moving your business to a new location is uncharted territory for many of us. The perseverance I learned on the mat helped me get through the problems that kept cropping up during the move. My yoga practice made it possible for me to sit with all this uncertainty because I knew that the yoga practice is always there even when everything else is going completely wrong.

A big part of our spiritual journey is embracing loss while focusing on the new. Change is inevitable. Sometimes you are in control of the changes. But, even then, there are things in this universe beyond our control. It's important to rely on your community during these times and realize that even community support evolves. The pandemic has changed many things for the yoga community, but it will never take away from the sense of kinship we feel when we're together, whether it's online or in the yoga studio.

Check out what's going on @MiamiYogaGarage. And if you would like to get into the yoga studio with me, sign up for a free 30-day membership on Omstars.com & use code: PODCAST. Keep up with us online @omstarsofficial.

Follow me on Instagram @kinoyoga and visit my blog at Kinoyoga.com. Don't hesitate to get in touch with me at [email protected] and share what you've learned on your yoga journey. You could be invited to guest spot on The Yoga Inspiration Podcast!

Join me for a metta practice in gratitude. Giving thanks on your spiritual journey is important. It's important to recognize your yoga teachers (and their teachers before them) for helping you uncover these gifts, and it's important to be gracious to the path itself for offering these gifts to us.

So, get into a comfortable position and relax. Notice your breath and allow it to overwhelm your senses. Pay attention to where your breath makes contact with your body and follow it through your body and the entire length of the exhalation. Feel your breath flow out into the world before pulling it back in again.

This to-and-fro energy of your breath eases your mind and allows you to fully experience the practice of metta and awareness. This level of acute awareness is essential to your yoga journey. More than the asanas, this meditative practice soothes your mind and body and unites the two.

When you find a quiet moment, I will ask you to give thanks. Give thanks for all the spiritual gifts you received on this journey, and show gratitude for all the gifts that are to come. This gratitude inspires love, and you can feel that love in your heart space. Feel that love fill up the space around us. We are all sharing this space and this experience, and I thank you for sharing this moment with me right now.

Let this feeling of love flourish within you and empower your thoughts and feelings. If you're facing a hurdle right now, realize you don't need to find a solution to your problem right away. But you can use this energy to inspire more positive thoughts and thinking.

If you would like to learn more about metta and the yoga practice, sign up at Omstars.com & use code: PODCAST to get your free 30-day membership. Keep up with us online @omstarsofficial.

Follow me on Instagram at @kinoyoga and visit my blog at Kinoyoga.com.

If you want to share what you've learned on your yoga journey, get in touch with me at [email protected]. You could be invited to guest spot on The Yoga Inspiration Podcast.

Ro Averin, founder of the UNLRN PRJCT, will be moderating our Ashtanga Intersections Panel — hear from them now on this special episode of the Yoga Inspiration Podcast!

Ro has always been drawn to the deeper purpose of teaching and healing, and she discovered yoga at a young age. But you never know where your path can lead you. Ro's path has taken her on many journeys through academia and across the globe — from Turtle Island in Canada, to graduate school in the United States, to her current position in Norway (near the Arctic Circle). Her work explores race theory, queer theory, intersectionality, and feminism, and how it all works together in social work and the process of unlearning.

One of the biggest hurdles in her career was finding a way to put all of this knowledge and experience into practice. She started in diversity and inclusion programs at universities but wanted something beyond what she calls "the academy." Ro wanted a way to bring what she knows back into her community, and she was inspired to create the UNLRN PRJCT.

What does it mean to unlearn? Ro defines this and more of the words and phrases you may be seeing on social media. It's important to understand what these words mean and how the language we're using changes and evolves with the needs of our society.

Ro describes unlearning as a multi-pronged process of identifying the selective information and versions of history we've learned and making a conscious decision to question this education and seek out more knowledge. It isn't easy to rewire our brains to think differently about ourselves and our history, but it's a process many yoga practitioners are familiar with.

Sitting with the uncomfortable, re-learning what we think we know about our minds and our bodies, these are all elements of our yoga practice. Just as you practice holding yourself accountable on the yoga mat, you must practice holding yourself accountable for the role you play in your community.

The process of unlearning is never done, but that doesn't mean you aren't making progress. We can sustain the positive changes we've been making, but the work is never over. You just have to learn a different way of measuring your success. If you want to learn how to start the unlearning process, get in touch with Ro online at UNLRNPRJCT.com or email them at [email protected].

Don't miss our Ashtanga Intersections discussion panel. Sign up at Omstars.com & use code: PODCAST to get a free 30-day membership. Keep up with us online @omstarsofficial.

Follow me on Instagram @kinoyoga and visit my blog at Kinoyoga.com. Don't hesitate to get in touch with me at [email protected]. If you want to share what you've learned on your yoga journey, you could be invited to guest spot on The Yoga Inspiration Podcast.

I am discussing the deeper dimensions of yoga practice with one of my yoga students, Shakira Bouwer. Shakira is a fellow yoga teacher who has been practicing Ashtanga yoga for 13 years. For both of us, what keeps our own practices fresh and fun after all these years is creating a more accessible practice for our students.

Yoga is a mirror that all of us need in order to take a good, long look at ourselves — not just as individuals but as a society and a community. Unfortunately, the yoga practice is intimidating. It can seem impossible when you see yogis bending backward with ease, but the practice is more than just the asanas. The asanas can be modified for beginners, yogis with injuries, and older yoga students so that everyone can get closer to the heart of the practice.

Because the heart of yoga is our community. For Shakira, a woman who was born and raised in Jamaica, her motto has always been "Out Of Many, One People." This is her country's motto and an interesting choice for a nation that is influenced and divided by its history of colonialism, racism, and religiosity. Shakira shares her experience in Jamaican high school and her first yoga class to explain how the heart of yoga practice helped her recognize the discrepancies and privileges in her own life and the world around her.

You can take what you learn on the yoga mat into the real world, and Shakira discusses how yoga helped her to grow and navigate the sometimes ugly and uncomfortable experiences we face off the mat. Remember, how you face problems on the mat is a mirror for how you face problems in your life, and it's important to give yourself space to react and listen. As Shakira discusses here, everyone wants to be heard and understood. Practicing yoga can help teach you how to be a better listener, not only to yourself but to those struggling to be heard around you.

If you would like to sign up for yoga courses with me, get your free 30-day membership on Omstars.com & use code: PODCAST. Keep up with us online @omstarsofficial.

Follow me on Instagram @kinoyoga and visit my blog at Kinoyoga.com. Don't hesitate to get in touch with me at [email protected]. If you want to share what you've learned on your yoga journey, you could be invited to guest spot on The Yoga Inspiration Podcast.

The practice of yoga has less to do with your ability to do a headstand and more to do with your personal experience on this journey. After working with so many yoga students, I'm bringing their questions to the Yoga Inspiration Podcast and answering them here. It's a new style of episode, and I think it will be a great way to bring the yoga community even closer together.

I have been practicing and teaching yoga for over 20 years, and I see so many yoga students who think they cannot practice Ashtanga due to skill level or inflexibility. I know from firsthand experience that that is just not the case. I never did anything physical in my life before stepping into my first yoga class. And, after just a single year of practice, I traveled to Mysore, India, to learn more about the yoga path.

I'm sharing this story because it's essential for every yoga student to know that you don't have to practice for decades before traveling to Mysore. You don't have to stop practicing because of an injury or arthritis. And you don't have to avoid the yoga mat because you think you're inflexible.

Becoming more flexible is one benefit of yoga, but it doesn't happen in the way you'd think. You aren't bending and stretching your body every which way to achieve flexibility. Instead, we start with the breath. Calming your breath calms the nervous system, which eases both the mind and the body. In this relaxed state, your body becomes more naturally flexible. Turning your practice into a routine will increase this flexibility.

If you're interested in learning how to be more flexible on the yoga mat, the answers to these student questions should help you out. If you want to become more flexible, join me on January 1st for the January Yoga Challenge. I am inviting every inflexible individual to practice with me. Each day this month will feature a new yoga class with tips and tricks to improve your flexibility.

Yoga classes are suitable for beginners and all levels. Sign up for the January Yoga Challenge at Omstars.com & use code: PODCAST to get your free 30-day membership. Keep up with the January Yoga Challenge at @omstarsofficial.

Follow me on Instagram @kinoyoga and visit my blog at Kinoyoga.com. Don't hesitate to get in touch with me at [email protected]. Ask a question and share what you've learned on your yoga journey. You could be invited to guest spot on The Yoga Inspiration Podcast.

If you live in the Florida area or plan on visiting, stop by and take a class at Pineapple Yoga. I had the pleasure of teaching and having a talk with the yoga students there about Ashtanga yoga, and I share some of the lessons I've learned that are real for me and other students practicing Ashtanga.

The uniqueness of the Ashtanga practice is not the asanas, which are the same every time you step onto the mat. But it's your unique, individual practice that turns yoga into one of the best mirrors you can shine on yourself. Many people have a negative reaction to the practice at first because this mirror highlights the parts of ourselves we don't always want to see. But if you can face yourself on the yoga mat, you can overcome the obstacles within your body and mind.

The biggest hurdles we all face in our practice are failure, boredom, and fear. I share how these hurdles can manifest differently for each of us, and how yoga is designed as a tool to help overcome them. For example, not doing well and failing at an asana is a bruise to the ego, but we practice yoga to break down our ego.

Yoga teaches us how to step out of our minds, reunite with our bodies, and overcome the egotistical cycle of thinking. You have to step into your own skin every time you step onto the mat, and we use the tool of asana to bring our mind off its bullet train of thought and back into the body.

If you're facing a difficult moment on the yoga mat, only yoga will help you through. Giving up just ensures that the difficulty will remain there until you pick up your practice again and start chipping away at it. To overcome these obstacles, we have to practice properly and persistently. Listen now to learn how to start a habitual Ashtanga yoga practice, the benefits of practicing yoga persistently, and more with my Q&A session at Pineapple Yoga.

If you would like to sign up for yoga courses with me, get your free 30-day membership on Omstars.com & use code: PODCAST. Keep up with us online @omstarsofficial.

Follow me on Instagram @kinoyoga and visit my blog at Kinoyoga.com. Don't hesitate to get in touch with me at [email protected]. If you want to share what you've learned on your yoga journey, you could be invited to guest spot on The Yoga Inspiration Podcast.

Kim Weeks and I are back. If you missed our chat on Instagram Live, catch up here on The Yoga Inspiration Podcast. I spoke with Kim earlier about Yoga Alliance. We continue our discussion of the Ashtanga practice, the intersection of spiritual practice and social justice, and how the dynamics of the yoga teacher and the practice are changing.

The Ashtanga practice provides us with the eight full limbs that create the moral and ethical guidelines we need to live a full life. Your spiritual practice can provide you with a blueprint for taking on the real world and its problems, but those who teach Ashtanga have a responsibility to protect the lineage of the practice while still providing a safe space for all students to practice.

Being a yoga teacher is more than mastering the asanas or completing so many hours of training. Yoga teachers are responsible for tending the path and helping students build a strong foundation for their spiritual practice. Today, however, the role of the teacher is changing, and that dynamic now involves discussing the history of colonization, racial appropriation, and the racism that goes along with it.

If you're thinking of becoming a yoga teacher, ask yourself how invested you are in the student's journey. Not just your yoga students but also your personal yoga journey. Even if you practice 10,000 hours in this lifetime, you will never stop learning. Those who love to learn often make the best yoga teachers because they are dedicated to cultivating the path and creating an accessible student's journey. I share tips for anyone interested in joining a mentorship and becoming a teacher, and I offer advice on why teaching accessible Ashtanga yoga is important.

Asanas are only a part of the practice, and you're missing out on a lot of spiritual growth when you focus primarily on perfecting your poses. But what happens if you're injured? Or as you age? Should you stop your spiritual practice just because you're not physically able to do the traditional asanas anymore?

No! You can still practice yoga, even if you can't stretch your foot behind your head or achieve a full headstand. You can also continue to access the spiritual experience of yoga in a modified pose, and I discuss ways teachers can bring more accessible Ashtanga yoga to their students.

Ashtanga intimidates a lot of students, and that intimidation is justified. The work required of a yoga student practicing Ashtanga is very intense, but not because of the poses. I define "The Work" for Kim, but my listeners know that I use this phrase all the time — it's the work of showing up to practice every day, taking a good, deep look at yourself, and chipping away at our old thought patterns and negative ways of thinking one day at a time.

You don't need to master the poses to put in the work, but you should be stepping onto your mat every day to try. Many yoga studios offer scholarship programs and free classes, and it's never too late to sign up.

Follow me on Instagram @kinoyoga to catch more live interviews and Q&As. If you would like to sign up for yoga courses with me, get your free 30-day membership on Omstars.com. Use code: PODCAST. Keep up with us online @omstarsofficial.

Kim Weeks fosters transformation. She's a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher who started out on Wall Street until 9/11 changed her life's course. She has taught yoga for 20 years, is a mindfulness consultant for businesses seeking to foster transformation, and leads conversations on the intersections of yoga and mindfulness with those of lineage, scientific research, justice, and the meaning of practice in the 21st century. Learn more about Kim at her website www.weekswell.com.

Visit my blog at Kinoyoga.com and don't hesitate to get in touch with me at [email protected]. If you want to share what you've learned on your yoga journey, you could be invited to guest spot on The Yoga Inspiration Podcast.

This special installment of Meditations for Manifesting is all about the body. More importantly, it's about loving our bodies and accepting ourselves for who we are, flaws and all. It takes practice to become comfortable in your own skin again, and meditations in mindfulness can bring us a step closer with each breath.

Your breath will be your anchor today. Let it bring you back when your mind wanders. The breath will steady your thoughts and bring your focus away from the external world and back into the inner world. If distractions are overwhelming, pay attention to your breath as it tickles the tiniest hairs on your upper lip.

Perceiving even the smallest sensation that arises helps to cultivate an attitude of equanimity.

Your mind can be distracted, there's nothing wrong with that or with the power of your attention. These distractions are natural and your chance to practice being non-judgmental. Just observe that your mind has gone away and bring your attention back to the warmth of your breath on the edge of your nostrils.

The power of something so tiny can have big changes on the way you perceive yourself. As your focus flows inward and passes through the judgmental thoughts on your way to your subconscious, you'll realize how easy it is to turn your mind away from the negative thoughts about yourself and toward a more neutral point of view. In this equanimous state, you can begin the meditation to love your body.

I will guide you through this meditation of love, honor, and respect for our bodies. We will start with the soles of our feet, all the way up to our shining faces. Let the body be as it is in its vulnerable state and do not pass judgment, just feel the sensation of your body as a whole and thank it for the beauty and strength it creates for you.

Sign up for more meditations and yoga classes online at Omstars.com. Use code: PODCAST to get a free 30-day membership.

Keep up with us online at @omstarsofficial. Keep up with me on Instagram at @kinoyoga and visit my blog at Kinoyoga.com.

If you want to share what you've learned on your yoga journey, get in touch with me at [email protected]. You could be invited to guest spot on The Yoga Inspiration Podcast.