One of Simon’s popular active lectures on the essence of vinyasa yoga. Learn some of the missing steps you might be forgetting in the Up Dog Down Dog Vinyasa.
Moving Actively into Postures Can give Strength and Flexibility Without Tension or Stretching
by Simon Borg-Olivier Active movements are the more traditional way to come into hatha yoga postures. These are movements that are done by the muscles that would be used to enter a posture without the assistance of external forces such as gravity, momentum, or one limb pulling on another limb. These movements can give you most of the purported benefits …
Are you doing your yoga for now, or are you doing exercise, so you can do yoga later?
By Simon Borg-Olivier MSc BAppSc (Physiotherapy) Most people in the world of modern yoga are not actually doing yoga while they are engaged in the activities of posture, movement, and breathing, but instead, they are doing exercise or having a workout, which is often painful, or at least uncomfortable, and after which they are often tired, and hungry. This is …
Nerve Tensioning: Lengthening and Untangling Nerves to Improve Strength, Flexibility and Wellbeing
Are your muscles not working as well as they used to? Are you getting unexplained pain or altered sensations in your arms or your legs? You may be able to get some improvement in your condition by mobilising your nerve tissue, which is also known as nerve tensioning, or neural mobilisation and often –although incorrectly – as ‘nerve stretching’. Nerve …
Don’t Lock Your Core … Move From Your Core
Be firm but calm. Move from your ‘core’. Breathe from your ‘core’. Open your ‘heart’ from your ‘core’. In this blog we discuss how to move towards advanced postures safely and effectively. More importantly, we discuss how, if you learn to move in the way described here, you don’t need to do advanced postures to get the main benefits of yoga on …
Why After Ten Years of Teaching Yoga We Became Physiotherapists
By Simon Borg-Olivier Fit, healthy and natural people move easily without the heart racing and while hardly breathing and move without sensations of stretching or tensing muscles as they move easily during their activities. This is what defines them as fit and healthy and also is part of what allows them to feel connected physically and energetically in a state we could call ‘yoga’ (union). However, …
When it is Good to Hunch Your Shoulders Up
by Simon Borg-Olivier When you should lift your shoulder blades up as high as possible As I travel around the world I see many people in the world of exercise and yoga teach and practice that when you lift your arms up in the air you should pull the shoulder blades down (scapula depression). While there are times when you …
The Risks and Benefits of Chest Breathing
Chest breathing can be extremely beneficially if done correctly but can also cause problems if done in a way that overstimulates the nervous system. Many people teach and practice to inhale into the chest, and to exhale from the lower abdomen, but clinical research using Real Time Ultrasound (RTU) has shown that about 90% of the average adult population cannot really breathe …
Ten things to do that can improve your life
Here are ten great reminders for the day that have been shown to have a positive effect on your life. This is inspired by an article by Eric Barker but I have adapted it to be more inclusive of Yoga practitioners. 1. Get out in nature – bare feet on the earth if best and in the water if you …
The Best Side Stretches for Energising You and Relieving Back Pain
by Simon Borg-Olivier In every day life many people do not get enough sideways movement and freedom. Sideways ‘stretches’ (spinal lateral flexion) are really important movements and postures, and are often understated and not practiced in many exercise, stretching and yoga classes. In this post we demonstrate a simple side stretch (Figure 1 and Figure 2) that can be simply …