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More about our vision
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United in diversity
✊ At You Can Yoga, we like to remind ourselves and others that first of all, what we do is POLITICAL. The system in which we live has failed many of us. As a society, we lack a sense of community, human connection, and true support for personal development. We live in an oppressive world…
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It’s not all asana
As the modern western yoga world gets farther away from what yoga historically and traditionally is we try our best to stay closer to its origins. Yoga is so much more than doing postures in various styles and rhythms under the direction of a single teacher or guru. There are Four Paths of Yoga, or…
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The journey inward is not a warm embrace
For those of you that know me well, or have read my book, you know that I have spent my life trying to investigate it in some way and am very intense about the quest itself. I’ve spent my entire adult life looking for answers that I couldn’t find in religion, society, politics, or the…
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Stepping Forward
Right now, we are stuck. Humans are animals of mental and physical action and right now we’ve all been forced to stop a bit. The reactions are as broad as our range of lifestyle, class, and personality but we have all been effected in some way. – Well, not the super rich but will they…
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Question everything, especially your teachers.
In the yoga world yet another guru, Vishnu Devananda (sivananda yoga), has recently been accused of sexual misconduct. Spiritual teachers always seem to end up creating an atmosphere of chaos within their cults. Add that to the list of Osho, Bikram (hot yoga), Pattabhi Jois (ashtanga yoga), John Friend (anusara yoga) and many, many more.…
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Why we should winter.
In the grand scheme of all things natural, winter is the time to relax and restore your self. Plants wilt, trees lose their leaves, birds migrate, and bears slumber for months on end only to come back in spring energised and ready to take on the world again. Why should we behave any differently? As…
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Starting Yoga can be very frustrating
I’m not flexible enough, I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t want to look silly. Sound familiar? These are the sorts of things I hear all the time as a teacher and it’s what keeps people from doing something that’s good for themselves. The ego is a powerful thing and it’s hard to convince…
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Maybe a midlife crisis is simply the universe making one final attempt to wake you up?
Is the world crumbling around you? Are you questioning everything you have ever done? Do you feel the need to make big changes but don’t really know where to start? Are things making less sense than usual? Then you’re in luck. Now is your chance to really look at yourself and rebuild your world by…
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Smoke and mirrors
It’s been quite a longtime since I’ve felt very present at the schools, apart from the teacher training course this year I haven’t done much, or written much, in what seems like ages. Now I’d like to share with you why I withdrew. If you’ve read the book you know where I was at, in…
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Why do we meditate?
Meditation can sound so easy and yet so confusing at times. What do I do while I’m sitting here. Do I try to force my brain to go quiet? Do I repeat a mantra? Do I watch my breath? Do I control my breath? Do I control my mind? Or do I simply let my…
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Benefits of Yoga Nidra
In our busy lives most of us experience too much stress. It is unhealthy as it can cause illness, sleeplessness and even burn-outs. In many cases we recognise the signs of stress too late. A lot of people don’t take a break or the time to unwind and those signs are often neglected. Some of…
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What it’s like not to be me
We have to start with the idea that there is no me, or you actually. We have to say that there is just so the ego has something to hold onto in hopes of making sense of everything around us that we call this life. However, there is no you. Only the idea of you…
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The Practice
Why do we do yoga? If you look at what you find in the mainstream it’s pretty much seen as exercise to make you feel better, get more flexible and to relieve some stress. All of these things are actually just side effects of the practice itself. There are many types of yoga, and group…
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Karma Yoga Program
Karma yoga is the act of selfless service and it’s important in the yoga community for many reasons. The first and foremost, as in all things yoga, to subdue the mind. The ego is the false sense of self and in yoga we are trying to separate from the ego and connect to our true…
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Same story, different angle
My previous entry was about letting go of the asana in hopes of letting go of a piece of the ego at the same time. This is going to be a recurring theme because I truly feel the goal, the true purpose, of practicing yoga is lost in the western world. “Be the change you…
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Get your head out of your asana!
Yoga as we have come to know it in the western world has been shaped into an exercise for good health and well being. There is nothing wrong with that as it has had such a positive impact on the lives of many and has opened the door to bigger and better things in peoples…
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The bastardisation of yoga
First let’s start with the definition of the word bastard. It should be clear that I’m being proper in my usage of words and not writing this from an emotional place of anger or discontent with the yoga world. Even if that were also to be true. More on that later though. A bastard is…
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When asana goes too far…
I just saw a post on social media of someone being forcefully pushed into an asana by a man with a nice, big and round pot belly. This stirs many thoughts in my usually empty and quiet mind. Yoga is not about beautifully getting into the perfect position so we shouldn’t ever force our bodies…
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Finding Inspiration
Today I have none and the more I try to find some the harder it becomes. My inbox is full and my to do list is long. If something isn’t an urgent priority it just doesn’t matter to me today. Mail will go unanswered and bills will go unpaid. I’m in the office but my…
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No Excuses
During my time in India I was fortunate enough to meet a beautiful woman named Simona who is traveling the world in a wheel chair. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis a few years back and it hasn’t slowed her down. There is so much light in her eyes and fire in her heart that…
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Breathe in… breathe out…
I was once told by a teacher of mine that the only thing you can control in your life is your breath. The longer I am a yogi and a seeker the more clear and evident this becomes. What becomes even more clear is the fact that your breathing can effect the entire world around…
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Connecting with your True Self
This seems to be a theme today with my clients so I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on it. Yes, the goal of yoga is to quiet the mind but that is not only for stress relief. It’s much bigger than than that. Yoga today is about feeling good, relaxing and finding some…
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Why are you here?
And I don’t mean the big question, “Why are you here?” I mean the little version, the starting point. Why are you sitting here before me? That’s the first question you must ask yourself before you can do any work to improve your current situation. You might not be directly in front of me now…
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You don’t have to be flexible to do yoga.
I’ve been hearing a lot from new students or people that want to get started with yoga, or simply just to give a try, that they aren’t flexible enough so they won’t be able to do it well. This is a huge misconception of the entire concept of what yoga really is. Flexibility is a…
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You are not a number!
The industrialisation of yoga is turning yogis into just that, a number that passes through a revolving door. The more studios I see opening around me the larger they seem to be. If you got into yoga as a business owner to make money then you are not a yogi at all. Teaching yoga is…
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Finding Your Flow
Everyday is an adventure set forth for you to discover something new about yourself and the world around you. We create structure to hide from the chaos that is being alive. That might hide the reality from you but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist behind what you think you are seeing. Life is…
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Not today Shiva!
Today I just can’t! We all have those days. You wake up and the moment you get out of bed you think to yourself “Why the hell did I do that?” All I want to do is crawl back into the cavern that is my solace, my bedroom. Most of us can’t do that though.…
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It’s a downward dog eat downward dog world!
I’ve been in this business for over 15 years and the longer I’m in it the more the business side shows its ugly face. Yoga has been around longer than any of us and will continue to be here long after we are all dead and forgotten. Yoga is here to give us a platform…
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Non violence in daily life
The first apartment I rented on my own in Amsterdam was a tiny shithole in a busy neighbourhood that was very loud and smelly, there was a street market parallel to it so that was mostly to blame. The rent was €995 per month and it was so old and poorly taken care of that…
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What is Yoga and why should I do it?
Simply put, yoga is a series of movements utilizing all of your major muscle groups so that you can sit down on the floor comfortably without any pain or discomfort. It keeps your body strong and supple. The technique was created thousands of years ago so that practioners could sit in meditation for hours on…
