There are thousands of hours of free or inexpensive streaming yoga classes online. Insight timer, Headspace and Calm apps have recorded meditations that are great for getting started with meditation. Many people feel the salve that can come from focusing the mind and following someone’s voice, so why work with a personal yoga teacher? A generalized practice can help in general ways, but a teacher who deeply understands your needs and how to apply the tools of yoga over time can help in remarkably personal ways.

A generalized practice can help in general ways. But in the Viniyoga tradition, the relationship between teacher and student exists for a specific reason: the tools of yoga are most effective when they are applied with knowledge of the particular person using them.

Yoga Sutra I.32 Tat pratisedhārtham eka tattvābhyāsaḥ

One of the most practical teachings in the first chapter of the Yoga Sutras comes just before Patañjali names the antarāyas (obstacles). He offers a suggestion: orient the mind toward a single principle. In the sutras surrounding I.29, he points to the practice of japa, the sustained inner repetition of a sound or quality that steadies the mind and begins to dissolve what gets in the way of clarity.

Yoga Sutras I.30 Vyādhi styāna samśaya pramāda ālasya aviratī bhrāntidarśana alabdhabhūmikatva anavasthitatvāni cittavikṣepaḥ te antarāyaḥ

Illness, mental stagnation, doubt, carelessness/haste, lethargy, overindulgence, false perception, not reaching a stable foundation, and inability to maintain what is attained — these are the obstacles that prevent us from moving forward.

There is something quietly comforting about the thirtieth sutra of the first chapter. Patañjali lists the antarāyas: challenges that will arise in everyone’s life, and in doing so, he tells us something important: these are not signs that we have failed. They are simply part of the human experience.

Yoga Sutra I.12 Abhyāsa vairāgyaābhyām tan nirodhaḥ

The channeling of the mind's activities comes through practice and relinquishing.

If the second sutra tells us what yoga is, the twelfth tells us how to get there: Practice and relinquish what gets in the way of attention.

Yoga Sutra I.20 śraddhā vīrya smṛtiḥ samādhi prajnā pūrvaka itareṣam

For others, clarity is preceded by faith, energy, memory, and the capacity for deep attention

There is a question that arises for almost everyone who begins a yoga practice: will this actually work for me? The effort required to practice regularly, to sit with discomfort, to return to practice again and again when results are not yet visible, demands something more than technique. Pataṇjali names what that something is: śraddhā, often translated as faith or conviction.

Yoga Sutra I.4 Vrttisārūpyam itaratra

At other times, the self appears to take the form of the movements of the mind.

There is a particular kind of suffering that comes from identifying completely with our thoughts. We feel angry and we become anger. We feel anxious and anxiety is all we are. We believe the story the mind is telling without any distance, any witnessing, any space.

Patañjali names this directly in the fourth sūtra of the first chapter. When we are not in a state of Yoga, the self appears to take on the form of the mind's activities. We forget who we are beneath the thinking.

Yoga Sutras I.2 Yogaḥ citta vṛtti nirodhah Yoga is channeling the activities of the mind in a single direction.

Most of us come to yoga because something in our life feels unsettled. Maybe the mind won't slow down. Maybe worry dominates and there is tension in the body. The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali speak directly to this experience, and the second sūtra gives us an essential definition: Yoga is channeling the activities of the mind in a single direction.

In many modern yoga classes, attention focuses primarily on movement and posture (asana). Students may hear cues about inhaling and exhaling during certain movements, but it is rare to receive progressive instruction on how to breathe and how breath supports the posture itself. Yet in the traditions of Viniyoga and Yoga Therapy—breath is not secondary to movement. Breath is the central tool for transformation.

Chronic pain affects millions of people and often persists even after medical treatment. Yoga therapy offers a complementary approach that helps address both the physical, emotional and nervous-system aspects of pain.

Anxiety often shows up in the body before we fully recognize it in the mind.

The breath becomes short and shallow.
Muscles tighten and the body moves or shakes.
Attention jumps from one concern to another.

Yoga therapy offers practical and effective tools to shift these patterns by working directly with the body, breath, and attention.

For many of us, our identity story is that we are unique. That what we are going through is particular to our own life context and experiences. This is true.  But it is also true that we aren’t so unlike the other people who inhabit and have inhabited our planet for centuries.  Yoga teachings draw from principles and ways of being that are helpful for human beings and can be applied to our own unique needs.

The evolution of the 5 great elements in indian thought, begins with the element of space.

 When we have an open, spacious feeling in the center of our chest, that’s sukha or “good space.” Smiling, long smooth breaths, and positive peaceful feelings go along with sukha.

A yoga therapist is your expert guide who listens to your concerns, shares yogic principles, teaches you tools so you can address the hurts and uncover the powerful part of you that knows.

Many people are familiar with yoga classes, but fewer know about yoga therapy, a personalized approach that uses the tools of yoga to support healing and long-term well-being.

A yoga therapist works with you to develop a practice designed for your body, your health conditions, and your life circumstances.