Talk Archives

The fourth niyama: svadhyaya, know thyself

Self-knowledge is indeed the most powerful tool for transformation and for owning our life and choices. It encourages us to look within in full honesty and friendliness and discover what truly motivates us in our actions.

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The third niyama: Tapas, the Flaming Arrow of Discipline

The third niyama is tapas, the burning fire of our discipline and sacrifice. Instead of the grey tones that those words have in the west, Patanjali presents us with the vibrant passion of investing in what truly makes us happy.

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The second niyama: Santosa, contentment is not a bland thing

Continuing our informal explorations of the 8 limbs of yoga, this time we explore santosa, the second niyama, or how to be content is a reinvestment of energy into what truly matters.

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The First Niyama: Sauca, cleanliness of body, thought and action

We enter now the world of the Niyamas, the second of the 8 limbs of yoga as envisioned by Patanjali. Our apologies for the little focus problem at the end of the talk.

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Functional Yoga – We Can Agree to Disagree

A short talk to address a hot topic: why don’t we teach general alignement?

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Aparigraha – you can’t always have what you want

You know that feeling: we think we need to keep reaching out to things that will give us pleasure, or a stronger sense of self, or a quick fix for whatever troubles us. The only problem is that it never works for long, and we never seem to find any lasting satisfaction.

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Brahmacharya – let’s talk about sex

Continuing on our Patanjali path, we explore the hot topic of sex, and how relevant that can be to our lives and practice.

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The ‘almost’ perfect Tadasana

What is the proper way to stand in Tadasana or Samastithi? Is there a ‘right’ way or not? In this slide show and talk we will look at pictures from ‘the Masters’ of yoga and at pictures of bones made by our teacher Paul Grilley. We talk about why we do this pose and what […]

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Chaturanga Dandasana vs Push-ups, or what is the right way?

If you go on-line, you see a lot of tutorial video’s about how to do a proper or even ‘perfect’ chatturanga dandasana. On the other hand you see a lot of video tutorials about how to do push-ups, and most of them are completely different. In this talk we look at how ‘the Masters’ did […]

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Chakras Express: Muladhara, the first chakra

This is our first instalment of a series of 7 different meditations, meant to help us bring awareness to these very important energy centers that yogis have been exploring for literally thousands of years. This is a great companion for the articles on chakras I have been writing for Yoga International (Dutch edition) but we […]

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Asteya, or you can never have enough of what you don’t really need

We arrive at our third yama: asteya, or non-stealing. More than just a rule to keep us from chaos, there is a deeper meaning: recognising what you truly need.

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Truthfulness: more than not lying

We continue our explorations of Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga, now exploring the second Yama: satya, or truthfulness.

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Ganesha, the Smartest Boy

In this talk we explore a story about Ganesha and his brother Kartikeya, and how the deities wanted to find out which of the brothers was the ‘better’, ‘smartest’ of ‘fastest’ son.

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The Non-Aggression Issue

In this talk we start to explore some of the concepts outlined by Patanjali in his sutras. The most famous of his concepts, the Eight Limbs of Yoga, starts with an incredibly complex issue: non-aggression. We talk about different ways of looking at it, and finish with an invitation to self examination and observation.

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Skeletal Variation 102: The Pelvis

Continuing our exploration of anatomy and of how our bones are shaped, we look into the pelvis. The shape and mobility of our pelvis is going to be very determining for how we move, and its position will make a huge difference when we perform a posture. As we have explained before, bones can vary […]

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An Introduction to The Eight Limbs of Yoga

The Eight Limbs of Yoga are philosophical concepts that can truly enrich and support our practice and our daily lives. This is an introduction, where we go though all of them in a general way. We are really interested in your view of these concepts and whether you find them helpful! We plan to explore […]

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Talk: The Pose is Not The End Goal

Most of us associate the practice of yoga with the performance of physical postures, but in reality the physical postures were developed to help us in our process of self-examination and development. In this short talk we start to explore these ideas.

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