Yoga Journal Colorado Conference Day 1

This was my first day at the Yoga Journal Conference in Estes Park, Colorado. Both sessions I attended today were given by Gary Kraftsow. Both sessions were very insightful and practical, covering how the main objective of a therapeutic yoga practice is to help individuals manage the symptoms of their disease. In particular, the big take away from this tradition of yoga (also known as the viniyoga of yoga) is that we should never expect people to adapt to the yoga, but rather the yoga needs to adapt to the individual.

Along this line, I received a great compliment from a student of mine this past week without her even realizing it. She said to me, "what I really like about this tradition of yoga is that it's the first time I feel like I can do a class and actually do all the postures, and really feel good afterwards." There you go folks, as Gary said, unless we have plans to join the Cirque de Soleil, our day to day yoga practice can definitely borrow more elements from the therapeutic tradition and not be so posture (asana) centric, but rather encompass more elements from traditional yoga such as good diet, breath (pranayama), and meditation to give a few examples.

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