Last week I decided I wanted a heartblock, that is, a wooden yoga prop that you lie across to unbend and open your thoracic spine.

It’s an antidote to puzzle back, and fairy-doll making, and writing, and just about any stooping-over activity, of which I do many. [...]

Have I mentioned lately how much I adore my yoga practice? I do.

But there are a few things that continue to elude me. I don’t mean certain asana. And I don’t mean samadhi. I mean three seemingly simple things that have remained annoyingly mysterious thus far. Here we go.

1- rolling over the toes

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I had two yoga teachers back in my twenties, one eclectic, one Iyengar-based, both of whom got me into a lot of trouble with my poor joints. The first, the eclectic gal, was into pushing. And yeah, she got us into some poses we wouldn’t have tried out of fear, and that was good. It [...]