Posts by Devon Barrow
A Conversation About Potential
If you walk the path of yoga for long enough you will realize: Yoga is a practice of the Self, through the Self, to the Self. A simpler way of saying it: Yoga is about you. Not you escaping your life for an hour and taking some deep breaths. Not you having the occasional moment…
Read MoreHow available are you?
There is a question I keep returning to, both in my own practice and in the classes I teach. It doesn’t come from a book or a lineage, exactly — though it lives inside all of them. It’s simpler than that. Yoga asks us this question: How available are you? Not available in the calendar…
Read MoreHow Does Yoga Change Our Relationships?
One of the first deeper lessons we learn about yoga is that everything we experience on the mat translates into life off the mat. That’s ultimately because yoga is a practice far beyond yoga postures—it is a science, a philosophy, and a way of life. Yoga is something we do, but it’s also something we…
Read MoreWhy Do We Work With Mantra?
Have you been in a yoga class and encountered mantra? It’s not incredibly common in the West, but in some studios (like ours) you’ll find it. In this post we’ll give you more background about why we work with mantra. At a fundamental level, everything is energy. Physics shows that matter isn’t solid the way…
Read MoreWhy Does Yoga Help With Anxiety?
We all find ourselves at the doorstep of yoga for different reasons. Most likely, if you’re in the West, you were drawn to yoga for the physical postures—the asana. Maybe you were intrigued by the challenge of the poses, or heard that it was great for flexibility and strength. Maybe you liked the idea of…
Read MoreWhat Do We Mean When We Say “Subtle?”
Subtle is, ironically, a simple word that is dense with power. And it’s one that sits at the center of yogic study. In yoga, we use the word subtle most often in reference to “the subtle body,” as in, the aspects of our being or body that are not strictly physical. This includes the energetic…
Read MoreWhen Yoga Isn’t The Right Modality…
Is yoga for everybody? Answering this question depends on your understanding of yoga. And exploring this question can help us mature our understanding of the practice. This question, and its answers, are intricate. Don’t read this at surface value! On the one hand: Yes, yoga is for everyone We have to remind ourselves: yoga is something…
Read MoreYou Probably Haven’t Learned This About Pranayama
If you’ve been practicing yoga (asana) long enough, then you probably remember the buzz when yoga was becoming truly mainstream. Instead of the mysterious studio tucked into the strip mall, or the random loft space, or the studio you found by word-of-mouth—spaces were popping up left and right. It seems like something similar is happening…
Read MoreWhat Are The Yoga Sutras?
If you are looking to deepen your relationship to yoga, one of the natural steps is to take a dip into its rich history. But how do you wrap your mind around 10,000+ years? Yoga is often examined in different eras. You have the Pre-Classical Era, around 2700 BCE, where fundamental Vedic scriptures came through.…
Read MoreThe #1 Yoga Myth That Needs Clarifying
Let’s start with the most important part: Why should we care that there are myths surrounding yoga, and that perhaps it matters to debunk them? Maybe you love your yoga practice the way it is, and you don’t really care what exists beyond the four corners of your mat. It works for you—and why fix…
Read More