A healthy spine is important for good health and quality of life. Numerous scientific studies now show that yoga can help alleviate and even stop chronic back pain. Moreover, yoga can often be more effective than other forms of exercise. Physical inactivity along with our posture, how we stand or sit, as well as our habitual movements can create imbalances in strength and flexibility. These imbalances can compress the spine or put muscles under stress creating pain within the

What is yoga? «Yoga is the cessation of the movements of the mind. Then the Seer abides in his own form» ~ Patanjali Go to a yoga class and you might think (quite rightly too) that yoga is a system that helps improve physical fitness working on strength and flexibility, improves our breathing and helps us to relax the mind. But in fact yoga has a whole lot more to it. The practice of yoga originally was meant to reduce our suffering through giving us the tools to still our r

Sankalpa is a Sanskrit word for an intention, a resolution or a vow defined in the heart and mind. A sankalpa is powerful. It is what determines the result of our actions. Often the intentions that motivate our actions are unconscious or preprogrammed resulting in an outcome that we might not have wanted. To form and have a sankalpa is the seed that will guide our actions. Defining a sankalpa can therefore help us to achieve a goal. To create a sankalpa, formulate a positive

Our feet have an impact on our posture. Indeed, many back problems originate from how we stand on our feet. We often forget the importance of our feet and submit them to extra stress with inappropriate shoes compress them and change our stance (high heals are an example!), which impacts our posture. Having strong and flexible feet, as well as having a balanced, aligned and rooted stance will be highly beneficial for our posture. In yoga, the feet are the foundation of all th