Hi, I’m Michael.
I teach insight practices — yoga, meditation, and a few less obvious ones — to people building things in leadership and technology.
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About
Twenty years teaching yoga, running a studio, and thinking about what insight practices actually do. They sharpen attention — and attention is the bottleneck on every hard problem, personal or professional. I write about that intersection, work one-on-one with leaders and builders, and run The Yoga Club in D.C.
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Thursday
July 2, 2026
twin-cities.umn.eduWorld’s first synthetic cell with a complete life cycle could revolutionize biological engineeringUniversity of Minnesota researchers created SpudCell, the first fully synthetic cell assembled from non-living chemicals that can grow, replicate, divide, and undergo natural selection across generations. Its 90-kilobase genome is split across seven modular DNA plasmids, allowing independent program✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
The Economics of Everyday Things53. Food TrucksA clean, reported breakdown of why food trucks are harder than they look — permits, margins, weather, and the grinding math of 177 burritos netting $300. Useful whenever the 'low overhead' myth comes up.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50Wednesday
July 1, 2026
washingtonian.comInside the Food Truck Mafia Wreaking Havoc Around the National MallThe article exposes an organized network of unlicensed, unsafe food trucks operating around the National Mall in Washington, DC. These vendors violate health codes, fire safety regulations, and vending laws while a coordinated system (described as a 'mafia') controls territory through intimidation a✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
nytimes.comIt Wasn’t Bill Maher Who Stole the ShowWhat the politician and the comic have in common became clear at the Mark Twain Prize ceremony, where the winner was called “underrated.”✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
nytimes.comFunnily enough, all of the great apes love to laugh, in the same rhythmic way we do.A study of chimps, gorillas and other great apes, including human children, sheds light on how laughter has evolved.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
theconvivialsociety.substack.comDo Not Resign From LifeL.M. Sacasas argues that AI's primary impact is demoralization—not because machines outperform humans, but because their ambient presence makes people question whether their skills and efforts still matter. He rejects the framing of human exceptionalism, suggesting that if something is yours to do,✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
The Next Big Idea DailyIn Defense of SunlightTwo science writers reframe the invisible forces running your body — sunlight and hormones — not as threats to manage but as fundamental inputs you're systematically starving yourself of. Practical and paradigm-shifting in equal measure.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
The DailyWhy Americans Will Get Less Help Paying for CollegeA clean, historically grounded explainer on how boundless federal lending quietly inflated the cost of higher education — and why the fix may hurt the very people it claims to protect. Essential context for anyone navigating the system or watching it break.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
The 404 Media PodcastThe Tokenpocalypse Is HereA granular, sourced breakdown of how the AI-spend boom is already reversing — with leaked audio, internal memos, and the delightful absurdity of IBM Bobcoins. The caveman plugin angle alone earns a bookmark.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
10% Happier with Dan HarrisThat Background Hum of Worry in Every Important Conversation — Here’s What It Is and How to Quiet It | Claude M. SteeleSteele names the unnamed background static in every high-stakes cross-difference interaction — and then actually explains how to turn it down. The seeing/welcoming/supporting framework is immediately actionable.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Life KitHow to clean when it’s the last thing you want to doCasey Davis reframes cleaning as an act of self-kindness rather than moral obligation, dismantling the shame spiral with practical neurodivergent-friendly tools. The Five Things Method is genuinely usable on a bad brain day.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Yoga Biz Champ with Michael JayNEW DATA: What Boutique Fitness Can Teach Yoga Studios About RetentionRare episode that translates hard behavioral data into concrete studio ops — the five-visit threshold alone reframes how to design an intro offer. The four-segment customer breakdown gives language and numbers to a retention problem most studios only feel.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Membership Geeks Podcast with Mike Morrison475 – This is Why People Aren’t Joining Your Membership…Morrison cuts through the noise with a deceptively simple diagnosis: most membership sales problems aren't sales problems at all. The framework is clean, the logic is tight, and the actionable fix is genuinely underused.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Kit Betts-MastersThe Viral Tiny E-Reader Just Got SeriousA low-key but persuasive case for buying back your reading habit with a $99 e-ink device — useful both as a product note and as a reminder of why deliberate friction matters. The habit argument is the real payload.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Cercle RecordsArodes Ft. Yo Trane – Something SpecialA slow-burn vocal house track that earns its intimacy — the lyrics build from quiet longing into full declaration without ever overselling it. The restraint is the point.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Big ThinkThe leadership mistake high performers makeA precise diagnosis of why high performers fail when promoted — and a clear reframe of what leadership actually requires. Worth returning to whenever the pull toward doing over directing gets loud.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Kit Betts-MastersBOOX Go 6 Gen 2: The Tiny Workflow TestA live, hands-on workflow stress-test of the BOOX Go 6 Gen 2 — handwriting recognition, Bluetooth keyboard lag, and the Tappy remote all get honest real-time verdicts. Essential for anyone considering this as a pocketable productivity device.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50Practice with us this season
Two ways to go deeper before the year turns — a full Ashtanga study season in DC, and an intimate Mysore retreat on the coast of Mexico.
Self Practice by the Sea
A Mysore retreat on the Riviera Maya.
Four mornings of practice, four nights on the coast, a private home with a rooftop pool. Small on purpose — four spots only.
Ashtanga Study Group
Three series. One room. One season.
Sixteen Tuesday cohort nights and sixteen Sunday all-levels sessions — Primary, Intermediate, and Advanced A, side by side. Choose your cohort.
Books by Michael Joel Hall
Six books on Ashtanga, systems, and the craft of a practice. Functional Ashtanga is free; the rest are $10 each, or all six for $50. EPUB + PDF, instant download.
Functional Ashtanga
The manifesto and the method — the whole project’s front door, built on one principle: agency, not compliance.
Free
Self Practice
The method as a manual — how to build an intelligent, sustainable self-practice from the first breath.
$10
Ashtanga 2.0
The philosophy — a postmodern deconstruction of yoga’s authority, and the grounded mysticism that survives it.
$10
Mechanism, Not Magic
The thinking underneath the practice — yoga as a system for clear, honest leadership on and off the mat.
$10
How to Build a Yoga Club
The playbook for the room itself — how to build a practice space that lasts, without burning out or selling out.
$10
Your Life Is Art
The systems primer — stocks, flows, and feedback loops, and the craft of composing a life.
$10
Press
Interviews, bylines, and the occasional controversy.
What is Ashtanga Yoga? The Benefits of This Challenging Practice
“Ashtanga demands fitness, flexibility, and focus — a calming, yet sweaty form of moving meditation.”
Read →Yoga Teacher Recovers, But Attack Highlights a Job’s Health Care Issue
The catalyst for my ongoing advocacy around economic precarity in the yoga teaching profession.
Read →Building Resilience in This Political Climate
A practice sequence for finding strength and clarity when the news is loud.
Read →Responding to Rand Paul on Free Yoga for Government Employees
“They are in less pain, physically and mentally. They go on and do a better job.”
Read →Does Yoga Really Foster Transformation?
On why I practice — to cultivate the conditions required for transformation.
Read →Mysore, the Place and the Practice
A long conversation with Chris Parkinson about my journey, cross-training, and the trajectory of yoga in D.C.
Listen →The Newsletter
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