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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Saturday
September 5, 2026
nautil.usYour Smartwatch May Not be as Smart as You Think it isUniversity of Michigan kinesiologists published a framework showing smartwatch sensors (accelerometer, gyroscope, GPS, PPG) collect accurate raw data, but proprietary algorithms that convert this into health metrics introduce significant error. Metrics close to sensor data (heart rate, step count) a✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
The VergecastAGI is whatever you want it to beA front-row seat to the moment OpenAI casually declared AGI — with Joanna Stern's sharp skepticism and Hayden Field's alarm about opaque chain-of-thought making the hype feel genuinely dangerous rather than just silly.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Different Meditations, Different Brain Changes
A 9-month study of 300+ participants found that different meditation techniques produce distinct structural changes in different parts of the brain.
Read the essay →Friday
September 4, 2026
thatalexguy.devThe 3DS is the greatest handheld of all timeA personal essay praising the Nintendo 3DS XL as the greatest handheld console due to its vast game library spanning multiple generations, portability, customization options, and convenience features like suspend mode. The author chose it over larger devices for travel and uses it regularly instead✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
thatalexguy.devI don’t know what to do on a computer anymore.A software developer describes losing the creative spark that drove his lifelong computing hobby. AI tools have made problem-solving feel pointless, leaving him staring at his desktop unsure what to do, mourning the loss of a core part of his identity since age twelve.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
The DailyThe Intertwined Legacies of Gloria Steinem and Dolly PartonA meditation on how feminism needed two faces — the explicit organizer and the joyful embodier — told through one writer's honest reckoning with why she found Dolly Parton more accessible than Gloria Steinem as a child. The diner-jukebox ending is perfect.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Code SwitchWe’re Miseducated on Lauryn HillA rare three-way conversation that moves past Lauryn Hill mythology to actually interrogate how Black female genius gets pathologized — the lateness, the 'crazy,' the disappearance — with archival tape that lets Hill speak for herself at her most unguarded.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50Practice with us this season
Two seasons a year in DC through 2029, and four Mysore weekends a year on the coast of Mexico. Pick a date, hold a seat.
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. Four dates a year through 2029, four spots each.
Semester Enrichment
Sixteen Sundays. Two cohorts. Four seats each.
Fall 2026 is sold out. Spring 2027 opens 7 February — Functional Primary or Functional Intermediate — and the fall format returns in September. Seasons run through 2029.
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
A daily email on consciousness, leadership, technology, and practice. No fluff. Unsubscribe anytime.
Get in Touch
Questions, collaborations, speaking, coaching inquiries — send a note.
