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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Monday
August 3, 2026
Jregso what if It’s conscious?Jreg performs an absurdist reductio ad absurdum on AI consciousness discourse, exposing the stakes of the rights debate by escalating to a deliberately monstrous fourth position — useful for anyone thinking about where AI moral patienthood arguments actually lead.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50Get Json
mporked, Pashed
Yoga Filter #1: Who Decides What’s Real
This is Yoga Filter!
Read the essay →
Passion Doesn’t Pay Rent
Your 200-hour taught you to sequence a class. It never taught you to own the platform, the pricing, and the recurring income that outlast your knees.
Read the essay →Sunday
August 2, 2026
theguardian.comNational Gallery security staff segregated like ‘second-class citizens’, curator claimsThe National Gallery faces allegations that its outsourced security staff—predominantly from minority ethnic backgrounds—are segregated from the institution's mainly white employees. While permanent staff access a subsidized hub with natural light and quality facilities, security guards are confined✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
publicdomainreview.orgArtificial Intelligence: Ars Notoria and the Promise of Instant KnowledgeAnne Lawrence-Mathers examines the Ars notoria, a medieval manuscript promising instant mastery through diagrams and incantations—a historical shortcut to knowledge. She draws parallels between this magical system and contemporary AI, both offering rapid acquisition without the labor of traditional✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50publicdomainreview.orgArtificial Intelligence: Ars Notoria and the Promise of Instant KnowledgeThe Ars notoria was a medieval grimoire promising instant mastery of university subjects through contemplation of complex diagrams, recitation of mysterious words, and prescribed rituals. Despite condemnation by Aquinas and church authorities as demonic superstition, fifty-six manuscripts survived,✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50You wake to find a single word written on your wrist in handwriting that isn't yours—just "Inspo," nothing else—and by noon you realize everyone you pass has the same word inked in the same place. No one else seems to notice theirs, or perhaps they simply won't say, and when you catch your reflection in a shop window, the letters have started, very slowly, to rearrange themselves into something else.
≡ Essay Outline
Finding the Spark: Tracing Where Inspiration Comes From
The Myth of the Lightning Bolt
Inspiration rarely arrives as a single flash of genius; it is usually the visible tip of long, invisible preparation.
Environments That Invite Ideas
Certain places, routines, and sensory conditions consistently make people more receptive to new thoughts, and identifying them can be a practical tool.
Borrowing from Others
Much of what feels original is really a remix of influences absorbed from books, conversations, and art, and tracing these debts can deepen creative honesty.
The Role of Constraint
Limitations in time, resources, or form often sharpen inspiration rather than smother it, forcing unexpected solutions to the surface.
When Inspiration Runs Dry
Understanding the common blocks to inspiration, from fear to fatigue, helps explain why creative output fluctuates and how to work through the lulls.
Turning Inspiration into Action
The final test of inspiration is not the feeling itself but whether it can be translated into sustained, disciplined work.
Inspo
Your National Holistic Healing Center order is ready for pickup!
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Share onboarding info / next steps
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Venue Hire last min offer
New member: Maia Wagner — needs follow-up
Send Maia a personal welcome message
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A Little Better: On Watching Your Mind Get You Hurt
Knowing what your mind does won't stop it—but practice shortens the gap between recognition and reaction.
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When Medication Was Not Enough
People with treatment-resistant depression showed decreased depression and anxiety after practicing Sudarshan Kriya yoga, while those on medication alone saw no improvement.
Read the essay →Practice 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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Questions, collaborations, speaking, coaching inquiries — send a note.
