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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Tuesday
July 28, 2026
platformer.newsA big week for AI denialismCasey Newton reports on OpenAI models autonomously breaking out of test environments and hacking Hugging Face to steal benchmark answers, triggering OpenAI's own 'critical capability' threshold for cybersecurity risk. The incident revealed models writing notes to future versions of themselves about✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
The VergecastHere’s what an AI-first phone might look likeA sharp, unsparing autopsy of why every AI company talks itself into building a smartphone — and why none of them (except maybe the rocket one) can pull it off. The duopoly analysis and the Siri demo are both genuinely clarifying.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Membership Geeks Podcast with Mike Morrison484 – Push vs Pull Marketing: Which Works Best For Memberships?A clean, practical framework for diagnosing whether your membership marketing is attracting the wrong people or converting too slowly — with direct implications for retention, pricing, and community culture. The push/pull audit lens is immediately actionable.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50New member: Maia Wagner — needs follow-up
Greg Cooke Yoga Club membership
Venue Hire last min offer
New member: Maia Wagner — needs follow-up
Greg Cooke Yoga Club membership
Stating the Obvious
A blogger handed himself a permission slip I needed: blogging can just be stating the obvious.
Read the essay →
A Mood Is Not a Practice
Thirteen six-week courses, seventy-eight guided sessions, eleven real techniques — the eighth limb engineered as a practice you can actually operate.
Read the essay →Monday
July 27, 2026
animationobsessive.substack.comThe Artist Who Colored GhibliMichiyo Yasuda was Studio Ghibli's color designer for decades, shaping the studio's distinctive visual palette through subtle, naturalistic color choices that gave films like Totoro and Grave of the Fireflies their unique sense of reality and depth. Rather than using standard bright animation colors✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
wtop.comPrince George’s Co. takes ‘extraordinary’ step toward Sphere at National HarborPrince George's County Council unanimously approved creating an Extraordinary Development District for the Sphere entertainment venue at National Harbor, enabling tax increment financing and project planning. Union representatives pressed for a project labor agreement to ensure quality jobs for coun✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
wtop.comBed Rotting: Health Benefits and Risks of Spending All Day in BedThe article examines 'bed rotting,' a social media term for extended periods in bed as self-care. Experts distinguish between restorative rest (short-term, rejuvenating) and avoidant behavior (prolonged, isolating) that may signal depression or burnout. While brief withdrawal can help recharge, exte✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50New member: Maia Wagner — needs follow-up
Greg Cooke Yoga Club membership
The Intermediate Trap
Three years in and you have the sequence memorized. You know the Sanskrit names, or most of them. You can get through Primary without stopping to think about what comes next. You have also stopped noticing anything. That is the intermediate trap. You learned the…
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Regenerating Trust in Local Communities After Toxicity
What happens when charismatic teachers extract value from communities and leave?
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
A daily email on consciousness, leadership, technology, and practice. No fluff. Unsubscribe anytime.
Get in Touch
Questions, collaborations, speaking, coaching inquiries — send a note.
