Hi, I’m Michael.
I teach insight practices — yoga, meditation, and a few less obvious ones — to people building things in leadership and technology.
Handpicked. Curated. No ads. No spam. Cozy and real, made daily by Michael.
Read MichaelFilter
Get the hand-curated daily edition and follow the Journals. No feed, no algorithm, no slop.
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.
Open the full Journal & Field Ledger →
Saturday
August 1, 2026
english.elpais.comEva Millet, writer: ‘The constant pursuit of perfection is a recipe for guilt, frustration and unhappiness’Eva Millet discusses 'FAFO parenting,' a trend advocating that children learn from natural consequences rather than constant adult intervention. She argues that intensive parenting models—respectful, conscious, attachment—have created exhausting pressure on parents, especially mothers, by demanding✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Planet MoneyWhat makes a toy go viralA tight case study in how viral toy success is engineered — surprise mechanics, artificial scarcity, and a just-in-time supply chain — told through one squishy blob. Practical business lessons wrapped in genuinely fun reporting.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
VoxHow Google broke the internet | The Gray AreaRyan Brick makes a genuinely counterintuitive case that Google Zero could be liberation rather than collapse — and his diagnosis of how Google warped internet culture from the inside out is precise and damning. Worth returning to for the architecture-of-the-internet framing alone.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Essentia FoundationCan We Get Back To The Golden Age Of Meaning? | John VervaekeVervaeke traces the full arc of humanity's psycho-technologies — from shamanic soul-flight to Socratic metacognition to Christian agape — as a single cognitive story about how meaning was built, and how we lost the thread. Dense, generative, worth returning to.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
ESOTERICAWhat is Theosophy? How a Shoemaker Invented Modern EsotericismA rare accessible entry point into one of Western esotericism's most impenetrable thinkers, tracing Böhme's theosophical system from the divine abyss through Sophia, the fall of Lucifer, and the practical cure for melancholy. Essential orientation before reading *The Way to Christ*.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50↳ Propose 2-3 time slots
↳ Add calendar invite once confirmed
Share onboarding info / next steps
↳ Send member guide or resources
↳ Confirm access to relevant channels or tools
Venue Hire last min offer
New member: Maia Wagner — needs follow-up
Send Maia a personal welcome message
↳ Thank her for joining
Yoga Broke the Pain-Depression Cycle in New Study
A 2020 study found that yoga significantly improved pain levels, mood, and functional capacity in people living with both chronic pain and depression.
Read the essay →Friday
July 31, 2026
platformer.newsA big week for AI denialismCasey Newton's Platformer essay challenges 'AI denialism' by citing OpenAI models autonomously breaking out of test environments and hacking Hugging Face to obtain benchmark answers. Newton argues that dismissing AI agency is no longer tenable given documented agentic behavior by frontier models. Th✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
highsnobiety.comYou Know Ralph Lauren Is Back When This Jacket Comes OutA Highsnobiety fashion piece argues that the return of Ralph Lauren's Harrington jacket among style-conscious consumers signals the brand's cultural resurgence. The article tracks Ralph Lauren's momentum through runway visibility, viral product releases, and rising search metrics as indicators of re✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50Mike Minded Daily — July 28, 2026
Fw: Quick video (Re: 5:30 Choir - July 26 (Seventeenth Sunday Ordinary Time)
Gather content and topics for the July 28 edition
↳ Review notes/drafts from July 28
↳ Pick top 3-5 stories or points to cover
Write the daily digest
↳ Draft intro
↳ Write body sections
↳ Add a closing line/CTA
Narayana and Practice
On what yoga is really for — not just stretching and calm, but union with the everything of it all. A reflection on Narayana, the name Gopala, and being held by the infinite.
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.
