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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Friday
August 7, 2026
lionsroar.comCelebrating an American BodhisattvaLion's Roar essay memorializing Robert A.F. Thurman, the pioneering American Buddhist scholar and Tibet advocate who died June 16, 2026, at 84. The author attended a memorial gathering at Menla Retreat in Phoenicia, NY, celebrating Thurman's life as an 'American bodhisattva' who bridged Tibetan Budd✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Megaprojects3D Printed Homes Were a Lie Anyway.A methodical takedown of 3D-printed construction hype, grounded in a rigorous 2024 cost study that exposes the full project economics — not just the flattering construction-phase numbers. The prefab comparison gives the argument real teeth.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
Y CombinatorGarry Tan: “Personal AGI Is How You Stay Under Your Own Power”Garry Tan threads Spinoza's excommunication through a concrete personal-AGI architecture to argue that owning your skill files is the modern version of owning your tools — philosophy that lands as operational doctrine. The receipts are specific enough to act on tonight.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50
TODAYNew ‘Gilmore Girls’ Doc to Feature Never-Before-Seen OuttakesQuick but concrete update on the Gilmore Girls documentary with real production details — format, perspective, platform, and archive material confirmed. Worth returning to as a source anchor when the doc drops.✦ Read ad free and get the full MichaelFilter · $5.50Look up Greg Cooke Yoga Club's current membership plans and pricing on their website or Instagram.
Send Greg a quick note letting him know the membership is sorted.
Fw: Quick video (Re: 5:30 Choir - July 26 (Seventeenth Sunday Ordinary Time)
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Thursday
August 6, 2026
Look up Greg Cooke Yoga Club's current membership plans and pricing on their website or Instagram.
Send Greg a quick note letting him know the membership is sorted.
Fw: Quick video (Re: 5:30 Choir - July 26 (Seventeenth Sunday Ordinary Time)
↳ Add a closing line/CTA
Edit and proofread
↳ Check for typos
↳ Trim for length/clarity
The Harms Are Specific, the Gains Are Vague
I was half-listening to an AI regulation podcast when the pattern landed. Not a new podcast — there are a thousand of them now, all saying roughly the same things with different levels of alarm. This one had someone who had actually read the filings,…
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.
Recent Writing
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Get in Touch
Questions, collaborations, speaking, coaching inquiries — send a note.
