hyggie x britney

Ashtanga yoga acts as a powerful ally in confronting our deepest cognitive biases and illuminating a path towards clear perception. 🌟 More at the blog.

Being honest encourages others to be honest. It also means you can trust the feedback. No need to polish a turd— but not everything can be sh*t. Radical candor helps sort that.

o hai weirdo

improve your back bend

good subject matter and crew

Get real. No space can be a safe spaces for all people. But we can have safe spaces. Read the room.

Striking a balance.

some backbending ideas for your practice.

Select postures from 2nd 1/2 of 2nd series
w/ a chair

looking for iyengar yoga in the DMV?

check out @532yoga on sunday mornings!

brilliant stuff by dr miskie

Resistance bands are great for end-range strength training, and this can be especially beneficial for Ashtanga Yoga asana practice—here’s the “why” in both anatomy and Ashtanga terms:

1. Why resistance bands work for end-range strength

Resistance bands provide what’s called variable resistance: the further you stretch them, the more resistance they provide. This makes them perfect for training end-range strength—that’s the strength required when your muscles are either fully lengthened or fully shortened. Think of the top of a backbend, the deepest point in Supta Kurmasana, or holding your leg behind your head: these are all end-range positions.

Unlike free weights, bands make it harder as you move deeper into the range, which is the opposite of most real-life strength patterns (where you tend to be weakest at the extremes). So by training at those extremes with resistance bands, you’re preparing your muscles and joints to be strong, stable, and supported in yoga’s most demanding positions.

2. Why that’s good for Ashtanga yoga

In Ashtanga, especially the Intermediate Series and beyond, we are constantly exploring the limits of flexibility and control. But:
• Flexibility without strength is like stretching a rubber band with no tension—it’ll snap or sag.
• End-range strength helps prevent injury by supporting joints in vulnerable positions—like Kapotasana or Karandavasana.
• It also helps balance the nervous system’s stretch reflex. If your nervous system doesn’t trust you to be strong at end-range, it will limit your flexibility. But when it feels you’re strong and stable, it lets you go deeper—safely.

3. Systems Thinking

From a systems view, resistance bands act as an elegant feedback mechanism. They amplify the demand precisely when the system (your body) is most vulnerable—end-range. By strengthening the feedback loop between mobility, control, and proprioception, bands help shift the whole system (your practice) toward resilient adaptability—aka fewer injuries and deeper poses with less drama.

Yoga practice builds resilience— something i really encourage.

I’m sort of known for my resilience, which is a nice way of saying I’ve seen some sh*t and seem fairly well adjusted. I even got to write about resilience during times of political unrest for @yogajournal . I’m also known as well as my transparent, explicit approach to yoga and life.

I’m full of nonsense and laughter— with high concienciousness, and low agreeability. I help people understand yoga by becoming a team player— again, with high conscienciousness and low agreeability 😅😅 Independent thinkers who can be team players are like improv triple threats.

The secret to life is “Yes, and.”

Here’s my CV For the last half decade, including the trauma porn.

2020 Covid + RIP Brother & Sister-in-Law + first Functional Ashtanga training + Parents in lockdown in Mexico after moving w/brother & him dying.
2021 Opened @theyoga.club (omg no way)
2022 Evolved functional Ashtanga to Ashtanga Tech with Cory & Heather
+ Hit by car while biking + broken wrist and rib
2023 Turned 40
+ Hit by bicyclist and broken ankle and reinjured rib + huge success with peer support initiatives
2024 Quit Drinking and kept on rehabbing + changed my body radically (again) + took on the neighborhoods drug problems
2025 Infinite Possibilities

I’m the friendly neighborhood ashtanga yoga teacher, whose mysore program has been going at it uninterruptedly since 2013.

I struggle to marry commerce and art in this format, so do bear with the high brow-low brow of it. I have a lot of opinions after doing this for 12 Years, and I hope to cast a wide net. .

single arm rear delt fly

What does it mean to have an internal landscape? Ashtanga emphasizes the inner experience.

More over on my youtube.

Critical Thought in Healthy Groups doesnt look like convoluted stories. Full video on YouTube.

Cult Warning Sign 4: Lack of Reason and Magical Thinking. Whole video on youtube!

When leaders make decisions for their constituency behind closed doors without consulting said constituency, an organization is no longer designed to serve the people. This creates a sense of hierarchy, and inside of that hierarchy leaders are placed above the law.

more on YouTube!

Laruga makes the pain of time delays in systems understandable. She also talks about opportunism. I really appreciate this. It’s all about service

Organizations that limit agency and critique internally are inevitably going to be fragile. Pragmatically, its not great to be around.

More on youtube!

Whistleblowers are often shunned. Luckily for us, it’s actually a good sign of a toxic group. When the priority is protecting the group and not the members of the group, there’s a problem. And it’s an easy one to spot!

Manipulation comes in all kinds of forms— intellectual, emotional, professional.

Look for shunning and a lack of respect for nonmembers. Looks for discrediting. If an organization lacks transparency and accountability, it’s likely toxic.

Heres the deal: someones gotta pay to keep the lights on. Studios have to run. Teachers have to get paid. This remains true, even as there is an imperative to care for the ecosystem— enough old timers to help the rookies, enough rookies to replace those who move.

Numbers are great, but sustainability is better. More on youtube.

comedy fights authoritarianism

Appreciating Ashtanga yoga as an indigenous insight practice means understanding that the practice is interconnected to the place that its from, those people, that topography, and that culture. These practices have to be adapted so they are honest and efficacious as part of your culture/community— and what works in one place won’t work in another. Lots on this subject at dcashtanga.com