Scott Anderson, Ph.D.

Frequently students will ask me, should I do the technique this way, or that way ? Quite often, the answer is yes . One of the gifts of a regular hatha yoga practice is helping us to grasp the rather elusive concepts of nondual philosophy. Rather than seeing truth, love and compassion as something to be attained, yoga demonstrates that our divinity is within. Our practice helps us shift this recognition from latency to potency. While these ideas are described by many texts in philosophical terms, it’s rare to explore these ideas in working with the body. Rather than the postures being this or that, can we expand our understanding to see that the postures are this and that? As we work with the body, can we recognize moment by moment our inherent goodness? As mentioned in previous blog entries, the yoga that’s risen to prominence in the West often imposes the poses on the body. Our mind carries a set of instructions for the proper execution of the pose, and imposes these ideas on the ...

Like surfing, I’ve found skiing an apt metaphor for the spiritual life. If you move in harmony with the vital forces, you’re rewarded with a deeply joyous experience. If you fight the vital forces, you get schooled in the error of your ways. This observation was pointedly brought to my attention during a ski trip with my good friend Steve many years ago. We were enjoying epic spring conditions at Loveland Basin. The snowpack was stable, the sun high in the sky and there was virtually no wind nor crowds. (For front-range Colorado, this is a rare and precious alignment!) Despite the near-perfect conditions, I was flailing on my skis. At the time, backcountry skis were skinny, stiff and arrow-straight. To turn with any poise, you had to align yourself with gravity, the snow and the contours of the mountain with little margin for misinterpretation. As the day progressed, my skiing fell from bad to worse. The worse I skied (grandiose spills that looked like hillside yard sales), the more c...

Pre-Yoga has become an integral part of Alignment Yoga. On the level of metaphor, Pre-Yoga is an expression of self-acceptance. In the literal realm, Pre-Yoga are those exercises that awaken and strengthen the core muscles of postural support. The human body is a marvel of engineering. For nearly every possible movement, there’s built-in redundancy. While there’s an optimal and most-efficient means to make a given movement, there are myriad other ways the body can make the same movement. In general, the optimal movement patterns live up to their label – offering optimal efficiency, grace and stamina. The other movement patterns get the job done, but often at the expense of comfort, ease and sustainability. We all have various compensation patterns in our bodies. Whether from illness, injury or stress, we have learned various ways to move and hold our bodies that are sub-optimal. Much of the fatigue people report as they reach their 40’s isn’t necessarily metabolic nor organic, but rath...

Years ago I celebrated New Years with some friends in Calcutta. It was an interesting experience in so many ways, not the least of which was the opportunity to view the contents of our cultures from the inside out. After finishing another delicious meal, my host, Mr. Shivcharan Babu, offered me a digestive aid. It seemed curious to think of the contents of the gilded, silver box as anything besides tasty mints, but the choice of words was obviously deliberate. In the West, we tend to view food’s health-giving potential in terms of its nutritional content. We strive to choose the foods packing the biggest nutritional wallop (superfoods), and go to great lengths to ensure their freshness. I find many of my Indian friends, on the other hand, have little interest in fresh vegetables, and find discussing the relative nutritional merits of food quite puzzling. Why focus on what’s in the food (the external) when you can focus on our body’s capacity to extract the available nutrients from what...

Thanks for checking out my blog. The following essay is an excerpt from my forthcoming book on Alignment Yoga: The Taoists have that elegant symbol of how opposites intermingle to create each other - what we call the Ying-Yang symbol. I first encountered this symbol during my wanna-be skater-punk days in the late-70s. Like many suburban boys, I glorified all things removed from suburbia. The only problem was that I had to ask my Mom to drive me wherever I wanted to rebel. There was a skateboard shop in downtown Scottsdale (Arizona) that stocked all the newest, most rebellious skate wear. It was imperative I get there, as it would be impossible to rebel without the proper accessories. (and what if I wasn’t wearing what the other rebellious kids were wearing?) On arrival I was overwhelmed by the possibilities; decals, clothes, wheels, trucks, blanks, etc. My eye was grabbed by the logo for Town & Country Surf Designs. I was so captivated, I bought a handful of their decals and left ...