Scott Anderson, Ph.D.

Yoga is a powerful vehicle for personal transformation, yet it also contains the potential to entrench our existing preconceptions and limitations. How do we employ the techniques of yoga as a vehicle for growth, rather than as another reinforcement of our existing challenges? Yoga in the West has become very precise, telling us how and when to breathe, the precise alignment of the body, where to look and how to hold our internal musculature. It’s a powerful means for developing the body and mental focus, but does it help or hurt our deeper yogic inquiry? As a culture, we’re already proficient at doing things. To some degree we work and manage money, we get ourselves around, feed ourselves and plan for the future. This is the province of the frontal brain, and we’re masters of this domain. As a culture, we also see an epidemic of the overactive front brain; anxiety and worry are pervasive, obsessive thinking runs many of our lives, and who hasn’t lost a night of sleep worrying about th...

Yoga is often described as mending the mind/body split. While it's indeed a powerful technique to that end, we should be watchful of how our stressed, dualistic mind continues to reinforce its own existence. Even under the auspices of yoga practice, you will commonly observe practitioners cultivating their stressed-out minds through the performance of yogic techniques. Nowhere is this more evident than in breathing! Our practice should serve as a reminder that this body is infused with an innate intelligence, or put another way, the body already knows how to be healthy & vital. Through appropriate effort and intelligent surrender, we can raise this latent vitality out of dormancy and into experience. Authentic Breathing is a powerful technique to this end. Authentic Breathing starts with a full, complete exhale. This is what we call the Full Commitment Exhale in Alignment Yoga, and what sets it apart is the focus on releasing the held-tensions of the ribs and diaphragm. Rathe...