Scott Anderson, Ph.D.

Joint laxity refers to joints that are unusually loose. While loose joints may sound heaven-sent to some, joint laxity can actually be quite problematic. People with joint laxity often live with more pain and fatigue than do their stiffer-jointed peers. There's even preliminary evidence suggesting that people with joint laxity experience more anxiety than the population at large. Because joint laxity relates to mobility and flexibility, its incidence seems to be much higher in the yoga community. While joint laxity isn't all that common - about 10% of the population - yoga is one of the very few physical activities that actively rewards those with looser joints.  Because yoga practitioners are often encouraged to go deeper into more advanced poses, the yoga community seems to have self-selected into a population with a higher incidence of loose-jointedness. And by offering praise and encouragement to those who go more deeply into poses of increasing complexity, those with t...

As many of you know, I’m fond of meditation. I’ve had the good fortune to come across a teacher I deeply respect (Mingyur Rinpoche) and a community of fellow practitioners that facilitate traversing this path (Tergar International). For the past five consecutive years, I’ve been fortunate enough to attend the Tergar Summer Retreat. Each year I come back inspired, recharged, and ready to hit the ground running. And a few pounds heavier. While meditation retreat  does  involve a lot of sitting, I'm not entirely sedentary. Each day I made it a point to get outside for some fresh air and a workout. Unfortunately, I also seem to disproportionately ramp up my food intake! The food at the retreat center is pretty good institutional food, though nothing to write home about. For whatever reason, during meditation retreat I have historically felt a tractor beam pulling me toward piles of tater tots and peanut butter (no, not mixed together!). And then I spend the re...

Effective teaching is one of my primary goals in teaching yoga. The various Alignment Yoga Teacher Training programs focus on helping teachers-in-training become good teachers… Who just happen to teach yoga. Sadly, the focus in much of the yoga teacher-training world is on the flash and dazzle of yoga: doing ever-deeper poses, or pushing students into emotional release. While there is a time and a place for both of these skills, I think we’d all be better off if we spent more time focusing on the fundamentals of effective teaching. I can clearly remember the first time I recognized that I was in the presence of a very effective teacher. I was in the third grade at Desert Shadows Elementary School in Scottsdale, Arizona. My usual classroom teacher announced that the principal, Muriel Rickard, would be coming into the classroom to teach us the 9’s of our multiplication tables. I was a pretty sorry student of multiplication tables, as memorizing isn’t one of my great strengt...

Why would a yoga teacher return to school? What will you study? How will you pay for it? What if you don’t get into the program? Don’t you have enough on your plate? What about your cats? Aren’t you kind of old for school? OK – maybe one of those questions hasn’t been asked very often, but the others sure have been! In this posting, I’d like to share some of my thoughts on returning to school. There are three primary motivations underlying my unfolding educational plans: I’m hoping to hone my observational/research skills, write more credible books, and get the word about yoga/activity/meditation out to a wider audience. I was trained as a scientist, and while the scientific method has remained part of my intellectual process, my paradigm has become progressively more descriptive over the years. While I believe this approach has opened Alignment Yoga to a broader audience, I also believe the descriptiveness of my teaching will benefit from a more rigorous , scientific met...

Worrying too much about alignment can fan the flames of anxiety. (circa 1985, laundry product anxiety) “When my hips are open, my back will feel strong." “Opening my chest will open my heart.” “My psoas is pulling my shoulders forward.” As the developer of Alignment Yoga, I may give the impression that I'm all about alignment, all the time. To some extent I do employ alignment as a compass to guide our work with body and mind but I’ve also seen firsthand how alignment can fan the flames of anxiety, lead to more discomfort in the body, and debilitate a healthy sense of self. Many of us come to the table with the view that our body is a “fixer-upper” project. If only my shoulders were balanced, my hips were open, and my shoulders pulled back… then I could be happy. The quotes at the beginning of this posting are common refrains in the yoga world. While there may be some truth within their proclamations, embedded within them is a view that the body is som...

As some of you already know, I’ve decided to go back to school. Returning to school is something I’ve long considered, and just recently it seems the planets have aligned in such a way that it seems doable. So, what does a middle-aged yoga teacher study? Years ago I was admitted to a PhD program at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. I studied Sport and Exercise Science for a short while, then ultimately left the academy to focus more hours per day on the yoga mat. While spending my 20’s focused on yoga gave me the grounding of 10,000+ hours of practice, one of my few life regrets has been prematurely leaving my academic course of study. In support of this long-standing interest, I will be applying to the PhD program at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, this time in the Kinesiology Department. I’m interested in how movement, and particularly aerobic exercise, impacts the meditating brain. There is growing evidence that meditation rewires the brain. And it appears ...