You know the feeling. Your shoulders start to climb closer to your ears. Your breath becomes shallow or, worse, you inhale and hold it for way too long before exhaling. As a result, your stomach might tighten, along with other […]

B.B. King, Bob Dylan, and Mary J. Blige: we listened to these artists and many more as we warmed up yesterday at Diane McCarthy’s 12 p.m. Simonson Dance class at DNA (Dance New Amsterdam), I saw my friends Marcia and […]

Treating the symptoms of a disease can be faster and often much easier than addressing its root. Any chiropractor with the required 300 hours of training to use acupuncture needles should have some success in alleviating pain. But to treat […]

Someone snapped this photo of me (in yellow) giving a demonstration in “Exercise as Medicine” last night at the New York Open Center. It was wonderful to share my passion with so many. Next week, the five week class begins […]

Here are four reasons to take the “Exercise as Medicine” class I will teach at the Open Center this fall: One: A fresh beginning. It is a new season—the start of the ‘year’, so to speak, that will bring us […]

Yesterday at 3 p.m., I headed west to the Hudson River and found some shade under a tree to practice qigong. Under another tree, a young man to my right was practicing an ambitious dance routine. Nearby, a woman lay […]

The day before yesterday in yoga class my ‘tree balancing’ posture was near perfect. I focused on some sun dappled leaves outside the third floor studio on 13th Street and my mind seemed as quiet as a still lake. I’m […]

In last week’s blog post, I shared with you a type of breathing that is particularly useful when feeling stressed because it helps balance the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system.  This is called abdominal or diaphragmatic breathing in which the […]

“Let the breath inform the movement,” is what a teacher said in yoga class the other day. It took me years to become aware of my breath and I try to do exactly what the teacher suggested, not only in […]

Last weekend the trail heads where I enter the woods to hike around the well-worn paths were piled high with snow blocking my entry. I desperately needed some fresh country air coursing through my arteries, veins, lungs, alveoli. It was […]

COMMUNITY YOGA AT URBAN ZEN “Its wonderful, such a great way to start the week,” said Lauren Bush after the Monday morning community yoga class in the West Village at Urban Zen, the non-profit foundation launched by Donna Karan. Every […]

“I want to be dancing with you when I am an old lady”. That is what Lynn Simonson, creator of a technique that allows any body to dance regardless of age, injury or expertise, use to tell us when we […]