First, let's get the irony out of the way. Yes, this is a blog on the internet and we are posting it with the intention that you might read it. Now for the point of the blog...

When we are trying to learn about yoga, we often turn to whatever resources we have available to us. Friends, teachers, books, and of course, the internet.

​As the internet becomes more and more available and now, with the prominence of AI, this becomes the easiest go-to source for "information". 

However, the internet and especially AI will tell you a lot of wrong information. (By wrong information, we don't mean a "wrong" opinion. We mean that the information it provides does not correspond with reality in the form of textual, archeological or scholarly evidence that is available to us.)

​It is becoming clear that AI lies. However, even without resorting to lying, the internet and AI do not have the ability to sort good information from bad information.

​The good news: you do! 

The human mind can think about what source their information is coming from and from there, decide how useful it is. Someone who devotes their entire life to studying a subject will have a better understanding of the subject than someone who doesn't. A business who wants to sell something will have a different approach to information than a person without financial stakes. 

Scholarly publications on yoga are a useful place to start if you want to learn more about yoga. Yes, they can be dense and hard to get through. But they are scrutinized heavily by others in the field of yoga who know about the same information, by the publishers and by reviewers. This makes the quality of information not perfect, but more reliable than what Google will tell you (unless of course, Google is sourcing a high quality piece of information). 

Easy access to information does not make the information true. ​Sadly, we have seen a pretty substantial increase in the acceptance of misleading or untrue information around yoga in the last year. Let's all do our part to check the validity of our sources, and when in doubt, try to choose a book written by an expert, over Google or AI. 

10 Years Ago we started a little thing called Practice Week. We set out to build something that we, as yogis ourselves, wanted to see in the world: space and time dedicated to practice.

We felt this should not be a place to learn to teach or to perform. Rather this was to be a place of developing a commitment to yogic practice; an immersive space to find inspiration and to commit to the discipline necessary for growth.

​A few people came back in 2016. We were surprised anyone showed up! (And also ok if no one did.) Several of those that did come camped on our living room floor.
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​Then a decade went by and Ghosh Yoga rooted itself all over the world. Now yogis gather yearly at Practice Week, in Ghosh Yoga Teacher Trainings, in studios and community spaces, and in their own homes simply to practice.

Throughout the last 10 years, we have come to find we have much in common. Rooted in our individual commitments to humility, discipline and knowledge, we find that connection is an important part of a sustained life of practice. 

So, to celebrate a decade of Practice Week and a commitment to both practice and community: We offer the inaugural Ghosh Yoga Festival- March 12-15, 2026. 

​We will gather with each other to celebrate and deepen both our individual yoga practices and the community we've all built.

Details: 
Ghosh Yoga Festival
March 12-15, 2026
Tampa, FL USA
​Tickets available July 1st

There are many instructions given to students of yoga. They are not all created equally. Some are supported by evidence, some are not. Some are historical, some are contemporary. Some are in favor of physical health, some are in favor of a liberation in a metaphysical sense. Some draw from science, some draw from religious text. You get the idea... 

Yoga can, and often does, carry the weight of tradition. This means we are keen to accept instructions we hear because we believe them to be in some way to be ancient, informed, proven or magically powerful. Because of this, we have to be careful. 

While it is perfectly reasonable (in most cases) to try an instruction given by a yoga teacher, it does not mean that it is always a quality instruction. By that, we mean the following: not everything said in yoga classrooms makes sense, has evidence, is accurate or is useful.

​If you do not understand something, it is certainly possible you are new to it and you need time to make sense of it. However, it is also possible that your misunderstanding is due to the fact that it doesn't make sense! The problem can be the instruction, not your ability to understand it.  

For example, imagine you are standing in Chair pose. Your quadriceps are burning and your legs feel tired. (This is reasonable because those are the muscles holding you in position. It is a lower body posture.) You hear the teacher talking endlessly about the arms. You feel confused. You can focus on your arms but they are not what you are feeling in the posture. In this instance, you get confused. Your common sense is leading you one way and the instructions are leading you another. 

Or imagine your abdomen is tightly engaged in the position pictured above. The instructor says "take a deep inhale". You feel a sense of tightness or even panic because you cannot maintain the position and deeply breathe in. But this is not because you are doing it wrong or are not good at it: this is because it is muscularly impossible to breathe in deeply while the abdomen is engaged. The physical reality of breathing and abdominal engagement means the instruction you were given is not useful, and your common sense about how it feels is correct.

In a perfect world, all yoga teachers would give informed, precise and useful instructions at all times. However, this isn't the case. As students of yoga we should do our best to learn from quality teachers and certainly stay open to the process of making sense of things we do not yet understand.

However, we should remain alert to the fact that there are less than ideal instructions being confidently delivered to students regularly. If you hear something that is in conflict with your common sense, take note.

​Learning is not believing everything we hear. It is a process of keeping our minds open as a humble students, seeking information, yet filtering it for quality, reliability and usefulness. 

It may seem obvious that if we want to learn we need to be curious. But curiosity is not just about the desire to learn. It's also about the state of mind one needs to be in to learn. 

Curiosity is the drive to seek out more information, understanding or experience about a topic or practice that is of personal interest. There doesn't need to be a reason why that particular topic is of interest. Curiosity can appear to come out of nowhere or seem unrelated to other parts of one's life. It can be standalone force that finds us and points us in a particular direction. 

That is one part of curiosity. There is another. 

The second, and more important part, is the ability to then approach the topic or practice of interest with curiosity. Meaning, we have to set aside why we think we are interested in it, and what we think we will learn.

​If we do not set aside preconceived notions of what we will find, we will be blinded by them. We will make the new information fit into what we already think about it, rather than allow it to open us up to new possibilities. 

This means that what we will find is out of our control. Once curiosity takes over, it's out of our hands. We have to be open to the fact that what we learn might feel disappointing and frustrating rather than liberating and exciting. It may conflict with what we already think we know, instead of taking us further down the path of understanding that we think we are on. 

This is all an important part of the process. ​If we already knew where our curiosity would lead, we wouldn't need to seek out the information.

To be truly curious is to seek knowledge and experience and to accept it with all of the challenges it will bring to us-- this is how we make progress. 

Until now, we've focused on repetition, frequency and precision. The last aspect of practice we will add is appropriateness.

We must practice what is challenging but also approachable. If something is too easy, we don't make progress. If it is way too hard, it won't be possible to practice it.

We have to find the sweet spot where it is challenging but within reach. This area changes as we progress. What was once out of reach becomes possible. We must always make sure that what we are practicing is challenging for us, but also possible for where we are at.

If you struggle with a posture or practice, try a simpler version. This means, remove an element of complexity either depth, or an aspect of the pose. If you feel that something is not challenging, try a more complex version. 

The space for progress is endless. We must find where we are on the path. 
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Practice is a word that is used constantly. Everyone agrees it is a necessary part of progress. Rarely however, does practice get broken down and explained effectively. This results with many of us putting in immense amounts of time and not making the progress we think we should be making. Over the next few weeks we will explore the parts of practice. 

The first part of practice is repetition. Repetition means that we have to do the things we want to get better at, more than one time.

This is essentially doing second, third or forth sets when it comes to postures. We require muscle memory to carry out any skill, be it postures, artwork, cooking, etc. We must develop the right touch, right amount strength,  right effort, and all of that takes muscle memory. Muscle memory develops with the use of repetition. 

After we can sufficiently do something (an asana, etc), one repetition can be enough for maintenance. A skilled artist can make their art at the drop of a hat, a skilled athlete can perform on command, but that's because they've already repeated the task (practiced it!) an immense amount of times. We won't get better doing something only one time.

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Often in the yoga world, we talk about things like "going deeper". Many talk about the desire to take their practice to a deeper level. Yet, often this all translates into deepening the postures. With so much discussion about depth, we don't often take the time to ask:  What does depth really mean?

When it comes to asana the obvious answer seems to be trying to get yourself into the "deepest," or most advanced expression of the pose. But is this actually depth?

Could the deepest version of a pose mean the most correct engagement? If so, the visual aspect of a pose could have very little to do with depth. 

Does deepest mean the most muscular engagement at one time? If so, then the deepest poses could be Peacock or Palmstand. 

Is depth even about physical performance? Is it awareness, subtlety? What do we actually mean by depth? 

This is a big topic and likely the answer changes with time. It's worth considering, what does depth mean to you? If the answer that arises remains vague, consider that the answer to that might not be in the body or physical postures. 
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