Leslie Kaminoff is a best-selling author and yoga educator.

Category: Blogroll

Fall travel and teaching is back…and so is my OM!
Fall has always been my favorite time of year. Here in New York, in the northeastern United States, summer is notoriously hazy, sticky, humid and stinky. A crispness emerges in the air just past August, making it far more pleasurable to simply breathe, and it feels amazing to enjoy my lungs in this way.

Particularly following my first (and worst) experience with COVID-19 in February and March 2020, enjoying my lungs was definitely not the case. Long COVID symptoms continued for a year as my body dealt with challenges including breathing difficulties, extreme fatigue, brain fog, and eventually a six-and-a-half-hour ablation procedure for AFib and other arrhythmias exacerbated by the virus. The good news is that I’m almost fully recovered from all of that, and have regained the strength and endurance to begin traveling and teaching again, something I’ve sorely missed.

When I first experienced the coughing and bronchial inflammation common to COVID-19, I was tremendously grateful for a background in breath practice. I could see how anyone without similar experience might be sent into a panic as the length and depth of their breath became shorter and shallower. That panic alone might send someone to the hospital and onto a ventilator. Fortunately, after years of practicing yoga I knew at a somatic level that the length and breadth of my breath could be modified significantly, without dying. This is what yoga teaches in both asana and pranayama: it is a controlled stress experiment. From our first class we’re being asked to put our body in some weird, difficult position and then breathe. Yeah, right. For anyone without these experiences in their history, COVID must have been terrifying.

I am connecting especially deeply with breath work these days, having been through my own breathing challenges. I can say with a high degree of certainty that had it not been for my ability to recalibrate my moment-to-moment breathing due to my training and practice of breath-centered yoga, my COVID symptoms would have certainly landed me in the hospital in March of 2020, and I’d most likely not have survived intact, or at all.

58.5 seconds of OM

During the last years I’ve been using the length of my OM as a metric of recovery. It was pretty dramatic how short my OM was during the summer of 2020 – I would start coughing and sputtering and shuddering. Trying to get a “deep” breath was impossible, until I remembered that deep doesn’t have to be big – it can also mean very small and close to the core of my body. This anatomical understanding brought comfort and a something to focus on until my bronchia quieted down. I’m happy to say that – on a good day – I’m back up to about a one minute OM (well, 58.5 seconds to be exact, as in this video I made in April!). I can’t get there every day, but it is a relief to know it’s possible.

OMs are how I open my workshops, encouraging each student to do their own length OM rather than chant in unison. When I don’t force my breath into anyone else’s pattern it permits me to relax into the process. It really isn’t a competition (well, that’s what Lydia says, but she’s the least competitive person I know!) and completing three comfortable, calm, personal-length OMs is a wonderful thing to experience.

I’ve got a number of upcoming workshops, both in-person (in London at triyoga Camden), and over Zoom (so you can attend from anywhere), where breath will be the primary focus. SPECIAL NOTE: If you or someone you know will be in London October 7-10, I’d love to connect at one of the public programs, or in a private session – especially if I can be of any help with recovering respiratory function.
- On Friday, October 7 we’ll be doing an intensive called Coaching Better Breathing: a 5-hour Immersion in Breath Education. This will be a great time to explore ways of assisting students dealing with breathing challenges, both related to COVID and the increased level of stress many are experiencing around the world.
- There’s an open community event on Friday evening, October 7, called The Breath – Your Most Important Relationship. During this donation-based event we’ll debunk many commonly taught breathing myths, such as “diaphragmatic breathing is proper breathing,” “deep breathing is always good,” and “shallow breathing is always a problem.”
- Saturday & Sunday October 8-9: Journey to the Centre of the Breath: Bandha, Asana, Vinyasa and Sound
- Monday October 10: Private sessions all day (click here to sign up.)
And don’t forget, you can access a huge amount of my teaching material and one-on-one yoga content by subscribing to breathingproject.com.

I hope to see you soon, either in-person or virtually. Enjoy the Fall (or Spring, if you’re down under)!

Leslie
September 8, 2022
This is my job now.

I have been composing this message in my head for a while now, but before I worked out any of the details, I did have a solid grasp of the title:

“This is my job now.”

At least, that’s what I keep hearing in my head every time I return to the challenging, complex work of building my new web platform at BreathingProject.com. It’s been a real stretch for me, not to mention a shift in identity. My skill sets as yoga educator, bodyworker and anatomy teacher have been built by working directly with other people, not by wrangling with audiovisual editing programs and web hosted content management. I am definitely in my wheelhouse interacting with other humans, not as I am now, sitting alone at my workstation, but…

This is my job now.

So much has already been said and written about all the ways work conditions have changed for us in the last two and a half years. Speaking from personal experience, I can look at just one fact that sums it all up: after nearly two decades of teaching and traveling to lead multi-day workshops in locations around the globe, since March 2020, I’ve taught only 22 workshops. Excluding two week-long cadaver dissections, I have only shared physical space with students in six of those 22. Everyone else who’s learned and practiced with me since the pandemic has done so by looking at screens and hearing voices transmitted from spaces far away.

By contrast, in the previous two and a half years, from September 2017 to March 2022, I taught at 60 live workshops, conferences and other events. So basically, my in-person contact with students has been reduced by 90% since Covid. So, for better or worse…

This is my job now.

I have accepted that this reality will never fully go away. Of course, I still gladly welcome all invitations to teach in-person events, but it is clear the conditions allowing that to be my primary focus are in the past. We’ve been working with all our hosts to produce hybrid events, live streaming the workshops and posting the recordings for ongoing access. All these recordings will eventually be archived permanently and fully searchable at breathingproject.com.

This is my job now.

And, I’ve become deeply aware of the difference between my job and my career: a job – any job – can be taken away; a career cannot. Personal, societal or technological changes are perpetually making certain jobs less relevant, or even obsolete. My career as an educator is a lifelong commitment, a deep part of who I am, and I will always find the means to keep doing it.

Growing up I never had a master plan. I could only have become an educator, anatomist, bodyworker by dropping out of formal education at a pretty young age – and by following my interests – by observing and absorbing from some of the best people on the planet I could find – and by having the stubbornness to stick with it long enough to see the world come around to share enough of my interests. Since I never had a “Plan A,” I certainly do not have a “Plan B.” So, I’m on this train all the way to the end of the line. I invite you to hop on and ride with me for a while and see where it leads us.

P.S. Oh, yes. I almost forgot. This message has been a rather wordy way of saying that BreathingProject.com is officially out of Beta, which means we have hopefully worked out all the major kinks and glitches. Since some of the tech we are using is quite new, it took a bit longer than we had planned. Please continue to let us know about any functionality we still need to improve

August 22, 2022
Announcing a huge launch: The Breathing Project online community!
Today marks a major evolution to my 43-year career as a yoga educator. I am officially launching the beta* version of a brand-new online community at BreathingProject.com.
I’ve created this platform for anyone with a deep interest in yoga, and especially for those who work one-on-one with other people. Please read this entire message, as it contains vital information regarding this brand-new offering. Over the past 40+ years I’ve been doing this work, it has taken many forms, from private yoga and bodywork sessions, to work in clinical sports and dance medicine practices, to the public clinics we ran at the Breathing Project studios in New York City, to international workshops in which I would demonstrate how I work with individuals. All those years of work have culminated in this project, which will allow me to share my experience, and the experience of other skilled practitioners, with a worldwide community. The main features of The Breathing Project Community include:
- A unique peek into the dynamics of private sessions via video recordings of one-on-one sessions between senior yoga educators and their students, along with running commentary, analysis and Q&A. New sessions will be uploaded regularly, along with archival material from past clinic sessions at The Breathing Project’s New York City studio.
- Premium content from my new podcast “Clinical Corner” in which senior clinicians and yoga therapists review and analyze video of them working with their own clients.
- “The Union Sessions” 8o+ hours of teachings recorded by me during the 2020 lockdown in which I systematically cover “Breath-Centered Practice,” Alignment Reimagined,” and “Ongoing Topics in Yoga Education.”
- One-of-a-kind archival videos gathered over the past 5 decades of teaching and producing yoga events
- Actively moderated community forum where subscribers can interact, ask questions, and get answers directly from me
- All video and audio content will be fully captioned and searchable by keyword, which allows users to jump straight to the place in the recording where the keyword is mentioned
- Downloadable transcripts for all video and audio
Here is the link to sign up for The Breathing Project. You will be asked to provide payment information, but you will not be charged for 30 days, so you can view as much content as you like for the next month, and cancel any time if you do not wish to continue your subscription. The cost is only $15.00 per month, or $99.00 for a year.
Here is what you can expect to find when you log in:
- All 80+ hours of “The Union Sessions” will be available for unlimited viewing. The sessions are divided into three topics: “Alignment Reimagined,” “Ongoing Topics in Yoga Education” and “Breath-Centered Practice.” You can jump around based on searching for terms or topics, or you can binge them in the exact, systematic order in which they were taught by using the playlist “The Union Sessions – in order.”
- You will also find a few historic videos in the “Archives” playlist. There will be regular additions to the archives, and I’m keen to hear any comments or questions you may have.
- The first recorded one-on-one session, “Basic Breath Work for Trauma” will be available for viewing. On Thursday, June 23 at 5PM New York time, I will host a live viewing of that video during which I will comment on the session and answer any questions you may have. The recording of that Zoom will then be attached to the session video as an ongoing resource. You are invited to register for the Zoom by clicking here.
- Each week following our launch, a new (or archival) private session will be posted, either as above, with a live Zoom generating commentary, or as the premium version of my new podcast “Clinical corner,” in which I interview another clinician about their work with one of their students/clients.
Apologies for the lengthy message, but I wanted to share as much as I can my excitement about this new phase of my teaching life. Since I am no longer traveling around the world as frequently to bring teaching to you, I am grateful for the opportunity for us to gather in this vital, virtual space and use this amazing technology to its fullest. I very much look forward to connecting with you through this latest incarnation of The Breathing Project. *We are ready to hear any and all feedback from you regarding this BETA launch. As a new platform, we know that there will be bugs to fix, improvements to be made and suggestions for future features. Please note that aside from the first Clinic and Podcast videos, the transcripts (and thus the subtitles) of all other video content have not been corrected, so there will be numerous errors – especially with Indian names, Sanskrit and anatomical terms. At some point, when the community is large enough, I will offer free subscriptions to a few intrepid transcript editors, as it is a task too big for one person to accomplish.
June 20, 2022
The Anatomical Gifts That Keep on Giving
University of Massachusetts anatomical gift donor form

In a temporal twist of fate, last week I got the news that my father, Harvey Kaminoff, passed away about 5 minutes after I returned from the local FedEx office to overnight his anatomical gift donor forms to the UMass Medical School. Although my father’s death was sudden, it was not unexpected. Fortunately, I had just organized a family visit with him the day before his death at the nursing home where he had been cared for since last October. Over the decades of my anatomical study, Harvey expressed interest in donating his body to help others gain the same kind of experience he’d seen deepen my knowledge and practice.

I am extremely grateful to Amanda Collins, the Director of Anatomical Services at the UMass medical school, and her colleagues, who helped expedite the donation process in record time. The fact that Harvey’s body will be helping first-year medical students learn gross anatomy this fall in Worcester, MA tremendously brightened an otherwise sad occasion. You can read more about my father’s influence on my life and work in this Facebook post. It seems to have struck a chord, garnering more engagement than usual.

In my decades-long study and teaching of anatomy, I have been personally and professionally enriched by the generosity of many donors like my father, and it has been an honor to facilitate an anatomical gift – this time from the family’s perspective.

My dad in his youth, on the left, and with my three sons and me in 2017.

While I’m on the topic of anatomical gifts, I’ve just learned that two spots recently opened up for our previously sold-out Movement Anatomy Hands-On Cadaver Lab in Colorado Springs March 14-18. We are limiting participation to 6 students per table, so if you’ve ever dreamed of learning anatomy in this amazing format, our lab will be as up-close and personal a setting as you will find.

I will be teaching alongside the amazing Lauri Nemetz, MA, BC-DMT, LCAT, ERYT500, C-IAYT, a yoga and movement educator who specializes in myofascial anatomy as well as one of the lead dissector on the international team at the Fascial Net Plastination Project, and past faculty dissector for Anatomy Trains Dissections®. Once these 2 spots are taken, the course will be full, so reach out soon via the KNM Labs website.

I have provided links below for those inspired to learn more about anatomical gifting, which serves a different purpose from the organ donation choice on the back of most drivers’ licenses. They fill a vital educational need, and many regions across the United States are chronically short of full-body donations for the kind medical study we do in our labs.
- ScienceCare.com allows you to register in these states: AZ, CA, CO, DE, FL, IL, NV, NY, NC, OR, PA, TX, WA, and WI.
- The UMass Medical School’s program in Worcester was wonderful to deal with.
- Here is a list of body donation programs by state.
February 3, 2022
Hey, 2022…I’m back!

Well, a fresh set of Covid-19 antibodies wasn’t on my Christmas wish list, but I got them anyway. Between my original March 2020 battle with Covid, three vaccine shots, and a holiday bout with the Omicron variant that had me quarantining instead of festivating, I now assume I have sufficient immunity to get through 2022 with no further incident. I am very much looking forward to resuming teaching events scheduled for the first quarter.

The next in a series of popular 2-hour online workshops I’ve been doing for our U.K. friends at Keen Yoga is coming up at the end of this month on Sunday, January, 30 at 9:00am EST, 2:00pm UK time. The topic is something we could all use right about now: “Introduction to Healing Through Breath-centered Yoga.” The workshop is rooted in the perspective that there’s always more going right for a person than has gone wrong – something I’ve had to remind myself more than once in the past couple of challenging years. The recording will be remain available to replay for 14 days after the event.

Lauri Nemetz and me during the livestream of our first KNMLabs dissection workshop in October 2020

Looking ahead to March (the week of my 64th birthday!) Lydia, Lauri Nemetz and I will be back in Colorado Springs at the anatomy lab of our good friend Gil Hedley to lead a unique week-long cadaver dissection March 14-18. KNM Movement Anatomy Labs focus on interests of yoga educators, movement and fitness professionals, bodywork and massage therapists and artists.

A unique aspect of this hands-on lab is the opportunity to apply some of what you see in the lab in your own body during evening movement labs. There will also be opportunities to observe one-on-one work related to structural observations during the day’s cadaver lab.

We still have room for a few more participants, so click on the link above to find out more about this very special opportunity to experience human anatomy first-hand with an amazing group of individuals.

January 18, 2022
Getting back to bizness

Change of seasons, and the discussion between Lydia and me turns to what to pack for teaching trips. Neither of us likes to overpack, but we have both underpacked, and that was most uncomfortable! Hand washing clothing in a hotel sink is only so effective.

This coming weekend I’m teaching a hybrid (in-person and online) workshop for Sun & Moon Yoga in Arlington, VA (predicted temps in the low 60s F). The title is a direct reflection on my own personal, present experience, Breath-Centered Yoga Practice: Maintaining Balance in Changing Times.

The weekend after that I will finally be holding the longest planned event in my history, for Matt Ryan at Manchester Yoga (predicted temps in the low 50s F). It was originally scheduled for May 2020, then October 2020, then May 2021. After holding multiple Zoom check-ins with the registrants, we will now finally get to spend time in the same space at the same time!

Oh, and the third edition of Amy Matthews and my Yoga Anatomy should be shipping just about now! There are new chapters, new illustrations, new perspectives, and improved content across the board.

This has been a true labor of love through the Covid year as I fought post-covid brain fog and heart abnormalities, and Amy and I both spent most of the year outside of New York City, in Maine and Massachusetts, sheltering in low-population areas. Anyway, we hope you buy at least one copy! Bulk orders are definitely cheaper. Just sayin’.

October 17, 2021
Miami, Memories and Me

Here we are at the cusp of September 2021, well into a second year under the looming threat of the Covid-19 pandemic. I, for one, really didn’t think I’d be saying that. Many of my workshops got rescheduled from 2020 (one even postponed multiple times!) but I am truly thrilled and eagerly anticipating a fall season of travel teaching.

Me (L) and my brother Rick, Key West circa 1963

There’s a lovely synchronicity that my re-entry to live, in-person teaching includes a weekend workshop at Kino McGregor’s new Miami Life Center, titled The Anatomy of Yoga, the Yoga of Anatomy. This topic will provide a solid grounding to the yoga I teach, and practice but – separately – I consider South Florida my ancestral home.

In the early to mid-60s, I lived in South Florida, splitting time between an apartment above my grandparents’ bar in Key West and Miami Beach, where my mother relocated as she rebuilt life with two young sons after her split from my father. Far from being the fashionable, hip enclave it’s become, the South Miami Beach I knew in the 1960s was almost entirely the province of an aging Jewish population that had found refuge from the cold Northeast and the ravages of the Holocaust. Thinking about that time span now, it’s incredible to realize that for the people I was living with in Miami, the end of World War II was as recent a memory as 9/11 is for me.

And now, after nearly two years of pandemic-separation, I will get to visit with my mother who lives back in the region, as well as teach in Miami! With so many memories intertwining on this return, I anticipate having a very resonant, heartfelt experience on this journey.

I am very grateful for the opportunity to help Kino open her beautiful new facility, and for all the hard work her team has put in to make it possible, in spite of nearly overwhelming challenges. It takes a lot of guts to open a new yoga facility these days, and I’m happy to support anyone who’s willing to take it on. If you or anyone you know is in the Miami area, I’d love to have a chance to connect.

This will be a hybrid event, with a limited number of vaccinated or recently negative-tested students attending the sessions in person as well as virtually, and filmed for replays by Omstars, a great online resource. I’m very much looking forward to connecting with the community there – even with all the challenges intrinsic to gathering with a group of people for an in-person learning event.

August 28, 2021
Slowly but surely, life as we know it is re-starting, and workshops are scheduled!

On the road again!

I am sure I’m not alone in saying I was very relieved to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus back in April. Since then, I’ve gotten to dine with and hug friends I hadn’t seen in months, and I’ve been able to restart my private practice in New York City in a beautiful brand new space for The Breathing Project, just across the street from the apartment I share with Lydia on the Upper West Side. I will have more to announce about some exciting in-person and live-streamed programs from that location in the near future.

Happily, I am now starting to see my schedule – at least the last quarter of 2021 – begin to fill with workshops. Here’s what’s upcoming:

LONDON CALLING – I’m still doing the online series for triyoga London, with the next scheduled for this weekend, July 17-18. Our topic will be “Practice and Principles: a Weekend of Interactive + Breath-Centred Yoga.”

LONE STAR VISIT – Next will be my first in-person event in a year, “Asana, Pranayama and Bandhas,” for My Vinyasa Practice, in Austin, TX September 25-26. Tickets are being sold separately for the in-person and online component.

MIAMI ANATOMY – We are flying directly from Austin to Miami for our first collaboration with Kino McGregor’s OMStars and Miami Life Center October 1-3. We are very much looking forward to seeing the beautiful new space she’s built in Miami, and are honored to be the inaugural guest workshop there, entitled: “The Anatomy of Yoga, the Yoga of Anatomy.”

FAIRFAX FRIENDS – We are thrilled to be returning to Sun and Moon Studios in Fairfax, VA to visit with good friends Annie and Amir and their wonderful community for an in-person/online workshop October 22-24. Registration details will be posted soon to our calendar.

MANCHESTER ENGLAND, ENGLAND – At the end of October, my long-awaited, repeatedly postponed Manchester, UK workshop, is still on our calendar. Given the ongoing uncertainties of COVID outbreaks, travel restrictions and quarantine requirements, I cannot 100% guarantee I can make it over there, but one way or another, I will be teaching something on October 29-31 to the resilient, loyal students who have stuck with us since May 2020!

ENCINITAS, ALWAYS – Last in 2021 is my annual weekend workshop for Soul of Yoga in beautiful Encinitas, California. It usually sells out, so I’m not sure there will be any tickets left, but keep an eye on my calendar in case any get released.

MARCH CADAVER LAB IN COLORADO SPRINGS! – The newest offering on our calendar is the second joint project with good friend and colleague Lauri Nemetz – a 5-day Movement Anatomy Hands-On Cadaver Dissection Lab March 14-18 at Gil Hedley’s amazing facility, the Institute for Anatomical Research in Colorado Springs. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you to experience human anatomy close up and personal in a way that was once reserved only for medical students – through guided dissection of your very own human cadaver. This is a small-scale, personalized event in which we limit six students per table, with an absolute maximum of four tables in the lab. Because we are emphasizing the individualized nature of your experience, we encourage you to reach out personally for more information at info@breathinproject.org.

July 14, 2021
2-hour Bandha Workshop available to everyone online, November 29

Back on September 29, UK-based Adam Keen posted a wide ranging podcast interview with me that covered a lot of interesting ground. We had such a great chat, he invited me to teach a 2-hour online workshop to his students at Keen Yoga who practice mostly Ashtanga Yoga. He selected one of my favorite topics: “Demystifying The Bandhas,” and registration is open to all. Here’s the workshop description:

The popularity of vinyasa-based yoga practice has created a wide interest in the theory and practice of Mula, Uddiyana and Jalandhara Bandha – the “yogic locks.” In this workshop, Leslie applies his unique, experiential approach to clarify and, above all, simplify the practical, anatomical basis of these powerful, yet widely misunderstood tools.

One of the few benefits of the COVID-19 pandemic is that my teaching is no longer restricted by geography! Come join us online for some breath-centered practice with a strong focus on anatomical and personal inquiry.

illustration ©The Breathing Project and Lydia Mann

Sunday 29th November
2.00-4:00pm (UK) / 9.00-11:00am EST
Cost: £25 ($32)
Click here to book now

November 15, 2020
A bright spot for 2020…a live-streamed Yoga Anatomy cadaver lab!

Hello Everyone.

I hope you’ve been staying safe and healthy in the upside-down dumpster-fire that has been 2020 so far. I’m writing to let you know about at least one pretty awesome thing coming up.

In a couple of weeks, Lydia and I travel to San Diego to produce a Yoga and Movement Cadaver Dissection Lab along with Soul of Yoga and the fabulous Lauri Nemetz, with whom I’ll be co-teaching.

This week-long lab was originally designed to be in-person only but after the pandemic hit it was reconceived to also include a livestream, online event. Reimagined for a much wider online audience, it is now a 20-hour professional training that has been fully approved by Yoga Alliance and IAYT for CEU credits.

We’ll be streaming this training from a state-of-the-art anatomy lab in San Diego and I’m offering a special $50.00 discount code for online registrations. All you have to do is enter Y-AN.ORG50 when you sign up. Once registered, you’ll be able to access the livestream in real time, or review the recordings for up to one month. That means if your schedule doesn’t permit you to view the training during the livestream, you’ll be able to watch, pause, rewind, and review for up to one month following the lab. We look forward to answering your submitted questions, if possible during the next day’s session. The daily schedule of topics is attached below and on the Soul of Yoga site.

If you are interested in attending live, we have a waitlist in case extra spots open up at one of the tables. To get on that list or to ask about any aspect of the lab, please contact me.

October 5, 2020