About

This site

I have studied yoga in the West since 2003, but have missed the connection between the poses of the “exercise class” and yoga’s larger practice. I learned poses arrive without their stories, breath techniques without their physiology, and a smattering of philosophy without its sources. The Living Practice began as my own answer to that gap: my study notebook, built in public, where every claim about the practice is traced back to something that can be read, checked, and questioned.

The Living Practice follows yoga’s eight limbs. The yamas are read with their sutras and the stories that teach them. The asana pages map pose families to the muscles that move them on the muscle diagram. Under the Banyan Tree matches stories from the Vedas with the poses and sequences that carry them. The breath, meditation, and dharana pages pair traditional instruction with the peer-reviewed literature. Scripture links go to primary sources such as Vedabase and the Valmiki Ramayana, and research links go to the journals themselves. A site-wide glossary gathers the Sanskrit terms used across these pages in one place.

Dr. Ally Krupar · Rooted Action

I am a researcher. My work sits at the intersection of education, participatory action research, and communities affected by crisis, and it has appeared in peer-reviewed journals and books globally. That work carries over to this site: I want to know the source, find the evidence, be transparent about what is uncertain, and remember that the people the practice is meant to serve are its first authority.

I am also a yoga student in the middle of my teacher training. I am completing all 500 hours within two years, because when I dive into a subject, I want to know all of it immediately. The pace is quick but it also motivated me to build this site to better understand everything I was learning. Everything on this site is built as part of that training, which means it is a record of learning in motion. I want to know where I get it wrong, and there is a form at the bottom of every page for exactly that.

Rooted Action

Rooted Action is the umbrella for this work: the place where my research practice and my movement practice meet. The name says the method. Action that serves people grows from roots, from evidence, from tradition honestly engaged, and from the communities in which a practice lives. Under it sit The Living Practice, my work bringing movement and contemplative practice into education settings, and the research that keeps both honest.

On the use of AI

The structure of this site was completely developed by AI. The content came from me, my teachers, researchers and publications cited across the site. AI provides us the shape but it can’t give us any new knowledge. Check the reference material on each page and below to find the source material. Any AI generated images will eventually be replaced with human generated graphics as resources are available to pay designers.

Reference materials, by page

Every page includes reference materials but this is the whole shelf in one place. I am a student and a researcher and I will always show you where my claims come from so you can weigh them yourself. For the tradition itself, go to the sources linked throughout these pages and to teachers within living lineages. For medical questions, go to a clinician.

Two rules govern the shelf. Books link to their publisher, and texts link to a freely published edition; nothing is hosted here, because most of it is under copyright and hosting it would be theft. And a link only appears if I have opened it. Where I have a book but no verified publisher page, the entry sits here without a link rather than with a plausible-looking guess.

allykrupar.com