YOGA
“If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you.”
Enjoy These Musings and Insights on Yoga and Life
Releasing and Refocusing
As we end 2020 and look to 2021, our minds naturally start to move towards the future.
However, we can’t successfully move forward until we release the past.
Have you taken time to stop and recognize all of the myriad of things you’ve accomplished this year?
Have you made time to celebrate your successes and reflect back on how far you’ve come?
Here are two videos to help you refocus your mind and thoughts to help you release the past and embrace what is to come in the year ahead!
Benefits of Uddiyana Bandha Kriya - The "Abdominal Lock"
The practice of Uddiyana Bandha Kriya increases blood circulation throughout your body and brain. It stimulates the vagus nerve by putting a little pressure on it, which strengthens and tones your parasympathetic response, which creates a calming and balancing effect on our nervous system. Through this practice, your brain becomes healthier and you will experience more clarity in your thinking.
This bandha also massages the internal organs and on a more subtle level, it stimulates the inner agni, or digestive fire, which resides around your navel. By strengthening this fire you will experience better digestion and assimilation, and it also helps to purify the subtle energy channels, or nadis. READ MORE…
A Meditation To Reduce Fear and Anxiety
We often devote enormous amounts of energy to suppressing our feelings of anxiety, worry and fear.
Unfotunately, this only makes our fears worse! We often push these uncomfortable emotions to the dark corners of our minds, or hide it in areas of our body. Often we make ourselves overly busy to avoid having to sit with anxiety or uncertainty. However, fear thrives in the darkness of ignorance, so although these strategies may work in the short term, when we bury our negative feelings, they only tend to grow bigger. Alternatively, when we become attentive to ourselves, and shine the light of awareness on our feelings of fear, we can observe how it immediately effects us, and how it also changes. With a little time and steady practice we can watch our worries dissolve and disappear altogether.
Have you ever wondered what might happen if you took the time to consciously explore your fears and anxiety?
Read More…
How To Open Your Heart
Tomorrow’s full moon is in the sign of Aries, but it is conjunct with Chiron, an asteroid that orbits our solar system, known to Astrologers as “the wounded healer.”
The asteroid called Chiron entered the sign of Aries back in February of 2019 and will remain in this sign until April 2027! Chiron, in Greek Mythology, is a healer, teacher and mentor. Whereas Aries is the ultimate warrior.
So this is a time to open your heart and ask yourself, “What do I want to fight for that needs healing within myself and within the world?” We are entering a period of deep healing and transformation. It’s time to let go of these old patterns that effect your present reality, face your fears, and confront what’s holding you back. Embrace the power that is you-here-now.
The healer resides within… Read More
A Conversation on Yoga and Motherhood
Are you are passionate about practicing yoga, but struggling to balance the demands of “Seventh Series” (having a family) with your desire to create or maintain time for yourself and your yoga practice?
Recently, I had a conversation about this struggle and especially the understanding that, wow, things will never be the same again.
Supta Virasana - Sleeping Hero's Pose
This is an excellent restorative yoga posture that can be of great benefit to your back-bends and can also help heal minor aches and pains in the knees. With time and practice, this restorative posture can very easily become a resting pose that can deeply renew and rejuvenate the entire body.
Ways To Make An Easy Exit
Last week I gave some tips and exercises to help you find stability in the Second Series posture, pinchamayurasana. This week I have some tips for getting out of it!
The “peacock feather pose” can be a challenging forearm stand all on its own, without having to exit it by jumping and landing in chaturanga dandasana also known as the "four limb staff pose." In Mysore, India, this posture is taught with a very specific exit that must also be mastered before the student will be able to move on to the next pose, karandavasana, which shares this same exit!
How To Make A "Peacock Feather"
Pinchamayurasana translates as the “Peacock Feather Pose.” This is a challenging Intermediate Series asana that many students struggle with, especially the naturally flexible ones, as it requires a degree of stiffness and strength in the arms, shoulders, and deep in the core muscles…
One identifying feature of Lord Krishna is the peacock feather in his crown. In India the feather of a peacock is a symbol of good luck, prosperity, beauty, and wisdom. It is a protection against evil and is thought to destroy all poisonous emotions like anger, greed, and jealousy…
Ouch! Was that my hamstring?
Hamstring injuries are one of the most common spots injuries that occur and most of the time they will heal without any kind of surgical intervention. But how can you continue your practice if you’ve injured your hamstring? It can feel very painful to continue stretching this area in forward folds while it’s healing. However, gently stretching the area is exactly what is needed to prevent scar tissue from forming a ball or knot while it’s repair the tissue tear.
How You Can Get A Better Backbend in 3 Simple Steps
Are you struggling with you backbends? Can’t figure out where it’s all going wrong?
In this Wellness Wednesday video, I demonstrate the how you can find a better backbend with 3 simple steps. Now, I said the steps were simple, that doesn’t mean they are easy!
What's stopping your Bakasana B?
Bakasana B can be an intimidating prospect when working through the Second Series of the Ashtanga yoga sequence. Many times students say, “but I can’t jump and land!” So, what exactly is stopping you from successfully landing on the backs of your arms in this position?
Tips for Working on Kapotasana
Kapotasana is another one of those very difficult postures in the Second Series of the Ashtanga yoga sequence. Here you will find some tips for working on this asana using the assistance of a wall to gradually open and strengthen the muscles supporting the spine so that you can practice this posture without pain.
Tips To Work Your "Drop-Backs"
Many yoga students are very excited to start learning how to drop-back from a standing position into a back-bend. However, when they come to start trying they discover that it is a lot more challenging that it first appears. Here, in this video and post, Harmony gives some helpful tips to get you started on this journey.
Matsya - A Fish Will Guide Us
The “Fish” in all three of these postures is referring to the first avatar of Lord Vishnu. This myth first appears in the Shatapatha Brahmana (700-300 BCE). This story is one that we might be more familiar with than we realize…
Matsya keeps growing and growing, and Satyavrata continues moving him from one jar into another, always needing larger and larger containers, until he has no choice but to move him into the ocean…
This is possibly where we get the progressions of these postures. Each referring to a different period of Vishnu's transformation from a simple little fish, to the size of a 'half-king-fish' and finally into the form of a 'full-King' fish!
Matsyendra warns Satyavrata about the coming dissolution of the world…
Kapilasana - Mind Your Manners!
The name Kapila appears in many texts prior to the conception of Samkhya. In fact, Kapila is mentioned as one Vishnu’s names.
There is a story in the Brahma Purana where King Sagara commands his 60,000 sons to go searching for his sacrificial horse that he believes was stolen, as he can not complete the vedic ritual without it…
All is coming... All is going...
Somewhere along the way, I realized that “All is coming” meant ALL of it: the good, the bad, the ugly, the miserable, the beautiful, the exquisite, the pain unbearable, the joy insurmountable, the laughter and tears, new friendships and the loss of others, children, lovers, enemies, sickness, hours of being stuck in traffic, the feeling of lightness and oppressive heaviness, unbelievably good fortune as well as terrible hardships... ALL of it.
Shayanasana - Taking a more "relaxed stance"
This posture is called Śhayanāsana. Shayana means "resting" “reclined” or “lying down” and when combined with asana it translates as something like a "relaxed stance."
Now, if you have ever tried this posture, you will know it is anything but relaxing! ...