Prayers to all of you and especially to the firefighters out there. The bad air quality is keeping us inside. And the gloomy weather may make you feel out of wack. The one plus…… more time to do yoga :)
Last week, the theme was trust. This week we built toward side crow with lots of humor and side body stretches and core! Alignment cues, a demo and more twists were thrown in . . .
Wherever the practice took each of you this week, I hope my encouragement to “LAND in this moment” helped. What are you doing RIGHT now? Stop. Look around. What do you see, notice, feel, hear, smell? Land in this moment.
Class progressed from surya namaskar to strength building standing poses. Early on I did a “demo” of chataranga. I showed that you could have your knees down or legs straight in plank pose. Then, as you lower down with control and strength, keep you shoulders level with your elbows and squeeze your scapula toward your spine. If shoulders drop/droop below elbows then you strain your chest muscles. This is not easy, but very worthy of your time. And opening the front of the chest and moving the head of the arm bones back in space creates a host of healthy habits.
As we round our shoulders when we help our kids with their homework or while we cook and clean, drive and use devices …. overtime that rounding in the upper back becomes the norm. We are here, yoga is here to open up your heart and your lungs and your eyes and keep your back flexible :) And it’s fun, too!
Yogis experienced the flow of eagle pose into dancer pose. I wanted them to feel the rounding that is inherent in eagle pose and then the exquisite opening up of the front of the shoulders in dancer. In addition to dancer pose, we did bow pose as our backbend pose. The pressure on the belly combined with grabbing your feet (or a strap) and stretching your chest wide open seemed to fit the bill as the sequence unfolded.
I wanted to thank all of you for your feedback. It helps so much! And then my knowledge increases and hopefully circles around and helps you a little bit more. Pigeon opened the hips just that little bit extra and then it was off to the races! Side crow here we come. Students observed me, and then honoring what was true for them, they took the twist to the right depth for them. So much of the learning and the poses along the way are good stuff whether or not you get into an advanced twisting arm balance.
Cheers to your effort. Jai, Lynn
