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YOGA (0117) 214 0124

YOGA CLASS
Tuesday, January 1, 2013

In the West, we have come to view the body as an object to exercise, as a separate entity from ourselves. When the body becomes an it, we become someone doing something to somebody; mind and body become dissociated. In Yoga, we imagine the body as a community, with each body system and each layer a representative of consciousness. When we affect one minute part of the body, we affect the whole. When we our emotions uctuate, so does our posture. When our mind is otherwise engaged, we lose contact with our bodies. When we work from the outside in, we primarily use the sympathetic nervous system (the part of the central nervous system that is responsible for ght or ight responses) and this is so highly charged in most of us in our everyday lives. Being under constant pressure, the sympathetic nervous system runs on overdrive most of our waking hours. The parasympathetic nervous system, on the other hand, governs respiration, relaxation and functions such as digestion and when the sympathetic nervous system is in control, this takes a back seat and therefore we can feel ungrounded. To ignite the parasympathetic nervous system and balance the nervous system, yoga is traditionally practiced very slowly, with each movement synchronized to the breath. When we practice yoga from the inside out, we reconnect our minds with our bodies. As we give our full attention to every breath, movement and the subtlest sensations, the body becomes mindful and the mind become embodied.

Setting Your Intention(s)

Rather than, or as well as, having goals or resolutions for the year, I invite you to set an intention and the intention is this: I will embody my mind in everything that I do I will be more mindful with everything that I do

Feeling What Is
When we enter a pose, we start by feeling what is. We simply feel how we are and offer ourselves complete acceptance for whatever we are bringing to the mat. We observe purely from a neutral viewpoint for without this we cannot possibly know how we actually are, and we cannot know where to begin or how to skillfully work with ourselves in the practice.

Feeling Where We Are Stuck

Once we enter a pose, we are met by our ability or inability to take on this new form. We feel all the places where we hold tension. As we think, so we become. It is also entirely possible that you are unaware of feeling anything with certain parts of the body where we have become dissociated. If that is the case, hold your attention at that space and with time, you will be able to feel.

Linking With The Breath

Now we begin to link our awareness with the breath and to use the breath to palpate and feel places of tension. As we breathe we begin to realize that there are 4 phases to each breath - arising, pausing, dissolving, pausing. Learn to synchronize your practice so that you expand with the incoming breath, pause in the silence, relax effort on the outgoing breath, and pause in the silence again.

Moving Into Stillness

As our practice becomes more rened, we redirect our awareness to the stillness that is in between, inside and throughout all movement. This experience of stillness within the movement can happen anytime we become completely merged with the movement itself.

Practice
GETTING GROUNDED Sitting Childs Pose Seated Buttery Pose Half Frog Modied Half Lotus Kneeling Salutations OPENING THE HEART Cobra Seal Camel Table Top Supported Corpse Wheel FLOW Intense Aeroplane Standing Split High Lunge Vinyasa (+ Half Table Top) Corpse

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