The Yoga Blog

This Week’s Pose: Virabhadrasana I

Virabhdrasana I is no half-hearted posture. It is like a warrior stilled mid-stride. It is captured movement. The front leg lunges forward while the back leg reaches back and grounds the pose. Likewise, the hips both contain the movement of the thighs, and connect the solid legs to an expansive chest and arms.

Virabhadrasana I by Emily Sloat Shaw

What is grounding?

For our purposes, grounding is an overall or localized experience of the thinking mind rendered lighter. In other words, the thoughts that fuel our day in general or any experience, specifically, become less “heavy” and overwhelming because the body has energetically plugged into the ground. Like a plug into a socket, a person becomes instantly aware of the relaxation response associated with living in relationship to gravity when she “grounds.” Grounding, in other words, is the baseline psycho-emotional experience of awareness. As thinking recedes, awareness rises, anything rising is coming up from below. In this case, the rising is awareness from the support of the earth.

Students of energy must practice feeling this actual, embodied experience in order to lay the groundwork (there’s no better word) for the release of dormant, acute, or recurring emotions associated with thoughts and stories that have too long dominated their consciousness. Without grounding work, the release of emotions cannot work. Emotions will move in second chakra (i.e., emotional/movement) work, but if they do not know the way out of the body, they will then circulate, confused, and continue causing as much pain and dis-ease (if not more) as when they lived in their unreleased state.

-excerpted from Kim Weeks’s notes for the Hands-On Energy Seminar.

This Week’s Pose: Trikonasana

This week’s One Pose is Trikonasana. It’s the first asymmetrical pose in the series where the sides of the body do not mirror each other. Yet there is something very natural about the star-like shape the body takes in Triangle Pose. The action of coming into the pose has often reminded me of  Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawing of classical proportions, the Vitruvian Man. If you look closely at the Vitruvian Man you can see him standing with legs together as well as with legs apart, as if he is setting up for Trikonasana. 

Trikonasana by Emily Sloat Shaw

Relationships and Satya: Why We Lie to Our Spouses

Have you ever noticed that wedding vows don’t include a promise to always tell the truth? A recent article in the Wall Street Journal explains why—it turns out that even the best relationships are littered with white lies. In fact, the article suggests that lies about small things are healthy for relationships.

My instinct is to say “BS!” I hate catching my spouse in white lies and do my best to practice satya (truth). But, truth be told, I’m not one to back down from bending the truth in order to avoid a pointless, nonproductive argument. My white lies typically involve rounding down instead of rounding up when asked about the cost of a new purchase…and if the new purchase isn’t noticed, why bother to disclose it at all?

When I lie it’s because I determine that the issue is something small that need not cause suffering for my spouse (does that qualify as ahimsa?). Reading through the confessions in the WSJ article is entertaining and a bit comforting, but also unsettling. Where is the line between white lie and deal breaker, and are we all just playing with fire?

This Week’s Pose: Bhujangasana

Think of a snake. They are almost all spine. The snake’s long spine would appear to be fragile, but it is wrapped and stabilized by a lattice of muscle. This combination of makes them capable of  grace and power simultaneously.

The aptly named bhujangasana, or cobra pose, captures flexibility and strength of a snake. Bhujangasana takes the attitude of a cobra hooding up in a threat display. The spine extends, supported by a network of muscle, and the chest broadens and lengthens. The limbs are secondary in this pose.

Since we’re not snakes, bhujangasana can be a challenging and subtle pose. Learning to rely on the strength of the small muscles of the back is hard when you’re not used to it. Cobra pose can help build strength and flexibility for deeper backbends.

Join boundless this Sunday, October 25 for an exploration of bhujangasana.

Bhujangasana by Emily Sloat Shaw