PRACTICE ON
Now, more than ever before, your yoga practice is a complete support system for all your physical and mental needs. In all this uncertainty your home practice will give you back a sense of empowerment again. We are all feeling varying degrees of anxiety and fear. Yoga, the breath and a meditation practice will help you get through this unprecedented and challenging period. Cultivating a safe space at home and building a calm environment will not only benefit you, it will also benefit worried kids, family or whoever you may be sharing a space with. To help you get started with these mini flows visit my YouTube where you will find a series of tutorials to accompany these sequences.
THERE TO SUPPORT YOU
We are going through some tough emotional times. Learning to listen to what you need when you step on your mat, and having no expectations of your strength or flexibility, will help to stay calm and well. Be guided by how the practice sits with you, everyday you will feel differently. Some days you might be feeling quite anxious and haven't slept very well. Your practice for that day might be a restorative pose to help you dissolve all your worries away. Other days you might be feeling more energetic and ready to move. Try to get onto your mat each day, even if it is just for a few minutes to mobilise all your joints (ankles, knees, hips, spine & shoulders) to move and sit with more ease for the rest of your day. Home practice will help you to process all that is going on in the world and give you the strength to see this tough period through to the other side.
GETTING STARTED
There are three home sequences to get you started above. The warm ups and cool downs are the same throughout to keep it simple and let you concentrate your energies on the standing sequences. Before you start with the five rounds of cat/cow, lie on your back, place your hands on your belly and take five deep breaths. Then spend a few moments waking up all the joints. Hug your knees to your chest and roll around on your lower back. Keep the left knee hugging and stretch your right leg up and slowly circle the ankle, bend and straighten the leg a few times. Drop your left leg down, hold onto your right knee and circle the knee to warm up the hip joint. Repeat on the left side and you're ready to get started. I have focused on the most common poses in yoga to make sure you can follow the asana illustrations. If there is a pose that you’re not sure of you can find all 108 poses in my asana section. You can narrow down your search by clicking into the asana families in the bar on the right.
When you’re ready to move on you will find lots more in the sequences section. As you become more in tune with what your body needs, delve into the asana section and pick some poses that you’d like to explore. Start with poses that are familiar to you before you get more adventurous. Remember to always take Savasana at the end of your practice to assimilate the time you have invested in your wellness. But most of all, own your practice and enjoy it!
SUN SALUTATIONS
Traditionally practised in the morning as a salute to the rising sun, the Surynamaskaras or Sun Salutations are multifunctional and can be practised at any time of the day. They are the perfect way to start building a home practice. The three versions strengthen and stretch all the main muscle groups, build stamina and prepare you for more challenging poses. They also build heat and increase circulation throughout the whole body.
They include standing poses, forward bends, backbends and inversions. Each asana correlates to either an ‘inhale’ or an ‘exhale’. This makes it a good start to your practice to establish the link between breath and movement. The repetitive quality of the movements relaxes the mind and reduces stress and anxiety.
TRANSITIONS
Bringing your attention to transitions and moving consciously from pose to pose threads the practice together like a string of pearls and cultivates a meditative flow. Slow your practice down and savour the in between moments just as much as the poses themselves.
Sequences are often built of mini flows where you step from one pose straight to the next. You will see these in your four home practice sequences as a selection of 2-5 poses enclosed by two arrowed lines. You flow through these connected poses on the right side first (right foot forward) and then take those poses on the left side (left foot forward). Downward Dog or simply Tadasana are often used as the transitional pose between mini flows.
The breath is one of the most important elements of stress relief in yoga. As you move try not to get caught up too much on whether it should be an inhale or an exhale, just don’t forget to keep breathing!
If you have any questions or are struggling with knowing where to start please feel free to email me at ruth@yogaru.ie. In the face of adversity communities knitting together to help each other is what will see us through this.
Stay safe.
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Ruth Delahunty Yogaru