Yoga Glo Mat Moments

Claudine and Honza Lafond. Picture from Google.

"Begin to come into a place of curiosity about sensation. It is easy to start to shift into a place of fight or flight when we start to experience things that are uncomfortable or unfamiliar. There is a lot of potency just sitting with sensation and not labelling it as good or bad. Just breathing into it." -  Claudine Lafond

When I go riding or to a yoga lesson I always have the urge to learn more and write everything down. Writing has always been a big part of me and I just love the moments when I hear something that I start thinking about and go through in my mind later.

Most of my mornings start in the company of my Amazing Daughter and some of the best yoga instructors in the world: Claudine Lafonde, Kathryn Buding and Felicia Tomasko just to mention a few. I am amazed of their professionalism and knowledge of the mental and spiritual world. I truly enjoy each and every online lesson and I can't help but share some of their great advice with you.

Here are some of the recent pearls that I have discovered.

"Backbends go very deep into your central nervous system". - Kathryn Buding

This morning I had a fantastic yin lesson with Felicia Tomasko.

 "A yawn is the way that the nervous system starts to down regulate itself, starts to calm down a little bit.

In sphinx pose:
Draw the tailbone toward the heels. Lift the space between the navel and the pubic bone. Make sure that in this version of the sphinx you don't just crunch the low back but that there is a sense of support and lift when you draw the heart forward and soften the chin. Engage the abdominal muscles. Especially the band between the navel and the pubic bone to support the low back. The more we draw the shoulders away from the ears, the more we can counteract the slouchiness that is part of our reaction to the bodies stress response.

Child's pose (Balasana):
Allowing us in this gesture with the palms of the hands facing up, to receive. Using the principles of auyrveda. To nourish ourselves. To calm the airy, erratic vata dosha. Through slowing the breath. Through directly addressing the sympathetic nerovous system, the bodies stress response, fight or flight reaction.

Use your abdominal muscles to support the back. Be careful that you are not too rench in the low back. Using the principles of Auryveda we are looking at how we support ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. How we structurally create support in our body that allows us to feel supported in other areas of our life.

One aspect of the stress response is not feeling supported. One way we can reverse that is to support and nourish ourselves. And even simple adjustments to a pose can help define and refine this experience.

The nerve plexus for the sympathetic nervous system are around the thoracic spine and the center of the chest. When we are under stress we collapse here and our breath becomes short and shallow. And by addressing this very area of the body, helping us to feel supported and nourished we can reverse or change that experience. We can use our practice: the principles of aurveda, the practice of yoga, to shift ourselves energetically, physically, mentally and emotionally."

Also read The Guardian's article about yin yoga.
And the rest of my blog's yoga articles you can find here.