Balance Flashcards
Seated twist
Ardha Matsyendrasana
Vrksasana
Tree pose
Namaste
Bow your head and thank yourselves and one another for sharing this time and space. The light and love in me bows to the light and love in you!
Forward fold
Uttanasana
Revolved crescent lunge
When we talk about alignment in yoga we talk about how our body shifts into a pose and stays in a pose to experience the fullness of the pose. In our daily life, we also need to find alignment for our body, for our self in our daily life.
Today
- Today, our practice is going to focus on finding balance through the planes of your body, through your muscles.
- Using this movement to calm and balance the mind.
- Helping you to choose what you need more of from the opposing energies and forces so you feel better aligned.
Ask yourself?
- What do you need more of today?
* What would make you feel refreshed, energised?
Child’s pose
- Let’s start by using our exhalation and inhalation to find the balance you need now - maybe you want more energy or a greater sense of steadiness.
- Exhalations and inhalations are connected to an inner system of energy that you can use to awaken and balance your body and mind.
- 5 slow inhalations and exhalations (moving energy around your body with each breath) - you might like to visualise a golden light as I guide your breath
- Balancing - focusing on the energy you need to bring in and only disposing of the energy you no longer need
- Inhalation – I love the idea of my energy, my breath rising within and spreading like the opening of a lotus flower across my back
- Exhalation – releasing the breath imagine it taking energy that you no longer need out through your toes, your shins
W2
Life is not static. It is a beautiful moving dance.
We’re being pulled and pushed in so many different directions.
Need to find a dance that works for you. One that allows you to focus internally and be part of your family, community
Triangle
- This is one of those poses that may appear simple but it is a perfect example of how we can be pulled by opposing forces. Grounding v aspiration. Stability v expansion.
- Experiencing the stability of the legs, the openness and freedom of the upper body. And trying to balance what you need - more stability and protection for your back or maybe more expansion and freedom, lifting your eyes, extending further through your arm
Activity and stillness
We want to find harmony between activity and stillness.
• Balance between the business of today and the stillness of this pose
• You may be like me, Leo, Vata/Pitta, which means I’m all about activity until I collapse with tiredness.
• Instead we want to try to find your harmony between activity and stillness
Tree side 1
• R = starting with your focus on your standing foot, imagine small roots growing into the earth. Drawing energy from mother earth. Imagine the sunshine on the top half of your body, helping you to grow strong. Balancing between the grounding sensation and the energising growth upwards.
Tree side 2
• L = to balance here, you need to engage the right and left sides of the brain. Often we see them as two separate components - the feminine and masculine. But maybe we can focus on harmonising the two sides. Use these two different lenses, these two different ways of engaging with your world. drawing on them both to enjoy a more balanced, harmonised life
Pigeon and twists
• We have been working with opposing energies today – prana and apana
• The inhale is moving your prana, energy, inward and upward, bringing a lift, opening and expansion.
• Your exhale, apana, is outward and is grounding. The apana vayu puts down roots through the foundation of the body, such as through the sitting bones, in this pose your skull.
Bringing these two energies into balance to boost healthy functioning and to bring mind to stillness
