Wednesday, January 13, 2010

OM energy

Today we talked about yoga sequences. A yoga routine usually starts with an OM to vibrate the area around the heart and loosen things up. We talked about counting in our heads the same number during inhalation and then again during exhalation. One student dramatically demonstrated a proper OM for us including finger mudras that set the class giggling, but her face looked so happy I had to take a photo.
We then talked about the importance of the breath and did some balloon breathing. They asked to focus on balance today so we talked about balance, did some superhero poses and had to wrap up early for the storyteller that was coming.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Wheel breakthroughs


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Today was our shortest class, I had 20 minutes with them due to a storyteller coming to entertain them... We opened up the chest area (where we hold a lot of tension) with a long "om" session, then some forward bends, cobra, side twists and then we spent the majority of time working on wheels/bridges with some major breakthroughs. There was fresh powder snow outside and their energy was high which seemed to translate into higher bridges. One student loves to do the spider pose instead of the wheel.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

The New Year starts with compassion


Our first class of the new year was a little rocky as people were excited about being back and were a little unfocused. We opened up our energy channels with balloon breathing, axial pretzel twists, forward and upward bends, hand and headstands. Handstands are the most requested pose.

During svasana I walked them through a small visualization, asking them to send positive thoughts to someone they knew was feeling sad. I asked them to imagine that persons face without the sadness. We'd had a restless start to svasana with people wanting to hold hands with other people on their mats and some rolling themselves up in the mats saying they were tacos and hot dogs. (This thanks to the "pretzel" pose earlier) When I added the "compassion" visualization, they quieted down and maintained the longest silence we'd ever had. I finally broke the silence and we rolled up our mats.