“Don’t get so busy making a living, that you forget to make a life.”
– Dolly Parton
Weekly Focus: Sutra 2:46 stira sukham asanam (balance of effort and ease)
Literally translated as postures should be steady and comfortable, Sutra 2:46 is the reminder that our yoga practice should be a balance of effort and of ease. This practice can also be applied daily off the mat as we head to work, to play and everything in between.
If you have been following along at the studio or in the blog you’ve notived that we have really hammered it home this month that Yoga is all about balance. What is so beautiful about yoga, is that it recognizes there is no perfect recipe that works for every individual. Now understandably, for some of us, that can be frustrating. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a little recipe written on an index card and handed to you for how you should live a balanced life? Yes, and also, it wouldn’t be very customized! It requires deep work to find the recipe for balance that works for you, and it may shift throughout your life.
While we may not have a perfect recipe, Yoga does provide the tools and ingredients which help us recognize and come to a stae of individual balance. When all else fails, we are always reminded to pause and check back in with the Self. If you hear the inner calling that something doesn’t feel quite right within you, there is probably a need for shift. Those signals can manifest in a number of ways: the feeling of burnout, indigestion, excessive tiredness, irritability, impatience, depression, stress, anxiety – these are all signals that our body might be trying to call out and ask for help or change.
Are we willing to listen to these signs and make the changes necessary to find balance?
Here is a simple practice in seeking balance in your life:
- Log your activies for one week — for just one week, at the end of each day, take a few minutes to write down all of your activities for the day. What was scheduled, what was not scheduled, simply list out what you did.
- Reflect on each day — after listing your activities, write a few sentences, or perhaps even choose one word to describe how you felt throughout the day. This could be something like “easy going,” “stressed out,” “content,” etc.
- Look for patterns — at the end of your week. Look for any patterns. Were there certain activities or schedules that made you feel off balance from your normal center? How could you have adjusted those days to feel more centered?
Passive Pose of the Week: Kurmasana (Tortoise Pose)

Kurmasana is a very inner focused posture. This pose can be as deep or as subtle as you desire, seek the space of balance where you are able to breathe and rest.
- Begin sitting on the floor with the legs straight out in front of you.
- Slide the feet together so that the soles of the feet touch.
- Allow the knees to open up like a book or butterfly. Let the feet stay further away from you, creating more of a long diamond shape with the legs.
- Your hands can continue to grab hold of the feet or ankles as you fold forward between the legs. If the ground feels far away, prop yourself up with a bolster, pillow or block to make the fold more comfortable.
- Use about [3] breaths to gradually enter the pose. Wants you come to your most comfortable posture, take about [7] breaths before gently lifting out of the fold.
Tortoise pose is an elongated version of our cobbler’s pose position. In cobbler’s pose, we pull the heels of the feet closer to the groin, accessing a deep inner groin stretch. Tortoise pose has a different aim. For this posture, keep the feet further from the body gives more access to folding forward and stretching the outer hips and providing relief in the low back.
Active Pose of the Week: Chandra Namaskar E (Moon Salutation E)

Chandra Namaskars are very gentle and cooling sequences meant to connect to our lunar or softer, more nourishing and nurturing qualities. These sequences can help bring balance on a hot sweaty day when practiced with care and gentleness.
- Begin in a kneeling sear and move through the following poses in order:
- Inhale and reach your arms up overhead, exhale and fold forward into a child’s pose.
- Inhale and slide forward onto your belly in a pranam position, with the hips lifted. Exhale on your belly, then inhale and press up into a cobra pose, lifting the chest from the floor to any comfortable height.
- Exhale, lower yourself to the ground, and inhale press up and back to a downward facing dog.
- Inhale and lift your right leg into the air behind you, as you exhale step your right foot to the top of the mat in low lunge position, keeping the back knee lifted.
- Inhale to twist open, reaching the right arm up to the ceiling, turning your chest to the right, and keeping your left hand connected to the floor for a low lunge twist. Exhale, lower the right hand down, step back to downward facing dog.
- From downward facing dog, move through your connecting sequence again into pranam, cobra and then back to down dog. Step forward with the left leg and take the twisted lunge on the second side.
- After the second time, take the connecting sequence once more (pranam to cobra).
- From cobra, exhale back to a child’s pose. Inhale sit up in a kneeling seat and stretch your arms overhead. Exhale and lower the arms to your lap.
- Close the eyes, breathe softly and take rest. You might flow through this sequence once or twice more, moving slowly and with ease.
Unlike our Sun Salutations, Moon Salutation should calm the body and the mind. Move more slowly through these positions than you might in a Sun Salutation, and try to make your transitions feel effortless. Imagine your body moving fluidly like water, and take steady, smooth breaths. You might even linger longer in one position if it feels good, and close the eyes, soaking in the sweetness. Remember, this flow is here to help us balance the heat of summer, rather than give in to it.
Join us in class this week to practice balance of effort an ease. See the full schedule HERE.
To get weekly updates from our parent brand, Myriad Fitness + Yoga, follow our weekly podcast “For Time.”