“Yoga is the perfect opportunity to be curious about who you are.” – Jason Crandell

Weekly Focus: Yoga (union)

Happy New Year! Any new beginning marks a time significant to checking in and resetting. As we settle in for another turn around the Sun, here at Myriad Yoga, we have decided to  get back to our roots, to study the foundation of our practice, and to better understand the foundations of ourselves. A natural place to begin any year, is to begin in a place of foundation. And so we begin the year reflecting on the entire basis of our practice – what is yoga?

Foundation // an underlying basis or principle

We look to our practice, to the act of self-inquiry, and rest as natural tools to find an inner alignment. This month we remind ourselves that Yoga is a practice which helps us to find ourselves and to build a place of comfort and connection with Self.

“If the foundation is firm the building can withstand calamities. The practice of yoga is the foundation so that the self is not shaken under any circumstances.” – B.K.S. Iyengar

To understand our practice of yoga, we first start by understanding the meaning behind our words. What is yoga? There are so many definitions, depending on where you turn or look, and the truth is, and in many ways, they are all correct.

From the sanskrit word “yuj,” meaning to join or yoke, yoga is about a coming together, a union. Union of body, mind, breath and spirit. A strong foundation is aligned, cohesive and united, supporting all that builds atop it.

And so, yoga boils down to this one concept….union. As is said in the Bhagavad Gita, “Yoga is a journey of the Self, through the Self, to the Self” – a union or alignment, and acceptance of who you are.

When we understand this concept, we can see the opportunity to view our practice from so many interesting perspectives. It opens up channels for us well beyond a physical practice. We can find union with our physical body by deepening our relationship with how we feel within movement. That is simply the first layer, revealing opportunities to get deeper, more subtle, and richer with the aligning experience! This may open pathways to find that relationship unfolding to the internal feelings of the physical body, and then the relationship with our breath, enhancing our ability to observe and listen to our bodies.

The more we listen, the more we notice the impact of life on the physical body, and then the emotional and mental body, and eventually the spiritual body. The practice invites us to move in as deeply as we are able and willing to.

How has yoga opened more opportunities for union and alignment in your life? What does union, cohesion and alignment  mean to you?

Passive Pose of the Week: Savasana (corpse pose)

A natural foundational pose for yoga. A place where we often begin, reset, and end. Tadasana provides a place to check-in, re-align, readjust, and balance rest on the mat — a natural metaphor to the practice.

• Come to stand.
• Takea moment to march your feet a few times, and then allow them to land where you feel most comfortable, stable and strong. For many of us, this may be around hips-width distance apart, with slightly wider or narrower being OK.
• Let your arms rest by your sides. Turn the hands in a position that feels open and soft. 
• Imagine the crown of the head rising up and out of the spine. 
• If you like, close the eyes. Stay and breathe for 5 – 7 breaths. 

This pose is seemingly simple, but it can have amazing impacts when we need a moment of pause to just breathe. To provide yourself a sense of anchoring here, try this breathing practice: with each inhale, breathe down into the soles of your feet. Imagine the breath running down the legs, through the feet and into the earth. With each exhale, breath up into the crown of your head. Imagine the breath running back up the spine and pushing out the crown of the head. This visualization mimics the movement of the diaphragm as we breathe. How does this make you feel?