Lift your mood and feel stronger with this marvellous pose, Virabhadrasana 2, aka Warrior 2.
With a few different arm movements to allow the shoulders to feel easier and lighter.
I hope you enjoy this mini focused practice.
Lucy
Dog head down easy flow, will allow you to feel like like you have had a little yoga work out.
I knew time and tide were against me and the floor sloped away from my hands, so this 25 minute session was the answer.
Enjoy your yoga practice,
Lucy
Iyengar yoga is known for the use of “props” and these props are used to improve a yoga practice in so many ways.
Just recently I have found myself admiring tables, chairs, railings and so on, not for their beauty but as a potential yoga prop.
Some objects are just the perfect height, width and strength to do the job.
With a little bit of imagination, a baked bean can becomes a yoga brick, a pile of old magazines (taped together) a foam pad and some railings by the sea…….
The wind was icy cold but the sun was shining.
Here are a few standing poses that sprung to mind whilst hanging around the railings at Hayle river mouth.
Please make sure any objects you do use are strong and suitable. My rule of thumb; if you are not sure, don’t use it.
Listen to your body, don’t overstretch yourself.
Enjoy! x
I just found this little re-visit to last summer.
A quick practice to give you a bit of ooomph for a wintery duvet day.
Enjoy!
If I could only explain the joy a few good standing poses brings to my body, the captured image would be it.
With a strong and well balanced action in the legs we have support for our spine and the rest of the yoga practice.
Standing poses are key within the Iyengar yoga system and yet soooo easily forgotten when we become obsessed with more complicated asana.
The late summer sun, the sound of the sea and the standing poses brought a great sense of grounding with upliftment, the play of opposites!
As always listen to your body and work to your own capacity.
Love and light,
Lucy
Learning to move with a relaxed abdomen can allow our bodies to access deeper release.
It is so important to undo the undercurrents of tension that lie below our asana practice.
These elusive patterns hide away un-noticed as we can sometimes try harder and harder to get the posture “correct”.
Let go a little, feel the holding patterns that may no longer serve you, then maybe you can allow your self to rest well within.
I hope this practice helps a little.
Listen deeply, stay peaceful, enjoy.
Trees are the lungs of the earth. Trees help our planet breathe. Vrksasana (tree pose) enables our chest and lungs to open more, enabling us to find a deeper fuller breath too.
Forests around the world are also our planet’s air conditioning system and help keep the planet cool. In Vrksasana try to breathe through the nose to filter and prepare the air before it enters the lungs. Breathe out through the nose to gently cleanse the nasal passage of any dust or debris.
Practice makes better.
Root your feet into the ground, prepare your base, trunk and mind for a short practice that will help you breathe more easily.
Work to your own capacity and capability.
Breathe and enjoy,
Love and light,
Lucy
At the end of this morning’s session, Sam said “that was lovely! Just lying there at the end of the session with the sun on my face and the sound of the sea. So relaxing”. Sam then went off with a few others, for a quick swim in the sea.
Savasana is such a special pose. It is the one that give us so much when we give it the time it requires.
Learning to relax is not “being lazy”, it is learning to let go of tensions that no longer serve us, things that we can do nothing about and acceptance of where we are in every moment.
Give yourself some time to breathe, release and let go.
This pose is always time well spent. Take a look in BKS Iyengar’s “Path to holistic health” to see how to set yourself up for a comfortable savasana. Alternatively take yourself off to bed..
Enjoy.
Love and light,
Lucy
Right… at the beginning I say this will be a 10 minute practice… my timing this time was not so good, it is more like 15.
The legs hold us up, keep us grounded, mobilize us and motivate us. They need to be a stable and flexible.
Let’s give a great big cheer for our legs and celebrate the amazing work they do every day.
Here’s a practice to help you get to know them a little better.
Simply working towards some inversions, I do give other options if you don’t fancy or cannot go upside down.
I find going upside down really quietening for my busy brain. Always a good thing for me to do when my mental chatter becomes all encompassing (plus I love the feeling too 🙂
If you have never been upside down, get a teacher to guide you up the first few times, with extra eyes on the puzzle you will get to know the correct actions required.
As always, regard your body and the feed back from your body with utmost reverence.
Practice to your own capacity.
Enjoy,
Lucy