Love Your Asana

Visiting the Core Region of the body, the idea of relieving emotional and physical constipation and restriction surfaces when strengthening the core. We aim to release deep guttural anxiety. Yoga is about creating space, and learning to radiate outward while drawing awareness into the core of the body. The idea is that while the core is strengthened, opened and refined, it becomes a source of balance, stability, ease and levity. 

  Twists in Yoga stimulate and tonify our internal organs (specifically our kidneys and liver) while also creating freedom in the spine and opening the chest, shoulders, neck, and hips. Regular twisting also helps restore the spine’s natural range of motion, maintaining the normal length and health of the vertebral disks and facet joints. Additionally, with regularly incorporating twists into our daily routine, the more easily we find we can unwind the body’s accumulated physical and emotional tensions from everyday life. 

Savasana is the practice of death. 

Not in the morbid sense we so often fear, but in the sacred, transformative sense that invites us to let go—of everything. 

Death of the ego, death of craving and grasping and obsessing toward anything outside ourselves.  

Anything we believe that might finally fulfill us.  

Savasana marks the death of who we were when we first walked into our yoga class. In the space, we have the opportunity to transform. 

What we’re re-born into before we awaken and head back out into the world, is entirely up to us.

In yogic philosophy, the final resting pose mirrors the final liberation—maha samadhi—where we dissolve into oneness beyond self and ones story. 

It’s helpful to remember that our yoga practice is not about getting things. Not the perfect body, nor the clearest mind.  Every quality of an enlightened being is already within us and through yoga, we drop the veils and cease the churning of the mind that prevents us from recognizing this. 

Yoga is a letting go.

In every Savasana, we rehearse this release, practicing how to be fully present at the threshold between holding on and letting go. 

Savasana is not optional. It’s not a reward for a vigorous practice. It is the practice of Death. 

There are various types of yoga that are methods to help people live spiritually, to live in union with the Divine. Yoga means to “yoke” or join in oneness and the pathway to uniting with the divine is different depending on the individual's cast and personality type. The goal of Yoga is to be in equal balance across all areas of being. It is a way for people to perfect their union with the divine; it suggests different roads to perfection that are also called margas (paths).

- Bhakti Yoga (Devotion Yoga) is an expression of love and devotion. It is the spiritual discipline of devotion to a deity or guru. This type of yoga encourages us to look outward, beyond ourselves. Some expressions of devotion include chants, songs, food offerings, and worship of a god or gods. The use of hymns, rhythm, and repetition helps produce a state of altered consciousness bringing a sense of selflessness and union with the divine. 

- Jnana Yoga (Knowledge Yoga) is appropriate for priests and intellectuals. It is the spiritual discipline of knowledge and insight. It brings insight into one’s divine nature by studying the works of literature, the Upanishad, and the Bhagavad Gita. It is a path of learning from gurus. Here it is argued that everything is ultimately one Brahman. According to the greatest teacher, Vedanta Shankara, it is said that even though a person may perceive things to be separate and different from Brahman, they are mistaken. We are all one. Like the ocean and drops of water riding the waves of life. The drops are part of the same ocean all together as one. This is the yoga of devotion and of the heart, seeing the Divine in everyone and everything, cultivation of supreme love and acceptance.

- Karma Yoga (Action Yoga) is working unselfishly leading the way to perfection. It is the action of performing deeds without desire for rewards. It is the spiritual discipline of selfless action. As discussed in the Bhagavad Gita, “Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in working”. Keep in mind, that while Karma refers to the universal law of cause and effect that determines the direction of rebirth, Karma Yoga is the spiritual practice that emphasizes selfless action to attain spiritual liberation.

- Hatha Yoga (Force Yoga) is the physical exercise we tend to think of in the West when we think of practicing Yoga. This yoga path includes asanas, postures, breathwork techniques, deep relaxation, stretching, balancing, and cleansing practices. These exercises help make it easier and more obtainable to meditate easier for long periods of time. This is the spiritual discipline of postures and bodily exercises.