🌹💙The night comes the sun sets +01

🌹💙The night comes the sun sets,The light goes out and the desire for pleasure lights up,Words that are left over with a silent mouth,Turning freedom into debauchery in our room,Shyness hidden in a fixed look,The voice is broken chin bent as a duplicate of forgiveness,Enjoying the delight of that arrogant and curious tongue,In the way of him making a surrendered body extreme,That raises temperature in his erection,Defying gravity like a volcano about to erupt,Creating tremors… hesitation … and sweat,Control is lost exploding in a cry of satisfactionOverflowing like hot lava on that mouth that is not afraid to burn in order to quench his thirst… 💙💖💗💕💓💘💞💝

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🌹💙One day I was told that eternity…+01

🌹💙One day I was told that eternity…

it wasn’t just forever…

it has always been… 💙💖💗💕💓💘💞💝

• 

Good morning, my love, take more care & smile… 🌿💙🍀🌻🌼🌺🌷🥀 +07

Good morning, my love, take more care & smile… 🌿💙🍀🌻🌼🌺🌷🥀
Hopefully you have a healthy safety & lovely Friday(10/22)!… 🌹💙💖💗💕💓💘💞💝
Happy enjoy… ☕💙🥐🧀🍎🍌🥝🍒

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🌹💚Best friends do not judge +01

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🌹💚Best friends do not judge your madness are part of it… 💚💖💗💕💓💘💞💝

🌹💚I am not happy +01

🌹💚I am not happy, 
I am happy.
And there is a difference.
A happy woman has no 
worries at all.
A cheerful woman has worries, 
but she has learned how to 
handle them… 💚💖💗💕💓💘💞💝

🌹💚If you love me, love me softly…+01

🌹💚If you love me, love me softly…If you want me…must be gently,My love,that life is short,and the shortest love yet… 💚💖💗💕💓💘💞💝

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🌹💚I’ve already wasted too much +01

🌹💚I’ve already wasted too much time in my life with people who didn’t even deserve to see me from behind.Now … I’m sorry … this is my time!I’ll take it back!I have nothing more to waste!… 💚💖💗💕💓💘💞💝

🌹💚There is only one way to free +01

🌹💚There is only one way to free a person from certain wounds, when they are deep they don’t heal that easily. You could tear them away by force, for example by hating them. On the other hand, I advise you to embrace them, do it delicately, without any impetus, with the same sweetness of a butterfly laying her tired body on a flower. A wounded woman deserves to be understood, time will surely heal your wounds, but to do this you must have a person by your side who will be able to make you forget the past, one who with a lot of patience knows how to sit next to your pain and in silence listen to the deep cry of your soul. Only he will be able to give you back the warmth that will return to warm your heart… 💚💖💗💕💓💘💞💝

🌹💚I love lonely places +01

🌹💚I love lonely places, where silence welcomes the whispers of the world,where I can be with myself and hear the voice of a dream… 💚💖💗💕💓💘💞💝

3 Ways to Modify Padmasana (Lotus Pose)

https://www.yogajournal.com/poses/3-ways-to-modify-padmasana

Try these tips for adjusting Padmasana (Lotus Pose) to find safe alignment for comfortable hips and knees.

TY LANDRUM

JUN 6, 2018

PREVIOUS STEP IN YOGAPEDIA Master Locust Pose in 5 Steps
NEXT STEP IN YOGAPEDIA 3 Ways to Prep for Mayurasana
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If your hip flexors are tight (your knees keep lifting and your pubic bone keeps dropping)

Try elevating your sitting bones with a folded blanket (or bolster or cushion) so that the bottom of your hip is slightly higher than your knee and your femur bones are sloping downward ever so slightly. This will help open up the flow of sensation through your psoas (a major hip flexor) as you breathe. Sitting on a blanket is also recommended if you plan to stay in the posture for a while.

See also Poses for Your Hip Flexors

Rick Cummings

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See also 3 Ways to Modify Paschimottanasana

Find Your Balance in Padmasana (Lotus Pose)

One of the central practices of hatha yoga is to balance prana (upward energy) and apana (downward energy) through the expansive and contractive forces of the breath. When these forces are in balance, so is expansion and contraction in the mind. This balance is crucial to yoga practice. It is the psychological foundation of dharana (concentration), which is a complete and unbroken attention to whatever immediately arises in the field of sensory experience. We can cultivate this foundation through asana practice by balancing the expansive and contractive patterns within each form—and by threading these patterns together with continuous movements of breath.

About Our Pro
Teacher and model Ty Landrum is director of the Yoga Workshop in Boulder, Colorado. He teaches Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga in the contemplative style of his mentors, Mary Taylor and Richard Freeman. With a PhD in philosophy, Ty has a special touch for explaining the theory of yoga with color and creativity. As a teacher, he’s passionate about sharing the brilliance of yoga with anyone willing to learn (for more information, go to tylandrum.com).

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TY LANDRUM

 

5 Ways You Can Use Your Yoga Practice to Improve Your Body Image

 

All of us struggle to some degree with body image issues. Here are 5 ways yoga can help you feel more confident about the skin you’re in.

JENNIFER KREATSOULAS

JUN 19, 2018

Out of the blue, my 6-year-old daughter recently asked me what I like most about my body. Knowing my answer held tremendous power to influence her relationship with her own body in the future, I purposefully paused before answering.

“My arms,” I told her, “because they allow me to hug and hold you and your little sister.”

I admired her playful spirit and innocence on the topic of appreciating one’s body—a refreshingly stark contrast to the seemingly steady stream of social messages that reinforce all the ways our bodies are not good enough. What a gift to witness my child’s curiosity, and how empowering for me to share a body-affirming sentiment after many years of hard work healing an eating disorder and poor body image. Yoga was the key to transforming my relationship with my body. The poses, connection to breath, and ancient philosophies have fostered personal empowerment and lasting body-affirming experiences.

See also The Truth About Yoga and Eating Disorders

How Yoga Can Help You Improve Your Body Image

Sadly, the torment I once felt about my body is all too common. According to the 2017 Dove Global Girls Beauty and Confidence Report, which interviewed 5,165 girls aged 10 to 17 across 14 countries, low body esteem is associated with isolation from social activities and pressure to strive to meet beauty and appearance ideals. This is just one study out of many now being conducted on the effects of negative body image on physical, mental, and emotional health in both boys and girls, men and women.

Based on what I see and hear daily in the yoga classes I teach and as a yoga therapist specializing in eating disorders and body image, all of us struggle to some degree with feeling at ease in our skin. The perceptions of our external appearance often get tangled up with unrealistic social expectations and ideals, causing a range of “heavy” feelings, such as discontent, embarrassment, insecurity, worry, shame, and an obsession with controlling weight, food, and exercise. Over time, as these feelings pick up steam, unhealthy beliefs about self-worth can take root.

Yoga, with its tenets of peace, self-compassion, and acceptance, is a path to softening and even transforming such harsh beliefs. Through the path of yoga, we practice harmony within and strengthen our relationship with our body.

So how can we call on our yoga practice to help us feel more confident in and about our bodies? Based on my own experience and work with my students and clients, here are 5 specific ways yoga can help improve your body image:

1. Yoga creates an appreciative relationship with your body through movement.

Unlike other forms of activity, yoga does not ask us to perform, win, strive, or prove ourselves. Rather, the poses are personal experiences to cultivate harmony. Each time we meet the challenge of new poses, persevere through discomfort, or respect muscular and emotional sensations, we express appreciation toward our bodies. We also show ourselves we have it in us to be with our bodies.

As you inhabit different shapes and forms in your practice, pay close attention to all the ways your body surprises you—meaning how it helps you balance, twist, sideband, backbend, and forward fold. Notice the parts of your body that make these magnificent movements happen and offer appreciation to these parts of yourself. By purposefully taking a few minutes on your mat to practice appreciation, you can build new awareness of the power of your body—and as a result, watch your body image improve.

See also Healing Relationships Through Compassion and Connection

READ MORE 

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About Our Writer

Jennifer Kreatsoulas, PhD, C-IAYT, E-RYT-500, is a yoga therapist specializing in eating disorders and body image. She is coauthor of the forthcoming book, Body Mindful Yoga: Create a Powerful and Affirming Relationship With Your Body (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2018). In addition to her private yoga therapy practice, Jennifer leads yoga therapy groups at the Monte Nido Eating Disorder Center of Philadelphia and yoga workshops and retreats on eating disorder recovery and body image. Jennifer also trains yoga professionals how to nurture positive body image in students and private clients at the YogaLife Institute. She is the cofounder of 11 Elements: A Body Compassion Project, and a partner with the Yoga and Body Image Coalition. Jennifer writes and speaks about her personal and professional experiences on the topics of yoga, body image, motherhood, and eating disorder recovery. Connect with Jennifer: www.ChimeYogaTherapy.com.

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JENNIFER KREATSOULAS

 

3 Ayurvedic Recipes to Boost Energy and Brain Power

https://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/healthy-recipes-to-beat-sluggishness

Feeling sluggish? Boost your energy and your brain power with these 3 Ayurvedic recipes.

KATE O’DONNELL

JUN 13, 2018

Tamas is the energy that likes to sit still and do nothing. It’s the dense, heavy qualities of your mind. We all need just the right amount of rest and relaxation to feel calm and vital, but too little activity can lead to sluggishness. If you’re feeling lackluster, sad, cloudy, or stuck, turn to these recipes to restart your fire and boost brain power.

Spicy turmeric lemonade

Tastes: sweet, pungent, bitter, sour

Serves 4

The last thing you want to do when you feel lethargic is drink alcohol. Alcohol, except the occasional few ounces of medicinal wine or spirit, dulls the mind by overwhelming the body with simple sugars. On a warm day, sit with a friend, relax, and have a glass of this bright, spicy lemonade. Allow time for cooling the spicy syrup, and go easy on the ice.

Ingredients
1 2-inch piece fresh ginger, crushed
½ tsp ground turmeric
¼ cup raw honey
½ cup fresh lemon juice (about 4 lemons)

Instructions
To make the syrup, boil ginger and turmeric with 1 cup water, covered, in a small saucepan, 10 minutes. (Boil longer if you want it stronger.) Take off the heat, and cool for 3–5 minutes. Stir in honey until dissolved. Refrigerate until cold.

Combine the ginger-turmeric syrup, fresh lemon juice, and 2 cups of water. Divide among four glasses, each with a few cubes of ice.

Nutritional Info 74 calories per serving, 0 g fat (0 g saturated), 20 g carbs,
0 g fiber, 0 g protein, 2 mg sodium

See also How a Sattvic (Pure) Diet Brings You Into Balance + 2 Ayurvedic Recipes

Cara Brostrom

READ MORE 

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See also Quiz: What’s Your Dosha?

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KATE O’DONNELL

 

What You Didn’t Learn in YTT: How to Sequence With Purpose & Power

https://www.yogajournal.com/teach/what-you-didnt-learn-in-ytt-how-to-sequence-with-purpose-power

Did you finish yoga teacher training with more questions than you started with? That’s why we’ve recruited seasoned teacher trainer Gina Caputo to speak frankly to some of the most common post-TT questions submitted by YOU. In each of the four posts in this series, she’ll address a new subject and offer both insight and practical tips on how to work skillfully with the challenges you face as a yoga teacher.

GINA CAPUTO

JUL 7, 2017

In yoga teacher trainings, the question I most frequently ask of our students is WHY? And this question is very often in the context of class sequencing.

Because many of you probably teach vinyasa yoga of one form or another, it’s helpful to really dissect the meaning of the word to give focus and purpose to your class sequencing. Vinyasa breaks down into two parts in Sanskrit—vi meaning “in a special way” and nyasa meaning “to place.” Which begs the question, what does “special” really mean here?

A vinyasa is a progressive and evolutionary sequence that unfolds with purpose, intelligence, and harmony, much like the rest of Nature. So, the “special” here refers to your intention behind the sequence you create, the logic of each of your choices and the inherent feeling of Natural balance that results from the experience.

The Essence of Intentional Sequencing: What’s the Purpose?

Before it exploded in popularity, many practitioners in the West began their journey into yoga asana with the more orthodox and structured systems of Pattabhi Jois’s Ashtanga and BKS Iyengar’s school of yoga. It was the emergence of vinyasa flow from these traditions, though, that really catalyzed yoga’s massive popularity. Vinyasa provided an opportunity for more diversity in the practice compared with traditional systems and for teachers to express more creativity in their class creation. But as this style exploded onto the scene, some of the nuance of its original meaning may have been lost. Many “vinyasa” classes became more of a free-for-all with little rhyme or reason to the sequence of postures. Perhaps this was an overcorrection from the set sequences of Ashtanga or the static nature of Iyengar? Regardless, you have the opportunity to dial it back and create skillful sequences with purpose and power. Here’s how step by step.

See also What You Didn’t Learn in YTT: How to Actually Teach People

4 Steps to Plan an Intentional Yoga Sequence

Step 1: Determine the purpose of your sequence.

To return to the essence of vinyasa, prioritize intention and purpose in your sequencing. Before we lay down a single asana, we want to be clear about the intention of the journey so that all of our choices can support that intention. Try beginning with an inspiration that may have roots in one or more of the following four areas:

1. Anatomical or biomechanical
For example, you might plan a class around:

• The five movements of the spine
• Stretching hip flexors
• Shoulder mobility

2. Energetic or feeling state
For example, you might plan a class to have one of the following effects on your students:

• grounding
• enlivening
• centering
• activating

3. Enhancing or balancing the energy of a macrocosmic event
For example, you might plan a class with the purpose of balancing:

• weather
• world events
• holidays or celebrations

4. Supporting a specific demographic or the needs of a community
For example, you might plan a class to support:

• high-stress populations like first responders
• athletes, or recreationally active populations
• seniors
• bigger-bodied practitioners
• pre- or post-natal mothers
• trauma survivors, practitioners with PTSD, or at-risk populations
• children
• medical conditions

Step 2: Consider the nature of each pose.

A pose is not a pose is not a pose. Once you’ve determined the purpose of your sequence, you can begin to make skillful pose choices to support your intention. While all poses may have value, when it comes to their effects, they are not all created equally. Some postures are inherently more focused, require great physical effort, and have an enlivening and activating effect, like Warrior III. Others are more relaxing, require less muscular effort, offer an opportunity to soften your focus, and have a grounding, centering effect, like Reclined Butterfly. When you are able to see all asanas on the spectrum of their energetic effect, you can make more skillful choices in your class sequences to support your intention for the class.

See also 8 Keys to Take Your Yoga Teaching Beyond Standardized Alignment Cues

Step 3: Explore the relationships between poses.

Once you develop the skills to understand the nature of each individual asana, look at how asanas are related to each other in sequence. For example, ask yourself:

• Do these poses share the same base or foot pattern?
• What are the key physical actions of these poses? Where do they overlap?
• What are the key energetic actions of these poses? Where do they overlap?
• Does this sequence of postures unfold harmoniously and smoothly?
• How does each pose affect the posture that came before it AND the one that follows it?
• Am I being creative for creativity’s sake or can I back up every posture in this sequence with logic and purpose?

Step 4: Take a step back and balance your sequence.

Once you are clear on your intention and have crafted a sequence that supports it, your next look at your class should be through the lens of balance. Keep in mind that ha–tha refers to a union of polarities. In other words, balance. For example, if you desire is to activate your students, can you find the right balance of strong postures to ignite that in them but then also know when to give pause so that they can find sustainable effort? One perspective that may help is to see your class sequences as pranic (energetic) recipes. Is there so much of one “flavor” that it gets overwhelming? Or, is there not enough of another to enhance and balance the primary “taste”?

A practical way to learn to do this is to begin with pose choices that clearly and fully support your intention for the class. Then take a second pass and look for obvious places to insert something that would be balancing to the energy of that sequence. Visualize a sequence of poses building one to the next and then when you reach a crescendo of that particular energy, insert something that balances it. I call these “digestif” moments. They aren’t always about taking rest, sometimes they are just a pause or a shift in the action to allow the students to digest the experience you’ve just co-created with them.

Embracing the definition of vinyasa in sequencing your classes may, in the short term, result in your classes taking twice, three times, or four times as long to create! But as you adjust to this way of crafting your classes, you will find yourself imbued with a feeling of confidence and clarity that comes from being so thoroughly in alignment with intention. And while your students may never know all the purpose behind your offerings on an intellectual level, they will certainly feel the holistic effect of your efforts!

See also The A-to-Z Guide to Yoga Cues

Teachers, want more wisdom from Gina Caputo? Join her free webinar, Simple Is The New Advanced: Vinyasa Sequencing For Mindfulness, on Tuesday, July 25 at 2 pm EDT. Sign up today!

About Our Expert
Gina Caputo is the Founder and Director of the Colorado School of Yoga. Learn more about her and where you can practice with her at ginacaputo.com.

BY

GINA CAPUTO

 

The Healing Power of Yoga After a Stroke

https://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/feet

Decades after a paralyzing stroke, yoga restores Gale-Ann Maier’s strength and stability.

GALE-ANN MAIER

JUN 2, 2013

Gale-Ann Maier began practicing yoga after a stroke and found restoration in her strength and stability.

I could never have guessed the wonderful impact yoga would have as I nervously entered my first Kripalu yoga class in September of 2011. As a middle age, overweight woman with limited left arm function as the result of a stroke 26 years prior, I was hoping to just complete the class. Who knew the next 90 minutes of the basic Kripalu class would be the beginning of an incredible, inspirational journey that continues to unfold each day.

From the first Mountain Pose when our teacher Nancy said, “Can you feel the prana?" until the final Savasana, it was as though energy had been awakened in me. I could feel the prana, and it was amazing.

My journey to this moment has been 35 years in the making, filled with some of the happiest and saddest moment of my life.

In 1978, at the age of 18, my life had played out how I’d always expected: happily married with my 8-month old son, Nathan, to love and cherish. My plans were interrupted suddenly when a cerebral hemorrhage in my right brain left me partially paralyzed in my left body. I was diagnosed with a large inoperable arteriovenous malformation (AVM) in my brain. It was akin to having a time bomb in my brain that could go off at any time, and I was given a life expectancy of 35 years. Fear and anxiety took over my life.

See alsoDoes Yoga Cause Stroke?

I was afraid to be alone with my son, worried I wouldn’t be able to respond to his needs in time. I got easily exhausted and had to rely on my husband and family members to make it through each day. Doctors told me that having more children was not in my best interest, which was just one more blow to my dreams.

Through the next ten years I made remarkable strides toward recovering my left side, even being able to use my left hand for writing, eating, and driving (yes, I’m left-handed). I was considered by doctors to be neurologically intact but still living the very real threat of another hemorrhage.

When I learned of a new radiation treatment for AVMs I jumped at the opportunity. It was risky, but I was willing to do almost anything to see my son reach adulthood. The treatment was ultimately successful and the AVM in my brain was closed off. I felt I could now have my life back.

My excitement waned quickly when I again started losing function in my left body. I soon learned that while having the AVM closed off, I had suffered a stroke. I no longer ran the risk of a brain hemorrhage, but I was left again feeling only half-functional.

Without the AVM in my brain, doctors gave me the great news that I could have another child. In 1993, after years of trying, my second son, Mackenzie, was born. The years that followed were busy, filled with hundreds of one-handed diaper changes. While life was hectic, I was simply happy to be alive and seeing my children grow. I did what I had to do to get by: rely on my right side.

My catalyst to yoga came when in 2007 I tripped and broke my one good, right ankle. Unable to use crutches or bare weight, it was a long six weeks of bed rest and awkward transfers to a wheelchair.

It was another upset, another letdown, another setback. I had relied on my right side for all these years, expecting it to hold me. With the ankle injury, I soon realized just how much I was asking of my right side. I needed to take a serious look at my mobility and ways to improve it. Two surgeries on my ankle later I started deep-water aerobics and began practicing restorative yoga. A beautiful sense of calm settled in my heart.

See alsoYoga for Stroke Survivors

For two years, I practiced restorative once a week. While I was aware of other types of yoga, I thought that restorative was the only kind someone with my limitations could do. With encouragement from my yogi sister-in-law, I finally stepped into my first Kripalu class.

Nancy had a lovely way of guiding the class through poses, offering modifications in a way that did not make me feel excluded or singled out. I have since been able to physically achieve poses I would have never thought possible. Working with balancing and weight-bearing postures, I’ve gained stability and strength where before there was little, and I continue to gain more function on my left side.

Yoga has brought me here, and I truly believe without it, I would not be making the progress I am. Will I ever have full function of my left side? Probably no. But I’ll never say “never," and I choose to continue to grow, stretch, and see what the universe has in store.

I now set intentions not only during my practice but at the beginning of each day. I am present and aware like never before. I feel blessed after each class and look forward to continuing this beautiful journey. I still practice a restorative class once a week (it was the spark that ignited the flame) and have added two Kripalu classes a week.

Since beginning yoga, I am changing my relationship with food and facing fears. I bought a kayak, have gone snowshoeing for the first time, and, yes, even wear yoga pants in public. I am now more mindful in all aspects of my life, I am stronger physically, my shape is changing, and where I once saw limits, I now see possibilities. Yoga has inspired me to look at my body and left side with fresh eyes. The body, mind, spirit connection has been for me, remarkable. There is a new light that is burning within, and I love it.

See alsoYoga Helps Stroke Patients

About our writer
Gale-Ann Maier lives in British Columbia, Canada. She is thankful to her husband and two children who always encouraged her to keep going.

BY

GALE-ANN MAIER

 

Yoga for Moms: Healing Your Pelvic Floor

https://www.yogajournal.com/lifestyle/yoga-moms-healing-pelvic-floor

Janet Stone, who will lead our upcoming Yoga for Moms online course, explains how to heal your pelvic floor with mula bandha.

JANET STONE

MAR 29, 2016

Internationally recognized yoga teacher and mother of two Janet Stone, who will lead our upcoming Yoga for Moms online course (enroll now and be the first to know when this mom-inspired course launches), is offering YJ readers a series of weekly “mom-asanas" for serenity, strength, and grounding. This week’s practice: healing your pelvic floor.

In a standard pregnancy and vaginal birth, the amount of loosening that happens in the abdominal muscles and pelvic floor catches many women off guard, especially if you’ve had more than one child. I think of strengthening the pelvic floor as returning to being grounded, or re-building the connection from the waist down through the legs back into the earth again.

Practice: Heal Yourself With Mula Bandha

Re-engaging your pelvic floor by engaging the mula bandha (root lock) can help you heal after childbirth. On an anatomical level, it requires an engagement of the pelvic floor muscles as well as the transverse abdominis, the deep abdominal muscle layer that wraps around your torso from back to front. Mula bandha can also initiate a deeper sense of stability in both the body and the mind.

See more Yoga for Moms: Re-establishing Your Connection to Your Core

Doctors and midwives will tell you to do Kegel exercises to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles, or to hold your urine to reestablish the connection with that area, but after my second child — and this is what I do for a living — if you would have told me to engage those muscles, I would have said, “I can’t even feel a thing." However, doing Kegels, or creating a pulsating movement with the mula bandha, while you’re doing other poses makes you more likely to carry through with the doctor’s orders.

Mom-asana of the Week: Low Lunge with mula bandha engagement

From any lunge (Low Lunge is shown) or Goddess Pose or Warrior II, try creating a pulsating movement with the mula bandha. Squeeze the pelvic muscles and inner thighs to create isometric movement. Feel the whole body lifting up from the ground and sinking back in. You can emphasize this with a micro lift in the body on the exhale (when mula bandha is engaged) and then softening downward on the inhale (when mula bandha softens). Not only will this help you strengthen the pelvic area, it will also help you come to re-own this space and understand that it is a safe place, which may also help you regain desire to connect with your spouse or partner.

ABOUT JANET STONE
San Francisco-based yoga teacher Janet Stone started her practice at age 17. A student of Max Strom and meditation teacher Prem Rawat, Stone teaches vinyasa flow at events around the world. Her new kirtan album with DJ Drez, Echoes of Devotion, hit number 1 on iTunes’s World Music chart this year. Stone has two daughters and offers this advice to moms: “Motherhood offers infinite lessons in the realms of surrender, empowerment, grace, mistakes, and patience, and then some more patience—as well as the endless unfurling of transitions and change. Practicing yoga amidst this adventure can support us in myriad ways to find our center.” Learn more about her upcoming course, Yoga for Moms.

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JANET STONE

 

《 Rob Zinn – Journey of the Heart (04:17) 》

Challenge Pose: Urdhva Kukkutasana (Upward Rooster Pose)

https://www.yogajournal.com/poses/challenge-pose-urdhva-kukkutasana

Set the foundation for a receptive state of mind with Urdhva Kukkatasana. Plus, learn how to find stability, balance, and focus in this pose.

TY LANDRUM

JUN 7, 2018

Rick Cummings

PREVIOUS STEP IN YOGAPEDIA 3 Ways to Prep for Urdhva Kukkutasana
SEE ALL ENTRIES IN YOGAPEDIA

Urdhva Kukkutasana
Urdhva = Upward · Kukkuta = Rooster · Asana = Pose

Benefits
Strongly activates the forces of both prana and apana to balance creativity and dissolution in the mind—setting the foundation for an open and receptive state of consciousness; strengthens your shoulders, arms, abdominals, and hips flexors; develops the coiling action of the spine, which is crucial for stability in countless other postures; increases balance, focus, and agility.

See also Challenge Poses: Liz Arch’s Secret to Success in Any Arm Balance

Step 1

Take Padmasana (Lotus Pose).

See also Strong-Arm Tactics

Rick Cummings

1/5

See also Challenge Pose: 4 Steps to Lift into Firefly

Stay Safe
One of the risks posed by this posture is falling and injuring yourself. In order to prevent this, keep pressing your hands firmly into the floor with equal pressure at all times. Improve your balance by keeping your gaze fixed firmly at a single point on the floor, just a few feet in front of you; and always be present and focused on your breath.

About Our Pro
Teacher and model Ty Landrum is director of the Yoga Workshop in Boulder, Colorado. He teaches Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga in the contemplative style of his mentors, Mary Taylor and Richard Freeman. With a PhD in philosophy, Ty has a special touch for explaining the theory of yoga with color and creativity. As a teacher, he’s passionate about sharing the brilliance of yoga with anyone willing to learn (for more information, go to tylandrum.com).

TAGS

TY LANDRUM

BY

TY LANDRUM

 

《 Rob Zinn – That’s All (06:08) 》

《 Rob Zinn – That’s All (06:08) 》

How to Use Ayurveda to Get Healthier Every Time You Eat

 

Ayurvedic experts offer five simple tips that you can start using now to improve your digestion—and your health.

ELIZABETH MARGLIN

JUN 16, 2018

Last year, I spent a week at an Ayurvedic spa in the majestic Blue Ridge Mountains and learned immediately that in Ayurveda, the quality of your digestion is the biggest key to your overall health. If your digestive system is running smoothly, you’ve got the best shot at staving off disease and feeling great. It’s that simple.

See also Stoke the Digestive Fire: A Detoxifying Sequence

But let’s get real: If you’re not cocooned in the lovely confines of an Ayurvedic retreat center or don’t have a degree in nutrition, there’s a good chance you take your digestive system for granted. You expect it to do its job of turning food into energy and neatly disposing of waste effortlessly—yet your eating habits (read: skipping meals, eating take-out too often, snacking constantly, and eating too much food overall) make it tough for it to get the job done. The result? Minor digestive woes—think things like bloating, gas, and constipation—that cumulatively impact our health in big ways.

The good news is that you can fix the imbalances that cause these issues with Ayurveda, says Kate O’ Donnell, author of The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook and a yoga teacher based in Boston. Here, she and other Ayurvedic experts offer five simple tips that you can start doing now to improve your digestion—and your health.

5 Ways to Improve Your Digestion With Ayurveda

Tip No. 1: Stimulate your digestive system before you eat.

According to Bellevue, Washington-based Aadil Palkhivala, founder of Purna Yoga, the digestive system loves to be stimulated by twists. Poses such as any of the Marichyasanas are ideal, because the twist happens in the GI tract. “Twisting creates agni—fire or heat—that gets our gastric juices flowing,” says Palkhivala. “They help the digestive system say, ‘I am ready to eat, I want food.’”

See also Quiz: What’s Your Agni Type?

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BY

ELIZABETH MARGLIN

 

《 Rob Zinn – The Way You Look Tonight (05:32) 》

《 Rob Zinn – The Way You Look Tonight (05:32) 》