Are you seeking to find your best yoga practice?
Often, the most powerful way to manifest transformation in your life and your yoga practice is to stop wherever you are and assess the strength of your foundation. Just like you can’t build a home that will last for generations on unstable soil, you can’t build a sustainable yoga practice by focusing only on how it looks or feels on the surface. This week hit the pause button and dig deeper to ensure your foundation is solid.
If you’ve been rolling out your yoga mat for a while, it’s easy to fall into a pattern of just focusing on learning new skills or taking every asana into its most advanced variation. Practicing this way isn’t necessarily the path of becoming an advanced yogi.
In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, cultivating an enduring yoga practice was compared to being a gardener or a farmer. Planting seeds and tending the soil on a consistent basis is key for successful growth. A healthy lifelong yoga practice at times isn’t apparent from looking solely on the surface. The strength stems from the roots, beneath the soil.
Perhaps by trying a more basic level yoga practice or a class from an instructor, you don’t usually practice with will fortify your roots and give you new insight. It’s also an excellent reminder to step out of ego and recognize there may be more than one way to move or breathe or meditate. Different teachers instruct alignment in a different manner. Yoga Sutra 2:46, Sthira Sukham Asanam, states the posture should have both effort and ease. Keep an open attitude and return to the beginner’s mind when you were open to trying new techniques. Practicing familiar postures in an unfamiliar manner can keep your practice fresh and exciting.
By slowing down, you can refine your knowledge and polish your current practice physically, emotionally, and mentally. Slow down and check in with how your perspective has shifted over the lifetime of your yoga practice. It’s a great opportunity to confirm how far you’ve come since you were a true beginner. Look at it as planting new seeds in order to grow your practice.
Whether you're brand new to yoga or a yogi with many years of experience, we can all benefit from going back to the basics once in awhile. This week, check out these four classes that will aid you in honing healthy alignment and a strong foundation. Enjoy!
Try these back to the basics, yoga classes right now, from anywhere!
1. Kristen Boyle - Foundation Flow
2. Ellen Kaye - Fine Tune your Forward Fold
3. Jackie Casal Mahrou - Foundations of Yoga
4. Desiree Rumbaugh & Michele Marchildon - Find Strength through your Feet