Not your Daughter's Yoga

This video explains what drew me to Divya yoga in the hopes that it will help you decide if this is a style that would resonate with you.

If you have trouble sitting comfortably on the floor this modification might be helpful.

This is a great way to start any yoga practice.  Allowing your thoughts to settle and connecting with your body.  It's important every time we come to the yoga mat to check in with what is present both emotionally and physically to ensure that we honor that throughout the practice.  In this sequence we do a 3-part breath where we breathe into the belly, then open up the rib cage with our breath and then take the breath right up to our collar bones.  Breathing just into the belly is called diaphragmatic breathing.  The diaphragm is a dome shaped muscle located at the base of the lungs.  Your abdominal muscles help to move this muscle and give you more power to empty your lungs, thus improving your breathing capacity.   Diaphragmatic breathing, or breathing into the belly, is very calming for the nervous system.  When you breathe into the belly you send a message to your brain that you're calm (even though this might not be the case).  It's something you can do anywhere, anytime, to calm your nervous system.

In this sequence we stretch everything that holds the skeleton together - skin, tissue, muscles and fascia. 

You can think of the sleeve of the body as a container.  Like the skin of an apple.  It's our outer structure - the membrane that holds our bodies together.  In our settling in we worked with the 3 part breath and throughout all our yoga practices we connect with breath.  Why is the concept of breath so important?  It's the connection between mind and body.  Connecting with our breath and movement creates a meditative state, almost feeling as though the breath is moving the body.  Our breath is a bridge between our conscious mind and our unconscious body.  Focusing on our breath also keeps us in the present moment.  Breath is an attitude of letting go.  When we tighten our bodies, our breath tightens.  When we loosen the sleeve of the body, and the breath, we move with more ease.  Our breath is the mover of all the circulation and liquid in our body.  It's the mover of our blood and cerebral spinal fluid.  

This sequence is a nice gentle stretch with both lying down and seated postures.  During the sequence try to connect with your breath.  Don't worry if it doesn't come naturally at first - with practice it will.  

I've added some resource documents that explain the benefits of some of the postures we do in this section.  Although we do a supine butterfly pose in this section I've included the benefits of the seated cobbler's pose since many of the benefits are the same.

In working with the core of the body we work with deeper muscles than when stretching the sleeve.  This section includes some work on strengthening the abdominal muscles.

In my years of teaching I've noticed some postures can be tricky for people who have limited flexibility so I've included modifications where I think they might help.  This video gives you modifications that might come in handy for the next sequence where we work on the core of the body.

In the first sequence I described the sleeve of the body as the peel on an apple.  In this sequence you can think of the core of the body as the core of an apple.  Here we work with deeper muscles than in the sleeve sequence.  Our core is our 'guts' - the soft parts - the organs.  Our organs' shape are maintained by the amount of fluid in them and our lungs' shape by the amount of air inside.   We've already spoken about the benefits of connecting with our breath during our yoga practice and how that opens up our breathing capacity.  With regards to our organs, when we twist the body we're squeezing fluid out of the organs (much like squeezing water out of a sponge) and then when we untwist our organs fill with new fluid.  Apart from working on our 'guts' in this sequence we also work a bit with strengthening the abdominal muscles.

In yogic philosophy the feminine energy is governed by the left side of the body and masculine by the right side. This sequence will help to balance the two sides.

This video will show you some modifications if you find you can't do all the postures in the Masculine & Feminine sequence.

In this video we do some postures to bring our masculine and feminine energy into alignment and we also do postures to help improve our balance.  

When we practice yoga, one of the benefits is bringing masculine and feminine energy into alignment.  In this practice we'll balance activity with receptivity.  On the one hand we have effort and on the other hand surrender.  It's about finding a balance within yourself.  Feminine energy is about 'being' and relates to the lower part of the body, as well as the inner body.  During this practice we could associate our exhale with letting go.  Masculine energy is more about doing, reaching out, expanding and it relates to our upper body.  We could relate our inhale to expansion.

In the yogic term hatha,  ha refers to the masculine, warming, active energy of the sun and tha – the feminine, cooling, receptive elements of the moon. Hatha yoga, therefore, seeks to unify these apparently opposing elements, creating harmony and balance.

The moon sequence balances feminine energy.  As I mentioned in the previous sequence where we balanced both feminine and masculine energy, our feminine energy is grounding.  The focus of the moon salutation is about feeling connected to mother earth.

This video will show you some modifications to the moon salutations that will be helpful if you have trouble with parts of the following video.

This sequence of postures balances feminine energy and includes a moon salutation.  At the time of this filming I had a sore left shoulder so you'll see I did a few modifications to accommodate that.  It's important every time you come to the yoga mat to notice what's present and honor it.

Feminine energy is more grounding than masculine.  The moon salutation focuses on the lower part of the body and is considered to have a meditative calming quality that helps us connect to our breath.  You've probably heard of yin and yang.  Yin being loosely translated as feminine energy, or receptive meditative and cooling and yang being considered masculine, or active, reaching out and warming.  This is a yin practice.

The masculine energy is more active and reaching out.  The sun salutation creates energy and heat.  On a more symbolic level it offers gratitude for the energy that the sun provides us.

This video will demonstrate how you can do sun salutations using a chair.  The chair brings the floor up about 18 inches and can make the difference between the sun salutation being too difficult or being enjoyable.  Using a chair for the sun salutations gives you the same benefits as using the floor and it also enables you to keep in alignment if using the floor is too much of a struggle. 

This sequence of postures includes sun salutations.  If you find this version difficult please use the modifications for this section.  Remember this yoga is for you - do what works best for your body on any given day,

Sun salutations build stamina and strength and connects movement with breath.  It's good for stretching and strengthening the whole body.  Whereas the moon salutation focuses on being grounded and connected to the earth and is a meditative calming practice, the sun salutation is about reaching out, expanding, and is a warming practice.

Final relaxation, savasana, is one of the most important postures in yoga.  It's the time to allow all the asanas, or postures, that we performed to integrate into our bodies.  It's also deeply restful.  Allowing ourselves to rest is very important for our overall well being.

In savasana we try to remain fully conscious (i.e. not asleep :-) ) while being completely relaxed.  Practiced after a yoga class, when our muscles are tired, makes it a little easier, but often people still have trouble calming the mind.  Our society is so geared to 'doing' that it can be difficult to learn to do nothing.  Think of it as rebooting your computer.  When we turn our computers off and then back on they often function more efficiently.  So too with our bodies and minds - when we take the time to deeply rest we actually become more efficient in our lives.