Monthly Archives: January 2019

This week’s sequence will floor you!

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WINTER SESSION (January 15 – April 2nd)

(2 spaces are available for the Thursday evening practice)

Get yourself ready for another AWEsome practice this week at DOWNdog!  After a 2-week absence,  the warrior in me is set for the battlefield.  Ready to guide you in a sequence that will floor you!  Our focus will be the pelvic floor.

Emphasis remains centred on the root chakra, the foundation chakra.  It is the most important chakra and it will be given priority for the first 4 classes of the sequence.

Without a strong foundation our house would surely crumble.  It is our foundation that gives us the necessary stability to weather the challenges, the stormy weather or in other words, the curveballs that are sometimes thrown at us unexpectedly on our journey.   A balanced and strong root chakra allows us to stay centred,  better able to face the vicissitudes of life.

At the very base of our foundation is our pelvic floor.  The pelvic floor muscles stretch like a hammock from the tailbone  to the pubic bone (front to back) and from one sitting bone to the other sitting bone (side to side).  They support our abdominal organs.  The muscles are normally firm and thick. A strong pelvic floor needs to be both flexible and strong.  When used in a yoga practice, (and in our daily life) we gain more strength and stability.

We will take the time at the beginning of the practice to gain a better awareness of how to relax and engage these very important muscles in dynamic bridge pose, chair pose, goddess pose.

Looking very much forward to our practice this week at DOWNdog!

Namaste!

 

 

Life is a balancing act!

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DOWNdog Sunday Morning Yoga POST
Sunday,     February 4th, 2018
Drop-in spaces available this week

Monday, February 5th: 1 space

Thursday, February 8th: 1 space

Life is a balancing act

OK.  I would like to be honest with you and tell you the truth:  despite all my attempts at balancing in tree pose, I more often than not, fall.  In the past, I would find it  intimidating as a teacher to watch some students move effortlessly into tree pose  while I struggled up in front of the room in a precarious perch!  More often than not, I just avoided doing tree pose.

As my teaching practice evolves,  I have come to appreciate and understand more and more that what is going on inside while doing yoga is more important than the pose itself.  And today, this has become the foundation of my teaching:  the inner warrior in all the poses.

In other words, it is not only the cues and guiding students in finding their balance in tree pose that I am teaching, but it is also the falling.   Let me start from the beginning.

Tree pose (Vrksasana) is one of the loveliest yoga poses.  It’s a beautiful balancing act.  Deepening your roots while in tree pose can help improve not only your balance physically but it will empower you:  it can teach you how to  weather the vicissitudes of life by keeping calm and focused while balancing on one foot.  

While in Vrksasana, you may lose your balance and fall but within (where your warrior resides) you can learn how to remain calm, steady and confident  no matter what the outside circumstances may be.  The more you practice Vrksasana, the more calm, steady and confident you will become. This inner mental power will move into your body and help you gain  greater balance, strength and flexibility.

That’s working from the inside out!

Empowerment can be defined as courage:  the willingness to take a risk and then, sometimes fall.  Often, when this happens, instead of a feeling of failure, yoga teaches us a new sense of inner power.  We can learn to conquer our fear of not succeeding and know that hey, life continues and just maybe next time, we will stand up tall and rooted and weather the storm.  Stepping out into our courage becomes liberating. 

If, when in tree pose, you fall and you can remain calm and steady, and the falling fuels the desire to try again and again, you are learning to do yoga from the inside out!

Namaste,
Jocelyne
I look very much forward to our fourth practice this week!
Stay warm!