What do I need for yoga?

Your seated posture

Finding your comfortable seated posture is really important.

Just because someone else can sit in what you might think is a more ”advanced” pose, doesn’t mean your body is ready to try it.

It’s worth accepting early on that it may never be ready for it, it will save you a lot of distraction and potentially, physical pain! Putting down comparing yourself to other people is a potent lesson to learn at any time.

A seated posture should enable you to sit with a straight spine be comfortable. You will be able to stay put, without wriggling, for a few minutes If you need them, use cushions under your bum and knees for support, plus blankets to keep you warm.

To see some of these positions and how to use cushions to be comfy in them, watch this https://youtu.be/nkUxJ7qe1yI?si=YRbPaK8mM0cgF8e3

The Ujjayi breath - the breath of victory

The Ujjayi breath heats the breath and energises the nervous system

The Ujjayi breath slows the breath down, so when you use it during your asana practice, your poses naturally deepen, there’s no force required

The breath challenges the perceived normality of tension and contraction, which releases stuck energy and allows you to find equanimity

We learn we have a choice about how we feel about a pose, or even a life situation

“It’s just a sensation baby!” We learn to breathe through sensations, becoming stronger in our understanding that “this too will pass”; that “I am not this sensation, I’m only experiencing it”

To try the Ujjayi breath go to https://youtu.be/MPc-Mg7u3wc?si=ia4bmG5YKrSayc_m

Double breathing

Double breathing is a vigorous breathing technique which helps us disrupt our conditioned breath and thought patterns.

What are the benefits of double breathing?

• 🫁 improves breathing by using all of the lungs
• 🫁 increases lung capacity
• ⚛️ improves carbon dioxide tolerance, encouraging capillary growth and improving oxygen uptake
• 🙂 improves resilience to stress
• 🌀 increases blood circulation, detoxifying the system
• 💪 strengthens the breathing muscles

https://youtu.be/aBablgSD2cs?si=uwFH1Nblw1caV6IJ

The six keys to success in yoga

Every yogi knows that sticking to practice can sometimes be incredibly challenging. The yogis of old gave us the Six Keys to Success to remind us of what we need on the path of yoga. These keys serve to inspire every practice by reminding you of your

Watch this video for more and to hear how to pronounce the Sanskrit words

The Four Principles of Living Yoga

Through applying the four principles you experience life through your practice. You practice responding to the breath and postures in a way that fits your current energy, through this, you learn that you can make choices about how you respond to life events. This inner yoga cultivates a vigorously healthy, unshakeably positive mindset.

Suka - ease

Accept your body as it is in the moment and find the place of ease throughout your practice. In double breathing this means breathing as softly or as strenuously as you feel you need during each breath. In the postures this means only going as far into the pose as feels right for your body in that moment.

Spanda - pulse

The pulse allows you to feel into each breath and each movement and to respond to it. If you’ve been too vigorous with the breath or reached too far into a pose, the pulse allows you to back off and approach it more softly. Equally, if you feel there’s further to reach into the breath or pose, the pulse allows you to expand out into that.

Lila - play

You can joyfully press your boundaries, play to the edges of your vitality, knowing that if you’ve gone too far, in the very next breath you can back off.

Purna - fulfilment or perfection

It’s that sweet spot as you move through the breath and in and out of the pose. The feeling that feels best for you in any given moment

Working on the same thing

In the Living Yoga Method we use asana flows that stay fairly much the same. This is intentional for many reasons.

• 🧘‍♀️You get to know know the postures intimately and can relax into them
• 🕉️ As you become comfortable with the flow you can focus on marrying the breath to the movement, so your asana practice becomes a moving meditation
• 👀 You have the opportunity to observe your tendencies when repeating the same thing

Shavasana

We can take Shavasana if the seated postures are not possible for our bodies at the moment. It’s also helpful to take when the mind, body or energy system is tired and needs to practice with some tenderness.

Shavasana, or corpse pose, is where we lie our body down at the end of practice to shed our old body so, as we complete the pose, we pick up our new yoga body.

Shavasana relaxes the psychology and the physiological system. It develops our innate ability to look inside to find natural answers.

Yogi, remain as still as possible once you have taken Shavasana, so you stay completely relaxed … and awake!

Watch how to take and adapt Shavasana https://youtu.be/ZJ8UhM5NBDo?si=7ZkknGXbtEF5-uRl

Getting Started

To get started take a look at the beginners and/or practice cloud page, or contact me on sarah@yogaisunion.co.uk

PLEASE CONTACT ME 24 HOURS BEFORE YOU WISH TO START YOUR PRACTICE.

Please use the free yoga in the meantime