Tag: backbends
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Yoga Luxe Blog Post: Un-doing Fear & Stress Through Backbends
I have recently joined the wonderful Kirsty Norton at Yoga Luxe to contribute to the monthly blog. Yoga Luxe offers beautiful Yoga gifts, and works with charities in India to ensure each gift gives back to those who helped create it. For this month’s blog post on how we can literally un-do stress and fear…
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Practice: Ustrasana & Finding Courage To Listen To The Heart
The heart is often spoken of as the seat of ‘love’ and ‘compassion’, which of course it is, but it’s also a place of truth and courage, and if we dare to venture there it can reveal hidden truths about ourselves. Physically, we know that the heart is an essential muscle that pumps blood, oxygen…
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Practice: Ashta Chandrasana Variation (Preparation For Urdvha Dhanurasana)
Many of us have one or two postures that are relatively simple, yet due to our individual anatomy, it seems ‘impossible’ to practice with any comfort whatsoever…. Take Gomukhasana for example: this posture looks quite accessible from the outside, but it’s often incredibly uncomfortable and even out of the question for a lot of people,…
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Practice: Anjaneyasana (Back-Bending Variation)
When it comes to backbends, there’s a lot more to it than just bending backwards…. In order to find the healthiest backbend for our own body, it’s important to open up, lengthen, strengthen and release all the other areas that might be restricting us from getting into a backbend that is truly beneficial for us.…
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Practice: Chapasana (Sugarcane Pose)
This asana is simultaneously an asymmetrical backbend and a balancing posture, which means that to practice it while maintaining space in the spine, safety in the knees, and stability in the standing leg is a big challenge… let alone while remembering to breathe at the same time! The name ‘chapasana’ refers to ‘sugarcane’ but a…
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Practice: Preparation For Backbending
Although backbends may appear to be all about flexibility, they actually require a lot of strength in order to practice them in a way that is healthy and sustainable. The strength we need to cultivate before moving into backbends arises not only from the muscles of the back, but also a connection to the deep…
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Practice: Swimming Salabhasana (Inspired By Brahmani Yoga)
The lower back is a place a lot of us experience discomfort, in fact lower back pain is the number one cause of disability world-wide. (In this sense, disability means no longer being able to go about your day in the way you’re used to, so you may still be able to move around, but…
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Creative Yoga Sequencing: Wild Thing Salutations
A Yoga practice holds the chance to experiment with our bodies and see what happens when we stop over-thinking, and allow the breath to take over. Movement and flow are important in my practice and yoga classes, and studies show that movement is an extremely important factor in relieving and preventing stress and anxiety. Moving in a…
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Practice: Urdvha Mukha Svanasana / Upward Facing Dog
Urdvha = Upward Mukha = Face Svana = Dog Asana = Posture Urdvha Mukha Svanasana or Upward Facing Dog is one of the postures we often come across in a Vinyasa flow style class, used within what is commonly referred to as a Vinyasa. (Moving from plank to chatturanga, through to…
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New Published Articles: Contentment & Backbends
I’ve recently kindly been asked to write a couple of articles for EkhartYoga.com and YogaMoo.com. Very grateful to have more writing out there available for everyone to see, so if you’re interested in learning more about the philosophical side of yoga with my piece on Santosha from the Ekhart Yoga site, click HERE. If you want to find…
