alignment

Awakening thru Yoga 1: Deep Core Alignment

Hello Beautiful Souls, I’m on a pilgrimage in Cathar Country, southern France for three months, and I’ve promised myself to post a yoga video every week while I’m here.

So here we go… a short practice to start us off… a single round of Sun Salutations focusing on lifting and aligning the body from arches to crown – from the inside – using gentle muscle contraction. This practice gives you a nice way to play with alignment on and off the mat. May it give you something new to play with throughout your day.

Note, you need basic familiarity with yoga in order to follow this practice. I’m assuming that you know how to do Sun Salutations already (downward dog, plank, cobra, etc.). Also, apologies for the need to turn your volume way up. I’ve got new sound equipment that worked better during the sound checks than the full recording. Heh. I’ve got some trouble shooting to do.

Happy My 51st Birthday!,
Elena
5 January, 2024
Quillan, France

What I Do in Crisis (5): Align & Relax

(Video: 4:40min) This is a very quick, body based practice that I do when I’m super stressed and want to regain equilibrium.

This is part of a much deeper practice that I learned from Will Johnson’s wonderful book, Aligned, Relaxed & Resilient. This version is simple enough to do in crisis.

First, inhale and let the breath softly lift your body up straight and tall. Second, exhale and let the body melt and relax into this gently upright position. Let the body slowly align itself, gently lifting and relaxing with each breath.

This is a great meditation practice to do at any time, and works best during crisis if you teach yourself how to do it first when you’re not stressed… Then in crisis you already know how it works and it’s just a simple matter of doing it.

Enjoy!

Broken to Joy Series: Playing with Posture

(video) Posture can be an easy way to check in with yourself and begin to shift habits.

Notice what you do with your body when you are feeling strong emotions like anger, fear, sadness, etc versus when you are joyful, excited, happy and see physically what the differences are… Then start to notice how you hold yourself in general, even when you are not feeling any emotion very strongly.

Many of us hold ourselves in habitual postures of protection for instance, rounding our shoulders and shielding our chest.

What ever you do, as you notice you can begin to play with those postural habits, gently adjusting the body by taking a deep breath in allowing that to expand, straighten, relax or otherwise adjust to upright alignment.

This becomes a fun game.
How am I sitting, standing, lying right now? What will happen if I breathe into this?

What are your posture habits? What do you do to play with them?

Enjoy,
Elena
theJoyLab.net

Posture Perfect – 4 Exercices for Improving your Posture

Playing with Posture in France

Playing with Posture in France

Want to improve your posture?
Here are a few things I’ve done over the past year that have helped a lot. I like to play with these while running, so these are especially fun to do while moving.

Spinal Awareness – (From the) Bottom Up!

Great for awareness of the entire spine, floor to ceiling.
  1. Contract the anus a few times so that you are really awa˝re of the area around the low spine (just above the anus is the coccyx, then the sacrum and then the rest of the spine rises up into the neck and skull).
  2. Then starting from the bottom, inhale and imagine that the air you are inhaling is gently moving up your spine and that it expands and lifts your spine as it moves up. Invite your spine to float up, as if you were lighter than air, following the movement of air and spine with your awareness, upwards from coccyx to crown. Notice how the spine gently lifts and unfolds and the body opens.
  3. Do this a few times, following the movement, noticing the movement in the body each time.d. Now notice as much of the spinal area as you can, coccyx to crown (bone, muscle, skin, etc).
  4. Use this exercise to help you relax your spine and back and to be more aware of them and their position. This exercise is also a great way to start focusing on your spine before you do any of the other exercises below.

Spinal Tube

This exercise is great for aligning the whole spine.
  1. This is super simple. Imagine that your spine is a tube. As you inhale, imagine that your breath is gently flowing down your spine, and that the whole tube is lengthening, flowing down, relaxing, expanding and opening as the air floods through.
  2. Let the breath smooth out any kinks in the tube, and allow the back to relax, loosening all of the back muscles as it goes. This is an air massage. It feels great!
  3. Do this for a few breaths or until you feel un-kinked.
  4. This is great to do while moving, especially exercising, and if you do it while running, for instance, you can play with improving your gait at the same time (better posture = easier stride).

Spinal Tube with Navel Hold

This one is great for abdominal and low back awareness. Also, strengthens the abdominals. This one is for those of you that like challenges.
  1. Once you get good at the above practice, add a gentle drawing in (pulling in) of the navel towards the spine. Keep breathing and relaxing at the same time!
  2. This practice is actually a bit tricky, because you want to relax the back as much as possible and at the same time keep the abdomen contracted. The dichotomy creates an interesting challenge for the mind and the body.
  3. Again, be gentle. The point here is not force. The point is awareness, so notice your body and how it reacts to this interplay of relaxation and gentle contraction.

Hip Space

This exercise allows more room between the thighs for the pelvis to move, so that great pelvic alignment is easy to find.
  1. Stand comfortably, feet hip width apart.
  2. Staying upright (without leaning the upper body forward), bend your knees and lower your body straight down towards the ground a few inches (a very shallow squat)
  3. Soften your whole pelvic area, especially your buttock and hip muscles by imagining that you are made of melting butter!
  4. Standing like this, your pelvis has more room to move. Loosen it up a bit and enjoy this increased freedom by rocking the base of your pelvis gently back and forth, moving your pubic bone and coccyx (the bony mound at the bottom front of your pelvis above your genitals and in back, the seat bones at the base of your spine).
  5. Drop your sit bone, your coccyx bone at the bottom of your spine, down towards the ground, straightening your low back and letting your your pelvic bone move forward as your spine straightens.
  6. Keeping your pelvis in this new position slowly and gently straighten your knees feeling what a straighter lower back feels like.
  7. Feel which parts of your back, buttocks, hips, thighs, knees, etc feel tight or restricted in this position. If you feel fairly comfortable, take a few steps, again feeling for restrictions.
  8. If you feel really comfortable walk around feeling into this position, reminding your body what this feels like, and how to move in this position. Let this be gentle, fluid and dynamic. The point here is not to force anything. The point is to gain awareness, to notice the body.

Enjoy!,

Elena

What exercises do you do that improve your posture?