HomeBody and Home Practice

As a recovering perfectionist, I am a huge aficionado of home practice. I was valedictorian at my high school, and even through college felt the compulsion to keep straight A's. This created pressure for me around learning - it became about the performance of knowledge and the ability to prove myself and maintain a status rather than authentically digest and absorb what I was being taught. It made the experience of learning brittle and one-dimensional and focused not on what I was taking in but instead on what I could spit out. My home yoga practice has been deeply transformative and healing of the very way that I engage with a subject and learn. For the past 18 years, I have had a committed home yoga practice. Every morning I wake up, have a cup of coffee in the early morning dusk, and head to my basement for an hour or two of personal practice. 

When I learn at my own pace, I can pause and slow down if there is a moment where I need to connect the dots in my body, stay connected to my inner rhythm, re-calibrate proprioceptive awareness of my body in space if I notice a blindspot, look something up, or pause in compassion of a limit in strength or balance. I can discover the patterns and teachings and brilliant system of yoga at my own pace and set my own goals. It has been a joyful and healing process and my most preferred way to deepen and understand the practice. Each day when I sit on my mat at the beginning of practice, I ask, what do I want from my yoga and what does the yoga want from me - and from there I let that move through me. I come up from the basement and joke with my husband about "breakthroughs before breakfast". The delightful feeling of really understanding and discovering something new that your body can do by going at your own pace is deliciously rewarding and the "aha!" moments we can find on the mat are truly limitless.

If you are looking for some self structured yoga at home this Summer to reconnect to power, presence, and purpose, I would be honored to be your guide! Please check out my 30 Day July Yoga Challenge and unroll your mat to dive in at your own pace today:

Open your heart and find REFUGE in the Maternal archetype

Sunday, May 8

12-1:30 EST

Online via zoom.  FREE to Moon Subscribers.  

ALL DROP IN SLIDING SCALE DONATIONS May 8 will be donated to Planned Parenthood because Motherhood is and should always be a sacred and personal CHOICE.

Drop in the comments your mother’s name and what body part you got from your mom.

This Mother’s Day, let’s let go of competition, aggression, and the illusion of separation and connect into the spirt of the maternal:  the instinct, when things are intense, to tend and befriend, not to fight/flight/freeze, but instead to offer LOVE as the way.  

Whether you have a womb or not, you can always look up a the MOON and be reminded of the cycles and seasons and pulls on the planetary tides/breaths/waters that were never ours to control. 

Whether you have your/are a mother or not, you can take refuge in your maternal-heart-space in the long lineage of mothers (blood or chosen) that go back in a long line over your left shoulder and have given of themselves to your line through pure loving presence to form a protective lineage of love.

Practice will begin with Chandra Namaskara - opening the heart and calming the brain with the breath-based, fluid repetition of Moon Salutations. We will move through some of the Moon Poses and Goddess Poses and Active Standing Poses, Offer space and time to rest low and long into earthy poses where we feel our shared connection to the planet Earth mother we all will one day return to, and finish with the MOTHER of all poses, Shoulderstand, Salamba Sarvangasana.

LEAP OF FAITH

I hope my email finds you well and enjoying these enlivening Spring days of alternating sunshine and fresh rainfall. You are receiving this email because you have participated in one of my Yoga Challenges during the past two years (thanks, Friend!), and I wanted to say "hi" and share a new offering with you.

This Friday I am launching a new membership called SUN!
Registration is open and you can learn more or sign up for your first week FREE and join us this Friday HERE.
SUN Subscription offers

• Livestream Core Flow class with Lily Friday 7:30-8:30 am EST (*for the month of May we will be working with light weights*) always recorded and added to your virtual studio page if you miss or want a replay or live in a different timezone

• On Demand Class Release twice a week: Every Monday and Wednesday a new on demand practice will be uploaded to your virtual studio and there will be a forum to ask me questions about your practice below each video. Comments will be moderated the week they are added by Friday afternoon.

• In total, on an average month, 4 live and about 12 practices each month.

Sign on for $49/month and cancel at any time. This breaks down to about $4/practice or even if you only attend the Livestreams because you feel the accountability pull there more strongly just $12/practice) It's a very affordable, practical, do-able way to get your practice in at the start of your day 3 days a week (and maybe even before the kids wake up - Summer Parents - without having to leave the home!). I hope I can support you as you reconnect to your practice, feel greater presence, power, and purpose both on the mat.

You can learn more about this monthly subscription HERE or join us for a drop in class HERE.

May this season of rain showers and sun bursts and lush green sudden growth find you in a spirit of possibility and opening. If this offering sounds nourishing and enlivening to you, I would love to welcome you into this way to deepen your practice with me.

Thanks for your continued support!

March Theme: Spring Open! Legs to Lungs

It has been an unseasonably warm February and my backyard gets a good Southern exposure bright afternoon sun bath. One of my favorite moments in the day on these bright days is to head out and sit in the Adirondack Chair and just close my eyes for 5 deep breaths and feel the sun on my brow center.
The light body - the pineal gland - the seat of the soul. Regulator and balancer of the body - can it sense that Spring is on the way after this long dreary winter?

This month

February Theme: Expect the Unexpected

What grounds you when the ground underfoot feels fluid and ever-shifting?

Do you turn to the golden thread of your breath - nourished and strengthened by your practice? Do you lean in and notice where you can cultivate ease amidst the effort?

This month, as we move in unexpected ways and connect courageously to core strength, allow your breath in like a spotlight to reveal.  Allow your breath to mold the pose on your own time and on your own terms, illuminating and inviting space, ease, activation, or release to imbalanced areas of your own body. Realize where you need to back off and where you need to turn up the heat.

This month we connect to the deep core. Lush, fluid, wave-like movement. Flow state. Fire up the core and ripple through the spine. Tap into your strength to open. Feel the scaffolding that holds and uplifts your expansion on the mat and off the mat.

Feel your roots: feet and legs and pelvis. Get steady.

Feel your branches: buoyant heart, radiant spine, sensitive limbs. what are you reaching for? What is your deepest longing? Why do you keep showing up? Go deeper in. What do you want from this practice? What does their practice want from you? What are your deepest longings? What do you want to feel, embody, move through you?

Feel your unexpected blooms: What unexpectedly ripens, opens and offers grace, invites delight for body, mind, and spirit? The more we can cultivate a mindset to feel not force, to enjoy the journey, not just the destination, to stop and smell the flowers, to delight in simple moments of embodiment and integration as well as the high voltage of peak postures, the more we can create sensitivity and open to delight that is always blooming all around us. When I first bought the house my family lives in, it was August. And that next Spring, when the garden came to life with all the bulbs and flowers the previous owners had planted I was reminded of this idea of unexpected blooms. Even if you don’t make it to the peak pose, what bouquet of delight do you gather along your way?

And as we move out of this current Omicron surge, as we move towards longer brighter days ahead, spring blossoms preparing their roots to shoot from snowy ground, as we feel into the past two years of grief and ache and loss and ordinary holiness, I am startled by how moved I am by these words by Mark Nepo:

Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.
This is how the heart makes a duet of
wonder and grief. The light spraying
through the lace of the fern is as delicate
as the fibers of memory forming their web
around the knot in my throat. The breeze
makes the birds move from branch to branch
as this ache makes me look for those I’ve lost
in the next room, in the next song, in the laugh
of the next stranger. In the very center, under
it all, what we have that no one can take
away and all that we’ve lost face each other.
It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured
by a holiness that exists inside everything.
I am so sad and everything is beautiful.

January Theme: Just Thanks, that’s all.

This month I will be away 1/2 and 1/9. For my Moon subscribers I have a backbends class 1/4 and a 30 day challenge you have access to while I am out of town. I look forward to seeing you in the new year 1/16. For now, here is my latest blog post with holiday love to each of you:

We're all just walking each other home.  - Ram Dass

It's been a day spent in hibernation mode. Reading my novel in the tub and in the bed, family brunch, more tea and reading with the whole family cuddled up in separate book-worlds on the couch. And in between this cozy hygge-mode I ran out to pick up some thai food for dinner. Neighbors are bundled up and decorating with christmas lights. Little kids are dancing and running about. And I am reminded outside my cozy abode of the kindness and connection we all share outside our personal story and immediate bubble. These past two years have reminded me of what is most important. It has shifted my teaching style and voice. It has shifted my priorities. And though we are not together in physical space, I do feel our togetherness. I do feel moved by you all and moved by my deep gratitude towards you all.


What a time these past two years have been. And this cheer, these lights, this brightening, and illuminating as I drive to the Thai place through the neighborhood streets reminds me of how grateful I am for the connection I have been able to keep with you all via the online teaching platform. Like the strands of lights stretched across Regester Avenue from one house to the other (it's such a sweet tunnel of light - if you are in Baltimore come take a drive through the Forge!) - though we are apart our connection lights us up! Now for almost two years! Wow! I am so deeply honored to hold space for your presence and your practice. I am so grateful to have a student body to teach, to share, who ask questions, who stay open, stay curious, who show up together. You keeping the date of our weekly practices is such a great gift. Your presence is my present. Thank you. This consistency and belonging is a blessing I cherish.

These past two years of building my own online business and meeting new kindred hearted students from around the world whose heartfelt messages and inquiries have sparked growth in both directions - mine and theirs - has been so far from what I ever could have imagined when our studios shuttered in 2020. As my dear student and friend and colleague I met in the age of Zoom yoga, Lula, recently encouraged - "you just need to keep letting it flow through you" - and those bright words of love and courage flowed through my heart and mind, too, as I drive by the twinkling lights wound around trees and window frames. Connecting one thing to another. Brightening dark spaces. Inspiring joyful embodiment in the form of cartwheels and games of tag from the neighborhood kiddos. Keep letting it flow. Let us both do this. Let us all do this together. Keep letting it flow. I know things feel very uncertain and sometimes we respond innately to this fear and uncertainty by growing rigid, tense, terse, contracting. But what if there was another way - to flow, to open our hearts as we close our doors, to stay connected though apart - to let it flow.

More than ever in my career, I have felt my teaching and my practice and my purpose and my means of reaching students evolve and grow so much over these past two years. In many ways the challenge of it all has felt like the eye of the needle and in finding a way to pass through the eye I have opened horizons, opened my mind, met new students, re-met old private clients from my time in California and in Germany, and discovered new and more effective ways of teaching, sharing and making this a sustainable path for all.

And so yes, no matter what happens, I will continue to hold an online presence. This is a foundation of my offerings now, and a way to connect outside of the confines of physical space to share space and to share practice. I look forward to continuing to share these practices with you all and I will still be here for you all wherever you are joining from. This is not going away. It may evolve and open and add, as the world evolves and opens, but I will be here and am grateful to share this practice with each of you. You all have touched my spirit in bright and fulfilling ways. Thank you. Happy Holidays. Happy hibernating. Happy feasting and dancing and mourning and celebrating. Light a candle, fill a cup for those no longer with us. Rest well and stay curious, Dear Ones.

In the sweet/sad song of Judy Garland:

"Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the Yuletide gay
From now on your troubles will be miles away
Here we are as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more
Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest place
So have yourself a merry little Christmas"

HUGS, Blessings, Prayers for health and wholeness. May your New Year be Grounding and Revitalizing.

December Theme: Bandha and Breath / Concentrate and Radiate

This month we will begin with core focused work to concentrate and stoke the inner fire. From there we move into lush flow to generate warmth, unfurl, become fluid, and take up space. Peak poses will focus on the principles of rooting and rising, concentrating and radiating, pairing opposing actions to become an active participant in the posture rather than making shapes. We will finish each practice with a long savanna and time devoted to pranayama.

Dec 5 The Hanumanasana class

Dec 12 The Handstand class

Dec 19 The Wall Flow class

Dec 26 The anantasana, vasistasana, utita hasta padangustasana class

You can join these classes:
*as a drop in($10-20 sliding scale) for any single practice
*orsubscribe for the month with the coupon code hOMe for less than $25 (half off your first month) and receive all four of the livestream practices (recorded and sent to you if you miss one!) individualized goal setting intake and coaching in the Zoom Room, and access to a Moon Subscriber On-Demand Vault of over 150 practices

November Theme: Pelvic Power Stability and Mobility

This month we drop down down down into the basin of the pelvis. Like a salve for the nervous system, we get grounded. Like taking your car to the mechanic to get your tires rotated and aligned - we align our hip joints. By moving from the hips, we reconnect to sensuality, fluidity, creativity. We undo the slump-asana that comes with the territory of a desk job and awaken the lower chakras and learn how to build a well aligned foundation to free up dormant energy to rise through the spinal column. We get gloriously unstuck. Like starting a fire, we will activate these large and powerful stabilizing muscles that attach to the pelvic bones as an efficient way of warming ourselves up as the temperatures dip outside. Think supple strong, jaguar haunches. And… Wax on. Wax off. … Just as we rev up to a nice sweaty glow we will bring the boiling pot down to a slow steady simmer as we unwind with time for seated postures and our monthly pranayama for November, the diaphragmatic breath. We will finish each class in diaphragmatic breathing - learning to free the thoracic diaphragm, soften the abdominal muscles, and relax the pelvic floor to take slow wide belly breaths and drop out of the anxious “monkey mind”.

Here’s what is on the menu each week, prone to change based on requests, or what we see in the Zoom Room as we gather in our unique forms and various backgrounds, prone to ebb and flow in an organic yet semi-structured way;

November 7 - strong glutes flow and hip opening in all directions

November 14 - your inner lava lamp: get to know your mula bandha, concentrate and radiate the anantasana class

November 21 - flying pigeon and grasshopper pose

November 28 - planting lotus seeds

You can join these classes:
*as a drop in($10-20 sliding scale) for any single practice
*orsubscribe for the month with the coupon code hOMe for less than $25 (half off your first month) and receive all four of the livestream practices (recorded and sent to you if you miss one!) individualized goal setting intake and coaching in the Zoom Room, and access to a Moon Subscriber On-Demand Vault of over 150 practices

October Theme: Slow Flow for Energy Regulation. Deepening into Autumn

Yoga shows up in our capacity to listen: To show up wholeheartedly and humbly to this body this heart this moment as it arrives in this very breath.  To witness what is arising and what is falling away.  To not turn away. To connect. To yoke. To show up for yourself and your life. To show up for the world around and your loved ones.

The greatest threat to our yoga practice is to go on autopilot and lose our spirit of deep inner listening and self inquiry.
Deepen your presence.  Slow down, take stock.  This time of year as the leaves turn golden and begin to softly fall from above, as energy in the plant world moves down to the roots, we will slow down, cultivate deepening in presence and stability and clarity.

You do not have to tear your self down and beat yourself up to make progress.

My Fall classes are strong practices to preserve, to conserve, to not-burn-out.  Practices for longevity.

Less forcing.  More feeling.  Feel your true power in your strength to open.  A power that is rooted in stability and open to breath, softness, fullness. Drop into the depths and potency of your stillness with long held strong poses and long held savasana relaxation poses.  Feel your inner blank canvas the potency and potentiality of what moves you before you move.  Feel your emotional landscape, your creative world, the pulsation that moves through you and wants to move you on the mat and in the pulse of your life.

Heighten your inner senses, slow down, and take stock.  October's classes feature less postures, more potency.  Less fidgeting, more dropping in beneath the layers.  Sacred stillness.  Strength and surrender.  Deep steady breath forms the metronome of the month.  Let’s see what unfurls from this potent inner space.

October 3  Slow, Deep, Wide:  Side Body Spacious and Learn to drop back to Urdhva Danurasana (or let go, or exhale, or trust yourself, or maybe just a mini-baby drop back from Ustrasana to Urdhva Danurasana, we'll see)

October 10: Flow to let go.  Strong Slow Flow into 20 minutes of Potent Restorative Practice.  Bring an eye pillow or Blindfold.

October 17 How to breathe deeply when you are in a bind. (The one with all the pretzel binds - bring a strap)

October 24 Cleansing Twists, Cross Lateral Flow for Creativity, and Deep Belly Release and Massage to unwind physical and psycho-emotional tensions that are stored deep in the guts

October 31  Devotion to our ancestors, our departed, build an altar in your heart.  Perhaps you would like to bring a portrait of an ancestor you want to devote your pactice to to the Zoom Room. Free your diaphragm, breathe down to the region between navel and pelvic floor.  Long inversions, and Forward Folds, dive into your tortoise pose.  Retreat into your inner abode. Long yoga nidra to finish.  (happy Halloween!)

You can join these classes:
*as adrop in($10-20 sliding scale) for any single practice
*orsubscribe for the month with the coupon code hOMe for less than $25 (half off your first month) and receive all four of the livestream practices (recorded and sent to you if you miss one!) individualized goal setting intake and coaching in the Zoom Room, and access to a Moon Subscriber On-Demand Vault of over 150 practices

September Theme: Grounding for Times of Uncertainty

What grounds you in times of uncertainty?  

Are you navigating a terrain of change and uncertainty in your life, too?

Are you feeling pandemic fatigue?

What is your solid ground when you are unsure of the steps ahead?  

How have you been sourcing grounding and joy, comfort and creativity, stability and spaciousness this past year and a half? 

This mantra is giving me so much comfort and creativity on all levels lately: “go as far as you can see, and when you get there you will see farther.”

In uncertain times it is vital to carve out space and time each week to connect to your body and breath and to cultivate space for rest and relaxation. To cultivate devotion and deepen rhythms, rituals, and routines that feel healing to your body and mind. To unhook from the frenetic pace of worry and stress and drop into the rhythm of the body.  To cultivate our capacity to listen, to hold space, to observe. To make space for our grief and sadness, and to allow ourselves to feel into the waves of collective grief and sadness. To feel not force. To detangle our nervous systems and breathing patterns and muscular tensions from the grip of stressors and remember how to stay soft, spacious, stable, and strong even when the ground beneath is quaking. To reconnect to the spirit of play and exploration and reclaim our own joy even if it is as simple as placing attention on simple sensations in the body right now that feel pleasant - the softening of your chest and shoulders on the exhale, the nerve endings on the soles of your feet, the gentle arc of your lumbar spine curving upwards and inwards out of the basin of your pelvis...

The steady breath pattern, the practice of repetition in our sun salutations, the physical effort of a dynamic practice, the softness of setting in down in a longer savasana - all these practices can help us reset and emerge from our practice feeling more capable and calm. I recommend a strong practice to make it through these trying times. Feel your effort, burn through the fears, stay strong, stay hopeful.

This time of year as seasons and schedules shift, create a strong weekly physical routine that you can stick with.  Choose a dynamic, active practice and try to be consistent.  Practice at least two to three times a week and set down distractions, make a sacred space for you practice.  Cultivate tapas, push yourself and try to stay connected to your Ujjayi breath so you can warm up and burn through some of your distractions, mundane monkeymind stuff to occupy greater depths of presence within yourself. 

Each Sunday this month will explore a different context to feel more stable, spacious, grounded, and calm.  The focus the month is not a particular posture category or skill but rather an energetic state of being I hope the alchemy of each practice will invite:  calm, strong, steady, capable.  Expect strong, sweaty, dynamic practices with deep attention to the union of breath and movement.  Each practice will offer a unique set of tools and techniques to help you feel grounded:

September 5 :  Sama Vritti and Pratyahara:  Steady rhythm practice and sensory uncoupling.  Reset your breath. Relax from the push and pull of your senses.  Drain tensions from scalp, eyes, jaw, neck, chest, shoulders.

September 12 :  Wall Flow. Stay with it. Long holds practice into potent forward folds and supported long form inversions.

September 19 :  Open your roots, find your agility. Dial into the conduit of your lower half:  foot and ankle mobility, leg love (including the infamous calf smoosh!), learn to steer the ship from your hips, and create a powerful pedestal for your serpentine spine.

September 26 :  Free your hips and the rest will follow.  Sumptuous slow flow into decadent drool-worthy hip openers.

August Theme: Shoulders

The hips and shoulders are big physical and energetic traffic hubs of the body connecting limbs to trunk.  We need to move clearly and directly through our hips and shoulders to get where we want to be heading in our postures.  The hips and shoulders can also be sites for big traffic jams:  injury - stagnation from lack of mobility and articulation - weakness - imbalance - and/or - lack of mind/body mapping or proprioception.  

Comparatively speaking, our femur (thigh) is surrounded by bone in its ball and socket joint, whereas our humerus (upper arm) has a shallow ball and socket contact. In arm motion, only 30% of the head of the humerus is in contact with the glenoid fossa.  This makes the GH (glenohumeral) joint both extremely mobile and extremely vulnerable. Biomechanically, our bodies are designed to stand, to walk, to be bipedal and upright.  We subvert this in yoga.  We use our shoulders a lot!  We get to spend time in quadriped mode which helps to release tension in the lower back, awaken the belly, and enliven our ability to breathe deeply into the circumference of our ribcages.  We spend a ton of time in the “vinyasa” transition of Chaturanga to Upward Facing Dog.  As we progress in skill and agility, we practice inversions like Handstand and Forearm Stand on our arms with feet up. 

Because we are distributing our weight into our hands and shoulders so much, it is imperative we understand the proper actions of alignment and physiological cues to keep those shoulders stable, mobile, and healthy and avoid overuse injuries that can incur from well-intentioned but mistaken/injurious/poor biomechanical cues like “draw the shoulderblades down the back as the arms reach overhead”, “melt the heart in forearm stand”, or “lower your chest to the floor in Chaturanga”. (Danger - don’t do these things!)

This month we move through well rounded Sunday flows with a special emphasis on the shoulder stability, safety, longevity, and mobility.

Did you know your shoulder is made up of four joints (sites where 2 bones come together) on each side?  Because of the mobility and complexity of this joint, it is important that we understand how to safely maneuver on the mat for the benefit and longevity of our shoulders.  They can be particularly vulnerable to overuse or misuse injury and repetitive strain if we move through yoga without a detailed understanding of how to use our bodies well and cohseively in this holistic practice.

4 Joints of the Shoulder:

In the front:

1. Breastbone and Collarbone

2. Collarbone and Scapula

On the side:

3. Upper arm and Scapula ball and socket (glenohumeral)

In the back:

4. Scapula and ribcage 

Practitioner Questions for Reflection:

1. Are you having a hard time feeling stable in your scapula kicking up into forearm stand?

2. Are you perplexed about how to align that Chaturanga Dandasana?

3. Are you unsure of how to activate your shoulders in Handstand?

4. Are your shoulders a limiting factor in your Upright Bow/Wheel pose?

5. Are you actually standing on your shoulders in Shoulderstand and Bridge pose or do you lack the mobility or technical understanding to articulate this alignment?

6. Do you feel chronic postural strain or carry your tensions in your neck, chest, shoulders, and upper back?

7. Can you activate the bottom edges of your scapula?

8. Do your scapula glide fluidy on your ribcage?

9. Do you feel well rounded in your pushing and pulling strength?

10. Do you feel well rounded in your shoulder flexibility left to right, front to back?

11. Do you have a dominant arm?

12. Do your scapula “wing” off your back in Plank Pose?

13. Do you have a stoop (kyphosis) in your thoracic spine?

14. Do you have scoliosis?

15. Have you played a sport and developed a dominant arm, or held/fed/bounced a baby for years on one side? How do you feel imbalances in shoulder strength, dominance, weight favoring, and flexibility showing up in your practice?

16. Can you find cohesive strength between your arms and your back to work in integrated, cohesive patterns in poses like Backbends and Inversions?

    Class Plan for August:
    

8/1/21

Unwind tension from your neck, chest, and shoulders flow

including

The perfect Chaturanga Clinic

AND

Some fun non-chaturanga transitions to cross train your yoga shoulders woven into a solid sink your teeth in vinyasa flow

8/8/21

Shoulder Flexion & External rotation of the upper arms Glenohumeral Rhythm

Featuring Peak Poses:

Dancer Pose

AND

Forearm Wheel

8/15/21

GUEST STAR

Gabriella HIIT and YIN

8/22/21

Protract Your Scapula

Nail the transition into Forearm Stand without a wild donkey kick

AND

Handstand Conditioning

8/29/21

Shoulder Extension

Learn to make a yoga strap Jet Pack

AND

The perfect set up for Shoulderstand and Bridge: turn your shoulders into two plush pillows to prop up your heart

July Theme: Break Through to the Other Side! Double Challenge classes

Summer is in full force!

This has always been my favorite season. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest I loved climbing cedar trees, jumping into the crisp Puget Sound, going barefoot as long as I could, bicycling across the island I grew up on to meet up with friends for days we spent outdoors from sun up to sun down.

It is a season to embrace our physicality, our spontaneity, our agility, our connection to the natural world, to challenge ourselves, play hard in the heat of the day so we can sleep like a baby under the summer moon beams. Open to the radiant, abundant, plentiful, and playful summer energy. Like opening your mouth for a plump sun-ripened blackberry, opening ever skin cell for a plunge into the pool, opening your arms to dance in a warm summer downpour, allow yourself to open to the vibrant pulse of the summer season and let it move through you.

In the Sunday Yoga Church Zoom Room this month classes have a simple and straightforward plan: We will start strong, simple, efficient, and build up two peak cardiovascular, strength, or endurance walls to break through. Bring a towel to mop up the sweat - we will plan for a strong, joyful, playful flow. Meet yourself as you are in the hot seat of your own challenges. When you break through these walls you come out to the other side a different person. Anything seems possible! You unlock that inner chocolate, the swirl of exercise endorphins through your cells that makes you feel powerful, calm, connected. Think 2 minute forearm planks, yoga burpees, mountain climbers, squat walks, and the like. These challenges will be super accessible for all levels and surefire ways to cultivate Tapas, the friction, the purifying fire of pushing through the mentally perceived obstacles and debris of self doubt, inner criticism, or general spacing out to get into the present.

Once you have made it through these two well - spaced power sets, you will really feel like anything is possible - that tough conversation, that task you have beens setting aside and avoiding, trusting yourself to follow your gut, to open to all the beauty that the day or week may bring ahead. You will emerge softer, kinder, less critical, more connected, more generous. Like sea glass tossed by the ocean waves, you will lose your hard edges. It is good for your muscles, your heart, your lungs, your joints to challenge yourself in this way but I also think it is good for your nervous system, your relationships, your wisdom and compassion.

Once we have lathered up a good sweat and got ourselves moving, we are primed for deeper poses. This month we will also be sure to visit the hamstrings, adductors, and inner thighs - balancing the vibrant yang energy of summer by opening, mobilizing, and releasing the inseams of the legs to soften our roots, quiet 0ur minds (and summer hotheads!), and connect into the yin meridians of the inner legs. Good for all your summer cycling, swimming, hiking legs.

Stay playful. Stay juicy. Stay curious.

It’s going to be amazing! See you there, my Dear Ones.

June Theme: B is for Bandha

Summertime!  It is getting lush and hot outside here in Baltimore and I am looking forward to diving into our June theme: Bandhas.  Just as we build a trellis outside for the lush summer tomatoes and snap pea vines to tendril and curl and unfurl around so too on the mat we will build an internal scaffolding through exploring the Bandhas to uplift clarify and support the range of movement possibility and articulation on the mat. Bandhas are energetic locks and lifts that support optimal lung capacity, manage internal pressure within the trunk, and concentrate actions of the deep core so we can radiate effortlessly and efficiently in the effort we put into the postures.  Bandhas are the subtle internal keys that unlock many secret passageways both to the physical elegance of the practice as well as the inner contemplative reservoirs for concentrating awareness and building a potent meditative abode. Bandhas guide us into more subtle internal bodily awareness and meditation.  In many ways activating the bandhas is what distinguishes yoga from more external forms of exercise that focus on an external task or a superficial muscle activation. Bandha work helps us locate deep postural muscles, build awareness of involuntary muscle structures, and move from the inner body.  Through exploring the bandhas, we can find lightness, learn to breathe properly, create space for more cleansing twists and breath retentions and cultivate  longer hang time in our inversions by weaving deep internal scaffolding for stability.  Bandhas can be applied as a bindu focal point of awareness, a subtle, esoteric journey of the attention to the inner body landmarks: center of the pelvic floor, apex of the thoracic diaphragm, vault of the hyoid bones.  Bandhas can be applied strong and become kriyas - cleansing activations like a plunger, a seal, a vacuum, a parachute, a damn, a net.  Come to discover the inner playground of your yoga practice this June with a deep dive into the Three main bandhas the first three weeks. Week 1 is Mula and we set our roots and get our groove back. Week 2 in Udiyanna and we cast it up and find our launch and our parachute. Week 3 is Jalandhara and we put a cork on our pranified efervescent bodies to absorb, retain, concentrate, and radiate.  June 27 I am out of town camping under the stars in West Virginia visiting my family’s favorite swimming holes and hiking paths, but I encourage you to come take class with my fabulous HIIT (high intensity interval training) teacher, Gabriella Waters, who is subbing for all you moon subscribers. She is amazing and you will not regret it. Her classes cultivate a really swell endorphin high.  The instructions I gave her were simply to make you all SWEAT. Her class is included in your Moon Membership for the month. I will also send out a 60 minute on-demand yoga practice for this week we will miss each other.

Bandha // Energetic Lock

Bandhas are the master keys to the yoga practice.  After grasping the physical postures we can start to shift our attention inward to the energetic locks and rediscover each pose anew.  Applying bandha directs energy and attention in the body in a healthy and vitalizing way.  In ancient Hatha Yoga and its sister science, Ayurveda, the three pillars of health were food, sleep, and sex.  These three bandhas create healthy digestion (Uddiyana), healthy sexual organs (Mula), and a peaceful relaxed mind (Jalandhara).

Week 1: Root Lock: Mula-Bandha

Lie down on your back with a bolster under the thighs. On the inhale breathe down to the pelvic floor sensing a softening and widening of the muscles between pubic bone and tailbone and the two sitting bones.  On the exhale, lift and engage the pelvic floor muscles in and up up up up up.  After several repetitions, work to articulate in a wave like action from the front to the back (pubic bone to tailbone as you squeeze in and up)

Benefits:

• Improves circulation to the reproductive organs

• Improves balance of suppleness and strength to the pelvic floor muscles

• Lift energy (Prana) from the base of the spine or Muladhara Chakra upwards

• Deeply grounding

• Improves Digestion and Elimination

Week 2: Upward Flying Lock: Uddiyana-Bandha

Stand with feet parallel to one another, knees bent, spine long, and hand on thighs with straight arms.  After a strong exhale breath, hold the breath and lift the low belly first in and then upwards, creating a traction in the lower back and a dramatic hollowing of the lower belly as it pulls in tight in a concave shape.  Hold as long as you comfortably can and when you need to inhale, first soften the belly and then release the energetic lock and breathe in.

Benefits:

• Stretches the Diaphragm

• Stimulates agni, digestive fire

• Massages and tones the digestive organs

• Energizes the body

• Decompresses the lumbar spine

Week 3: Throat Lock: Jalandhara-Bandha:  

Sit in easy pose, elevated on a block.  Lift the sternum and ribcage upward as you firm down through the hips.  The chin nestles into the groove between the collarbones.  This can be done with or without breath retention.

Benefits:

• Locks upward moving energy (prana vayu)

• Lifts, lengthens, and decompreses the spine 

• Stimulates the throat center and the thyroid gland

• Produces mental clarity and a meditative state

May Theme: Legs to Lungs and Lungs to Legs

April showers brought all the May Flowers. All the leaves on the trees in my neighborhood are budding green and filling out and the 75 tulip bulbs the boys and I dug into the front yard with chilly fingertips late this Fall are exploding in Crayola colors. It is a season of hope.

In Chinese medicine, it is said that our lungs hold grief and sadness. Grief and sadness can sit like a weight on the chest, blocking optimal intake and exchange. By practicing pranayama and breathing properly in our yoga practice our lung energy is strengthened and we revitalize the entire body. As we take deep expansive breaths we draw in fresh energy and ideas and let go of stagnant grief, toxic prejudices, and defensiveness. In the yoga tradition the heart center, the Anahata Chakra, is the unstrikeable space, the space of boundless courage, compassion, fearless love that cannot be brought down despite any fierce guarding or heartbreak we have endured. It has been a year. There is so much grief and yet so much hope nestled in right next to one another. Breathing and beating, exapanding and contracting.

This month we connect to our foundation - our legs - with strong standing postures, sun salutations, and balancing postures. We press into our edges of cardiovascular endurance to find that endorphin high that stays with you all day by setting a metronome for lungs and heart through steady flows. We work from the foundation of the legs to draw upward and find space to breathe better.  We climb up into the lighthouse of the heart. And we will explore inversions, toes up towards the clouds and sun, crown to the mat, offering rest to our tired legs while cooling and calming and connecting our overactive minds to the cool, dark, absorbent earth energy.

As Tias Little writes in Yoga of the Subtle Body, “The aim of pranayama is to develop a full canopy for the lung tree. However, just as trees have withering tree branches that obstruct the flow of sap, nutrients, and water, it is common for some bronchioles to restrict the flow of air.” Postural tendencies from movement pattern repetition, stuck emotion, past pneumonia/smoking/illness, or physical trauma can obstruct the thoracic spine, ribs, lungs, and heart center."

This month we move through vigorous power practices to whip ourselves up and reconnect to our fire (perfect for Kappha season where we need more Tapas and purification practices) and we devote time for pranayama at the end of each session. Pranayama, the unrestraining (ayama) of our vital life energy (pran) (or more simply said - yoga breath techniques) can be taught at the beginning or the end of a yoga session - as a way to center and catalyze and orient the practice OR after opening the body as a way to fill the vessel with potent life force and harmonize/energize/balance the energetic body.

Just like the trunk and limbs of the tree are the bones and the scaffolding to the fullness and canopy of spring leaves I now see as I look out my window at the old Birch across the street.  So too, our pranayama fills out, expands and unfurls a lush bountiful field of energy to our body after moving through the practice and making space for the breath to move in. Move your body, expand your lung capacity, and allow your heart to be moved.

I hope you can come and join us this month. Rest under the shade, protection, and healing canopy of the tree of yoga. Lean into the trunk, the wisdom of this practice that supports our lives, and feel gratitude for the deep root system beneath - the anscestors and lineage holders of this ancient practice that lives on today renewing us through each season.

To join a class, you can drop in HERE, register for a Crescent Subscription to gain access to an on demand video library, or register for a Moon Subscription to gain access to all my Sunday livestreams 10-11:30 am EST and a VIP subscriber library of over 120 practices to choose from.

April Theme: Yoga for Zoom Life

This month we are turning up the flame a little bit.  As we move into Spring, we stoke our inner fire and cultivate strength, flow, and an unshakeable connection to the steady Ujjayi Breath.  Week 1 we will work to open up some of the slouch of a closed chest and shoulders, overstretched upper back, and forward head placement of sitting in front of our zoom screens.  Week 2 we will open the heart center and reconnect to our own intrinsic joy. Week 3 we will mobilize the abdomen and free the grip of fear/flight/freeze from the belly so we can step into our power.  And week 4 we will move through a good old fashioned no frills power flow to feel our tenacity and fluidity as movers - expect to move, strengthen, lengthen, and melt into a blissfully exhausted savasana.

All the practices this month incorporate common issues I have heard and seen in students recently who are spending more time at home, more time in front of the screen.  They will address the physical body and the root emotional and spiritual energies around these physical sites of blockage, stagnation, or congestion in the body.  They will offer concrete tools and techniques you can call on over and over as you learn to identify the signs that these areas in your body might need some TLC, some slow deep breaths, and some strengthening and opening.  

4/4/21

The De-stress sesh: Unwinding tension from neck, chest, and shoulders

More than ever I hear students complaining of upper back and neck tension and tension headaches. When we learn how to strengthen the upper back and open the chest of the shoulders we can begin to see this as a three-dimensional pattern that is not so simple as “getting a backrub” or stretching one spot.  We need to build scaffolding with our strength work to hold up that open lifted posture.  And when we sit up with a lifted heart, research shows we feel better energy we breathe better and our mood improves. 

4/11/21

Front Body Opening:  Quads, hip flexors, thoracic spine breath of joy

From Tias Little, Yoga of the Subtle Body

More than ever I hear students with lower back pain.  When we restore our ground floor and learn to move from our pelvis, untuck the tailbone, breathe properly, open the hip flexors, spark connection to low core strength, and enliven the muladhara, much of this lower back pain can fade away.  

4/18/21

Gut motility:  twists, compression, core, and more

More than ever I hear students feeling they are stuck, stagnant, it is hard to commit to a routine. So much has changed in the past year and so many are holding on to the past. This stagnation can often be connected to stagnation at the seat of the fire element, manipura, the belly center.  When we sit all day our digestive organs don’t work as well.  Twists, squats, compression, and core can help stoke your fire and get things moving.

4/25/21

Power Flow:  a no frills practice to reconnect you to your spark, get sweaty, grounded, strong, and spacious

More than ever I hear students talk about the distractions of maintaining a home practice:  pets, phones, kids, housework all seem to call you away from your mat.  A power flow practice is an excellent way to absorb all attention, imagination, and effort to the practice so there is no space for the mind to wander.  By taming the monkey mind through the purifying fire (tapas) of the practice we can relax more fully into stillness by the time the final savasana arrives.

March Theme: Twist it down and Twist it up. Twist and shout it's almost Spring!

Twists are a tonic for the nervous system. Paradoxically, the more we move into a deep twist, the more calming effect it has on both body and mind. Twists are a wonderful way to release tension from the muscles surrounding the spinal column and prepare the body for deeper postures. They can be a bit of a palate cleanser - a transition both into deeper hip opening work and into deeper backbends. Sometimes in the art of sequencing - we analyze component pieces and elements of postures that are common - such as opening the hip flexors and shoulders in a low lunge pose and then opening these areas with greater articulation and range of movement in a leveraged backbend like Upright Bow Pose or "Wheel" Pose. Other times in the art of sequencing - we work perpendicular to the seam like a stitch that is sewed to interlock - we find complementary postures that not only open and prepare the body for the work ahead, but also provide relief, a detour for the body, so that we can become well - rounded and not simply repeat the same actions over and over ad nauseam. (As this can start to feel like you are stuck in a hamster wheel and it's time to get off!)

Remember when moving into twists in yoga practice to first prioritize your central axis and spinal length and then your rotation.  You want to feel a sense of spreading, lifting, and decongesting as you twist deeper.  Twists are profoundly calming, rejuvenating, and a great way to release tension from the spine to cool down in your yoga practice or to facilitate greater opening as a precursor to deep backbends.

A word on twists from the TCM perspective:

"When the spiral plane is held tight we can have a feeling of being stuck or tense. In Chinese Medicine, when we feel stuck and stressed there is usually Liver Qi involvement. Along with helping the digestion to function, the Liver is responsible for the smooth flow of Qi (especially emotional Qi). So when we feel stuck, stressed, or tense this is usually due to "Liver Qi stagnation".

Basically Liver Qi wants to move and when we're tense that Qi gets blocked leading to all kinds of physical and emotional difficulties.

The Liver is also related to our vision and creativity. As we get our Liver energy moving we feel a sense of freedom and the creative impulse returns.

To help move "stuckness" in the body whether its energetic (Liver Qi stagnation) or physical (digestive heaviness and disturbance or tension in the spiral plane) its helpful to incorporate twists into our practice. Twists bring a fresh sense of aliveness into the body and mind because of their ability to "unwind", reduce tension, and free up stagnation held in the deep interior of the body." (Jennifer Raye, TCM.P)

This month we will divide our work into twists and backbends and twists and hips. The two pair quite nicely together and you will have a chance to explore how these twists can be the golden key to unlock deeper range of movement in the hips and the upper T-Spine.

Poses we might explore include:

3/7: Twists and Heart Openers

Unstick your T Spine and Improve Your Posture

Knees Chest Chin Variations

Andre Lappa Shoulder Love

Side Bow (pars danurasana)

Camel Pose and the Mini Drop Back

Dancer Pose and Revolved Dancer Pose

X legs DFD to Wild Thing

3/14: Twist and Hips

The Arm Balance DOSE

Standing Pigeon

Grasshopper Pose

Twisted Double Pigeon

Sun Dial Pose - Astavakrasana and Koundinyasana

3/21: Twists and Backbends

Get up Stand up!

wall flow to work on Upright Bow Pose/Wheel Pose and wall drop backs and stand ups

Forearm Wheel

rethinking pasasana "noose" pose

Marichyasana 3 and how in the heck to catch that bind

bharadvajasana 1 and 2

Wall twist from Viparita Karani

gut motility: twists and belly compression

3/28: Twist and Hips

Planting Lotus Seeds:

lotus on the chair

half lotus twist, half lotus forward fold

half lotus tree

figure 8 strap for lotus legs

lotus from the ground up

lotus in camel

kukutasana and lotus headstand

February Theme: Lift Off! Pathways to Inversions

This month we will explore strategies for sustainable inversions. Learn what muscular activation is required to support a safe, fun, reliable, and well-aligned inversion practice. Ground your inversion practice from the foundation up to your toes so it does not feel like a wild hope each time you kick up that you will stick. Build strength and confidence, experiment with playful inversion variations, and flip your perspective.

2/7

Shoulderstand Prep: Extension and Adduction of the upper arms.

Today we will work with a chair, blankets, and a strap to find a well supported shoulderstand. This pose rests on the foundation of an open chest so that you can actually stand on the pillar of your upper arms and not slump the chest and rest on the neck so there will also be lots of opportunities for chest neck and shoulder opening and modifications for folks who do not wish to move into full shoulderstand today.

We might explore:

• Shoulderstand

• Chair Shoulderstand

• Chair Plow

• Chair Plow in Lotus

• One Legged Shoulderstand

• half shoulderstand, Plow

• Ear Pressure Pose

2/14

Yang to Yin: Headstand

We ground the most dense, yang bone of the body, the skull and reach up through the most yin area of the body, the pelvic floor. Let's clear up some common misconceptions about the Headstand and learn to call on the support of your shoulders and core so your neck is not the prime player in this pose.

We might explore:

• Headstand at the wall

• 6 block headstand

• Headless Headstand

• Interlace Headstand

• Tripod Headstand

• Headstand C

• Crow to Headstand Transition

• Prasarita Padottonosana to Headstand

• Pike Up and Pike Down

• Twisting Headstand with Helicopter Legs

2/21

Forearm Work: Bridging strength from arms to back to belly

We might explore:

• dolphin

• Forearm Stand

• Strateties for kick up press up, pike down, straddle up
  
  

2/28

Free Flying: Handstand

There is a teaching that says that behind all hardening and tightening and rigidity of the heart, there’s always fear. But if you touch fear, behind fear there is a soft spot. And if you touch that soft spot, you find the vast blue sky. You find that which is ineffable, ungraspable, and unbiased, that which can support and awaken us at any time.

- Pema Chodron, "Practicing Peace"

We might explore:

• core exercises to identify and target the Transverse Abdominis, Pelvic Floor, Multifidus, and Serratus Anterior that helps to support a strong handstand practice.

• the coordination of breath, bones, and bandha:  how to stack yourself well and build your own “inner parachute” to suspend floating transitions and cultivate longer hang time.

• sustainable “exit” strategies.

• techniques that create confidence, body awareness, and a more reliable, precise path in and out of handstand.

January Theme: Become Well Rounded.

This month we explore the idea of becoming WELL ROUNDED.  Practices will not have a peak pose but rather guide you through a thorough exploration of movement in all directions so that you can articulate the body in diverse movement pathways.  Like walking into a house and flicking on the lights in every room and dusting off the cobwebs from all the corners, these practices will leave each part of the body feeling activated, opened, and awakened.

This month is a return to our foundations.  Simple but not easy.  Many students inevitably lose the consistency of their practice a bit in the shuffle of the holidays.  Many students long for clarity, discipline, structure, and joyful connection to the practice as a compass to orient them into the new year.  In the Zoom Room we are joined by new students and old alike.  It is a wonderful time to reconnect to our roots.  My deepest intention this month is for practice to feel deeply grounding, well-rounded, potent, thorough, and clear.  All are welcome.  This is an open armed invitation to join us and dip your toes back into the healing waters of your practice.  It’s been a rough 9 months.  It is time to move and be moved.  Reconnect to your vitality.  Reclaim your practice.  Atha yoga-anushasanam.  Now begins the practice of yoga.

1/10:  It starts with the breath.  Our first practice of the new year I always return to the very center of this practice, the part that will make or break your experience on the mat and that can transform the ordinary into the extraordinary:  your ability to harness deep presence through the ujjayi breath.  In my class breath is linked to every transition, every movement, every posture.  The way we breathe has a tremendous effect on how we experience sensation in the body, how we dial down into our nervous system, how we expand our innate capacity to relax within intensity, and how we hone our capacity to observe show up and listen to the depths of our experience.

1/17:  Get grounded.  What does this mean to you and how do you spread your roots and build a scaffolding to substantiate your practice?  The way we align our bones and joints in postures has everything to do with our ability to dance with gravity, locate a plum bline, and release unnecessary effort and strain.  The more advanced we become as practitioners we understand this is a practice of letting go of excess and unnecessary tensions and adornments rather than learning new tricks.  Stand into your power.  Stack your bones. Open your feet, legs, and hips.  Build a solid foundation.  Find your center.

1/24:   Visit your Valleys. In any exploration of becoming well rounded, we must choose to notice not only what comes naturally and feels incredible but ALSO what does not come naturally in our bodies and what does not feel amazing? As practitioners we need not shy away from the nutrition this information offers. The postures we dislike the most can often be the very same postures offer the best medicine to our body’s individual needs. In this practice we will begin by choosing an area of the body to track throughout the practice where we feel disconnect, pain, or tension. We will become curious and compassionate around what aspects or posture categories of this practice feel most unattainable and start to break down a gentle and cumulative approach into these blind spots. How can we stay open in the face of challenge? How can we cultivate the “‘right effort” so we do not become rigid and disembodied nor do we become lethargic and bypass the opportunities for growth and transformation that these valleys in the practice invite.

1/31: Light it up.  Lila.  Divine play.  As human beings, we learn through play. Spend some time with my three year old and you will see it right away - we are wired to learn through play, experimentation, mischief even! If it does not spark joy we will not keep it in our lives, and that goes for your yoga practice as well. As soon as the practice becomes a chore, something to get better at, to prove to ourselves we lose the luster that draws us to the mat. As we return to our foundations we return to our optimism, earnest nature, and joy as practitioners.  This is the key to a thriving, regular practice.  In this energizing, uplifting practice, we will sweat, flow, play, and connect to pleasure in the practice.  My first teacher used to say, “this practice cannot be taught.  It can only be caught.”  Today we will connect to that ineffable heart of the practice.

December Theme: Journey to the Core

This month, as we move into the cooler winter weather and darker longer nights, we will ignite an unshakeable connection to our core - like setting a fire in the hearth it will keep us toasty and connected to that radiant center as we move through the practice.

What is the core - what stabilizes us and holds us to our center?  We will learn to identify, activate, and coordinate powerful deep core muscles that go beyond the superficial/frontal “6-pack”. Build bouyancy, power, floating skills, agility, balance, and pelvic/lower back pain relief. Develop strength and coordination of the deep core, breath, and bandhas in the practice that unlock the doors to many postures, provides longevity and joint stability in your practice, and helps you deeply ground your nervous system. Awakening core intelligence will improve your practice but beyond the mat it will improve the stability of your lower back and hips, your digestion, your sex life, your energy, your deep connection to your own inner stability and boundaries and self power.

All my classes this month will be core work heavy - from a close look at the breath and bandhas and learning how to fully empty before we fill to settle the nervous system and re-calibrate the pressure in the thorax and pelvis, to planks to heel drops to locust lifts to block squats.  We will journey deep to the innermost core:  psoas, pelvic floor, and transverse abdominis, and journey outward to learn how to activate all around the circumference of the core from front to sides to back, from top to bottom.  We will explore the interplay between breath and bandha and how and when to coordinate core activation effectively to maximize agility, hang time, floating transitions, and the right actions of effort and ease. 

We will explore inversions and arm balances.  We will identify why the shoulder stabilizers, like Serratus Anterior, are key players in stabilizing the core in the world of yoga where we are so often on our hands or in quadriped positions, not just standing on our feet.

We will explore Udiyana Bandha Kriya and its benefits for toning and massaging digestive organs and releasing the psoas and lower back.

We will strengthen our GLUTES!

As we flow and move through standing postures we will keep coming back to core work and core strengthening moves until we palpably feel our attention hug into the core as we stretch out through the limbs.

Restorative work and Guided Breathing at the end of each sequence will focus on releasing physical as well as psycho-emotional stress, tension, and resistance that we carry around the low belly and pelvic floor so that we set down our guard and free up our energy to sink into deep rest.

HERE please enjoy access to our opening core exercises for a 14 minute journey to the core in between our sessions. All Sunday classes will begin with this powerful series.

NOVEMBER THEME: Heart Openers with Backbone

Yoga is a cumulative process. The practice will slowly but surely change you, like sea glass in the ocean - waves smoothing out the edges and polishing the surface. It is a gradual process of refining that happens over minutes, hours, days, weeks, and years on the mat and no one else can do it for you. As the practice changes you, you will see the experience of your practice with new eyes, and feel the postures from a new body. You will see your life with new insight. There is constant and continuous opportunity for deepening, growth, and insight. If we are really paying attention, there is never a moment to be bored! It is truly a joyful path.

Each month, my Livestream yoga classes will constellate around a theme. Through repetition of the theme you become well organized, confident, and skillful in your body one theme at a time. Classes will remain diverse in sequence and postures each session yet you will begin to deepen your strength, understanding, and facility around the monthly theme each time you join me for the practice so that your progress becomes cumulative.

I plan to write a bit about each theme here on this blog at the start of the new month. Throughout the month I will share small video snippets of how we are exploring these themes on the mat.

I want to kick off my blog with this theme that is dear to my heart and bound to my approach to yoga: Substantiated Expansion. Strength to Open. Scaffolding that you erect around yourself so that you can really go out on a limb! Heart Openers with Backbone.

As a younger practitioner, I used to practice yoga by just sinking into my natural flexibility. I moved from the joints but didn’t fully understand how to articulate from the bandhas, the inner depths of my core, or the brakes of my opposing muscular strength to get the most out of each posture. I pushed my body in the direction of, “deeper! further! go back! reach back” as my college years Bikram teacher used to say. When I learned to harness the strength, stability, and integration that was the scaffolding to my flexibility my practice and my body changed for the better. My pelvic joints felt buoyant, supported, decompressed, and stable. (Bye Bye SI Joint pain!) I found a powerful connection to my deep core, pelvic floor, and shoulder stability that was a turning point in my inversion practice. (Bye Bye wall - hello handstands in the middle of the room!) I found those rusty, dusty, under-activated, overstreched muscles in the glutes and hamstrings and upper back that I had been stretching stretching stretching and learned how to turn them on and activate my own strength to open. Now this was really living! I was standing in my own strong legs. I could breathe deeply in my deepest back bends and luxuriate in each moment of opening my lungs. I felt rooted as I opened. I felt connected to the ground beneath me and the core of my being. Instead of feeling compressed and jammed up in my low back after a class focusing on spinal extension (back bending) I felt shaky in my legs that I was using powerfully to hold myself up and well supported/activated in my upper back. I was in my power. I had my own back. It was a different kind of trust fall - more competent and substantiated and less blind and hopeful. It was a personal revolution in my approach to the practice.

Now with the world in varying degrees of social distancing, I am noticing in my Livestream classes student community the need for opening the front body (hip flexors, chest, anterior deltoids) and strengthening the back body (glutes, hamstrings, upper back, posterior deltoids) to act as a counterpose to the Slumpasana of hours behind the computer screen and slouching into less ergonomic postural work from home set ups. So that is exactly what I intend to do this November - heart openers that are substantiated from a strong back body. Free your hip flexors from sitting in chairs. Open up some more breathing room in your chest and shoulders. Studies show that upright, open-hearted posture is connected to a reduction in low level anxiety and depression and an increased ability to focus mentally. Slouching habitually not only affects our physical bodies but our entire attitude, energy, and orientation to our lives.

So how do you correct slouched posture? Do you reflexively pin the shoulders back, suck in your gut, and puff up your chest like a military posture and then watch everything melt and slump and sag back again moments later? Or do you gradually yet surely improve your posture by focusing on postures and movement to open the front body and strengthen the back body so that your posture becomes sustainable and deeply embodied? The latter is what we will be doing this month. Join us to improve your posture, uplift your mood, and substantiate your back bends. The way we do one thing is the way we do everything. Yoga is a powerful vehicle for change. It is a practice for liberation - for one and for all. As you build strength you start to believe in your own inner resilience and integrity. As you gain flexibility you release habitual patterns of tension, guarding, and and straining in your body and your way of moving through life.

I hope you can join me this month for a drop in Livestream or on my Membership platform to explore this compelling theme and feel how an open heart and dropping into your own Strength to Open ripples out to every dimension of your life.