Eva's Yoga

FALL/WINTER Practice

WARMING, GROUNDING, FOCUSED, & STEADY

Tips: Practice in a cooler, darker environment with a more passive attitude without expectations, competition, or judgment. Use soft, calming music. Keep your gaze down and work at 70% with moderate holds. Postures close to the ground provide coolness and stability.

Pranayama: Slow and steady movements with breath to relax the body.

Pratapana (warm ups): Slow, controlled movements with breath - to relax the body and calm the mind.

Meditation: Warm visualization, mantra meditation and longer Shavasana.

Suggested Asanas
Warm up slowly and include some joint rotations. Move with intention and fluidity—grounding hands and feet in any posture where they touch the earth—and avoid jumping between postures. Use the ball mounds of toes, especially the big toe mound. Make the sequences smooth and steady rather than quick and jerky. In all postures take the eyes slightly downward toward the earth to help ground the body and mind and fixate gaze at an unwavering point for stability, maintaining inner focus.

Slow Sun Salutation - for warming, emphasizing stability and alignment in the pelvis, hips, and thighs. Standing and balancing poses such as Mountain, Warrior I and Warrior II, and Tree pose to increase stability & strength. Standing poses stabilize and ground you, and balancing poses help focus the mind & connect to the earth element.

Forward Bends: standing or sitting forward folds help bring calm to the nervous system Child’s pose and other resting poses to bring more stillness, awareness & grounding energy to the practice.

Prone Backbends like Cobra and Bow Pose help stabilize and warm lower back and bring heat to the entire spine through extension. Avoid too many standing backbends, as ayurvedic principles hold that they bring energy up and cool the body which goes against goals of grounding and warming. Seated poses that open hips, thighs and lower back such as Cow Face Pose, Bound Angle Pose and Garland Pose.

Sign of Successful Practice: Feeling warm, stable, grounded and present. Experience the feeling of being nurtured, supported, and strong. Your mind and senses feel clear and any emotional irritation and tension is released!

What defines Kripalu yoga is its emphasis on...

Following the flow of Prana (the life-force energy)
Practicing compassionate self-acceptance
Developing witness consciousness (observing the activity of the mind without judgement)
Taking what is learned ‘off the mat’ into your daily life
It’s designed to adapt to all body types, ages & fitness levels

Guidelines for a Remote practice

With more people practicing yoga with on-line virtual classes, there are more injuries taking place. Here are some tips to help you stay safe in your practice:

How can you avoid injuries in yoga?

Slow down your yoga practice, it’s the one place and time you don’t need to rush. A fast-paced flow can cause injuries by overlooking alignment and body awareness

Stay focused on breathing as you move through and hold poses. Your mind is steady and you’re not distracted by random thoughts that create muscle tension, stiffness and blockages to the flow of prana

Don’t overdo it, and if it hurts, back out of it. An intense practice can lead to overuse of joints and stress on tendons and muscle fibers. Pushing can lead to tears in the joints, tendons, and muscles

Proper alignment will keep your joints in their proper position

In Warrior poses don't let your bent knee go past your ankle

Use appropriate props and protect your knees with a folded blanket

Protect your lower back by warming up before going into a deep twist

If you have tight hips and hamstrings, bend your knees before doing forward bends

Do not come up “one vertebrae at a time” when rising from a forward bend, but rather bend your knees, use your core strength and legs and rise up with a flat back to avoid injury

Be happy with where you are and not where you think you should be and remember that ‘real yoga’ is about quieting the mind and “QUIET MINDS CORRELATE WITH LONGEVITY”