Ease In Yoga

Finding the ease in yoga.

That was the theme of the class today. I thought about the ease in yoga as being comfortable in a pose, enjoying the sensation in the body and breath. But alas, it was not to be so as I had blocked nose. This in effect cause me to realise the great importance of how breath really help in any of the asanas. Even in downward dog, the difficulty in breathing through the nose caused much discomfort in the pose. I seriously think having the proper breathing during any practice is very important and not to be dismissed lightly.

I am very glad that the classes that I love so much are back. Yippee, handstands are back too! I was afraid that I will forget how to do handstand since I had not practice it for a long time. We even did a handstand in class with “eagle” or garuda legs! Hard to balance but fun to do. hehe.

Today’s class had some focus on how we put our hands when in handstand, downward dog as well as urdhva dhanurasana ( wheel ). The hands should be like a tiger’s paw with the fingers “clawed” on the mat. This will protect your wrists and strengthened the muscles in the forearms. We did a wheel and had each other helping when we had to rest on your fingers instead of using the entire palm!

When I did that, my wrists was not affected by the pose at all, it was weightless. Instead my fingers were the ones hurting. This shows that when you gripped the mat with your fingers strongly, you will create a lift in the wrists and protect them.

Thus to strengthen the forearms’ muscles, one can practice downward dog by having the palms on the floor with the fingers ( except the thumb ) slightly out and grip all fingers strongly into the mat.

om~

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