Today’s Anusara yoga class was nothing short of more revelation. As Bo said, even at his level, every time he practices and when he does all the alignment, spiraling and loops ( all anusara terms ), he always learn something new about himself, his muscles… always learning => growth!
Today Bo did a very basic class. But I really learnt a number of new things from the class. Very insightful for me. He was revisiting the basic anusara yoga’s principles of spiraling and the different loops ( me still quite confused about the loops ( kidney loop,skull loop,ankle loop,pelvic loop? but the spiraling of muscles are now more clear ).
Things I picked up :
- How to feel the ground. Hmmm… now I realized that we work the pose from bottom up in the standing poses like Warrior 1. First, know that where is the heart of the pose. Then feel the ground, acknowledge and connect to the ground. This is the base, the root.
- Hug in a lot and then softened a bit. Then hug in again. Pulsing in the pose. Hug in to protect by engaging the muscles and soften enough ( I think, more of like slightly surrendering to the pose and enjoying the pose, go deeper – my personal take )
- How to lift the inner arch of the feet. I heard Bo talk about this quite a bit but I never did manage to lift them up before ( I tried but could not… my feet is quite flat ) But today, I tried by pushing my little toe’s side of the foot really hard down and then lifting the arch. I could see it lifting up quite obviously and my stance was much stronger.
- finally balancing for 4-5 seconds in forearm balance… I followed Bo’s instructions to a T on the softening and keeping the “loop” ( or I think I did ) at the kidney before kicking up. Somehow that helps! Hmm… have to reproduce that again…
I really appreciate classes like this which is simple and yet it explores much deeper and require much more understanding of your body . Maybe that’s why I sometimes I enjoy those level 1 sessions as it is the only time I get to do the pose slowly. Exquisite savoring of the nuances in the pose.
Oh, the best part was that while I was struggling in the class with the blocked nose… and a nasty cough that came on at the last part of the practice, I love the class. And I got through it ok!
PS. Just looked at John Friend‘s Anusara yoga site… he is coming to Asia, Tokyo in Nov… I wished I could go for all his Anusara yoga classes!
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