Celebrate Your Victories

In my yoga classes this week, I have been teaching a pose that I've been calling "Victorious Warrior." It's not a real yoga pose, but it's a posture that helps generate strength and stability in your core. I combined the posture with the concept of Ujjayi Breathing. Ujjayi means "victorious" in Sanskrit. The idea of the yoga sessions was to find and experience the victories in your life.

That can be the intention for your home yoga practice this week: to take a moment and call to mind your personal successes and victories that you've experienced this week. Be proud of the moments when you made great achievements. Give yourself a pat on the back for accomplishing something you've been working on. Celebrate!

Ujjayi Breathing
Start in Mountain Pose. Be sure your feet are firmly planted on the floor with your toes pointing directly forward with your feet about hip-distant apart. This will establish a strong foundation. Stand tall with strong legs and extended spine. Feel the energy rising up through your body through the crown of your head. Just standing here can give you a sense of feeling victorious. Mountain Pose can help you feel majestic, proud, and confident.

Close your eyes and focus on your breath. Breathe slowly and deeply. Use the muscles of the throat to engage the Ujjayi Breath. With each inhale, experience how the breath rises high into the chest, expanding the lungs, chest, and opening the heart. Maintain this vibrant, intentional breath by engaging the abdominal lock (i.e. draw the belly button in toward your spine.) This will allow the breath to remain high in the chest space rather than "falling down" into the belly. This way of breathing creates that uplifting, victorious sensation in your body. Take 10-15 breaths here. Celebrate the stillness, celebrate your victories, celebrate the moment.

Victorious Warrior
As mentioned, their really is no such thing as Victorious Warrior, but a variation of Warrior II and Side Angle Pose combined that generates strength and stability in the core body.

Come to Warrior II. Start with you right foot forward. Bend that leg so it is just about 90 degrees. The back leg is straight with the foot firmly connected to the mat. Be sure your right knee is stacked directly over (or slightly behind) the right ankle. The arms are extended out to the side (with hands reaching toward the front and back of the room.) Engage your core by scooping the pelvis under so that your tailbone is pointing toward the floor. By tilting the pelvis in this manner, you create more opening and alignment in the hips, a release in the low back, and an engaged low abdominal region. Hold this posture for a few breaths with some emphasis on the exhale so you are able to hold the posture. Experience the energy and strength generated in this pose so far.

Now, keep your right hand right where it is while reaching the left hand up over your head. The upper body will shift a bit toward the front knee creating a 45 degree angle with the floor. Be careful NOT to shift the lower body too much. It's just an upper body movement. If you shift too much energy into the front knee, you might experience a release of the core engagement. For this particular pose, you want to remain strong and connected to the core system. Keep the arms extended and even form a "V-shape" with the arms (turn your hands so your palms are facing each other.) This is what I call Victorious Warrior. The longer you hold this position, the more intense it may feel. Here, be reminded of your inner strength that it took to meet your goals, to be successful, to be victorious. If you can, hold for 5-10 breaths. Return to Warrior II, then do the other side.

By practicing these two yoga poses, we can be reminded that it can take great effort to achieve our goals. And once the goals have been met, you have every reason to celebrate.

Namaste

Release

It seems that our bodies have become accustomed to holding stress. There are so many things happening around us. With so many ways to reinforce and share news of stress, worry, and concern, our bodies cannot help but absorb these energies. These energies easily settle into our joints, muscles, bones, and organs.

Because our bodies become used to these sensations, we sometimes think that this is a normal feeling for the body to have. We have forgotten how it really feels to be relaxed. If we have the opportunity to go to a massage therapist or a restore yoga class, we are reminded of those feelings of relaxation, but we sometimes step out of the therapist office or off the yoga mat and immediately back into our stressful world.

Here is a home practice that will help remind us that being stressed is not the normal state of the body. The two poses described will exaggerate the feeling of stress as well as remind us of how to release that stress.

Eagle Pose
We will use this posture as a binding and balancing pose that emphasizes the state of stress. Start by standing in Mountain Pose. Be sure you feel rooted into the earth and connect to your breath. Inhale and extend your arms over head. On the exhale, slowly lower your arms and pay attention to them as you bring them down. Cross your right arm underneath your left. They will intersect at the elbows. Keep your arms crossed then bend your elbows so your hands are reaching upward. Continue to wrap your arms around each other and interlace your fingers. Your arms will be directly in front of your face.

Next, bend your knees as if you were going into Chair Pose. Keep your right foot on your yoga mat and then cross your left leg over your right. The hamstring of the left leg will be directly on top of the thigh of your right leg. Squeeze tightly so that there is no space between your legs. You may even be able to wrap your foot of the left leg around the calf of the standing leg.

You are now in Eagle Pose. Hold the posture and continue to breath deeply. As you hold the pose, continue to squeeze the arms and legs together even more tightly. Experience the tension in the body while holding the pose. To add more tension, lift your elbows slightly so your triceps are parallel with the floor. Further, push your arms slightly forward. These actions will add more tension in your back. Keep your focus forward. You will notice that you will be looking directly at your arms unable to see the wall in front of you clearly.

This entire pose and sensation can remind us that we hold a lot of tension in our bodies and this tension may even block our vision; we are unable to see clearly the path in front of us. We are stuck behind an obstacle - and that obstacle is often ourselves.

Warrior II
Now it is time to release the tension. Slowly begin to unbind your arms and legs. Lift your left leg and take it to the back of your mat. Extend your arms out so they are parallel to the floor. You will end up in the Warrior II pose. Your right knee is bent (about 90 degrees), your right arm is extended out over the right leg. Your focus is over your right hand. Your left leg is straight and your leg arm is extended out over your left leg. Experience the freedom in your body as you have opened yourself up. Your arms are now extended, your heart and chest are open, your hips and legs are also free. Hold this pose and settle into the release of tension and tightness. Repeat these postures on the other side.

As an intention, be aware of the worries and stress that you currently hold while in Eagle Pose. As you release into Warrior II, also release those worries and stress. Create an open mind and body. As you gaze over your extended hand, see your clear path in front of you.

Namaste.