Practice of the Day from Niroga

All you need is 10 minutes out of your day. Five in the morning before getting out of bed, and 5 minutes before you fall asleep.

The instruction is to bring your awareness to your hands, and observe sensation in your hands. Try not to look for a particular sensation. If you do not feel anything, just notice that you do not feel anything, and hold your attention on your hands. If you do feel something, just observe whatever you feel without trying to analyze or pass judgement. Read more…

I read about a woman who went on a 40 day meditation retreat. One of the meditations she was instructed to do was to hold her palms in front of her chest, keeping them slightly open, and gaze into the space between them and for 11 minutes, she was to choose a person to focus on, such as her significant other, or someone she loves, and imagine them happy–really, really, happy–allowing whatever images to come to her mind. Of course try to stay with your breath too, so that you feel connected to your body. By the end of the course, and when she was to go home and interact with her husband,  she could only feel extreme gratitude and unconditional love for him. She realized that she did not need to change him, but rather she changed, her perspective changed as her heart opened up.

Try this meditation everyday for the next week, and just see what happens!

Yoga class at Lincoln elementary

This week we will practice observing sensations on the top of our head.

Remember, do not look for any particular type of sensation; merely place your attention there and watch; whatever arises, just watch without judgement; at the same time, keep some attention on your breath.

Suggested practices :

Beginners: 5 minutes in the morning and evening, adding one minute each day

If you have a formal practice, try doing this for 20 minutes, both in the morning and evening, adding on a minute each day.

Warm up to this pose with gentle hip raises. Inhale as you lift up and exhale as you come down.

On your fifth round, hold the hips up and breathe naturally and fully into your belly and chest for 10 breaths. Repeat two more times.

When you are finished, draw your knees into the chest and then draw your nose to your knees for 6 or more breaths.

Lie in Savasana (Corps pose) for 2 minutes.

I feel as if all of these years I have taken Cat/Cow pose for granted. Now that I know what it is like to be severely injured, and to realize that just because a pose seems easy, it does not mean it is not valuable, I have been practicing cat pose, and appreciating it a lot more.

Practie: 5 rounds

Finish in Balasana, child’s pose for 10 breaths

If you are unfamiliar with Cat/Cow, please click on link below

http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/2468

On Saturday I went to a great workshop, Yoga for a Healthy Posture, at Uptown Yoga in Oakland. The instructor was Simona Balan, and she was very knowledgeable about the body and specifically the spine. She opened up the workshop with a great reminder, that our emotions affect our posture, and vice versa. Read more…

Try this asana several times throughout the day. When you want a really good stretch for your spine, hamstrings, ankles, shoulders, this one tends to feel really great. It is also very rejuvenating and can reduce fatigue. Read more…

Several Niroga students talk about how yoga has affected their lives:

Wow, it has been quite some time since I have posted a practice!

So your practice for today is to have fun with Tree Pose (Vrksasana). While going into balancing, notice how you are going into the pose, notice your thoughts around what you are doing. Notice how you react when you feel shaky. Try to just be with all of these sensations, as you put your attention on the movement of your breath. Read more…

Hopefully you all realized that yesterdays post was an april fools practice.

It is interesting though, speaking of cigarettes. I read in the New Yorker several years ago that smoking is the sinister form of Yoga, all we want to do is take a deep breath.

So your practice now is to honor your breath, be grateful that you can breathe, and see each breath you take as a chance at bliss