Ep 133: Autumn Yoga for Yoga Teachers: Aparigraha, Vata & Grounded Balance 90 mins

Resting the body, allowing the base of the body to become heavy.

Taking a moment to allow your body to mold itself to the ground underneath you.

So having a sense, first of all, of how you're meeting the ground this morning.

You might even imagine the impression that you would make on the ground.

Bring awareness into that plane between body and earth.

And then reaching the sitting bones down into the earth.

And as you reach the sitting bones down, there'll be that answer back coming from the ground, that little push back from the earth that brings you up a little bit taller.

So just letting that movement come from the earth all the way through the body up to the crown of the head.

And so we have length and stability through that vertical axis of the spine.

And then bringing awareness to the kidneys at the back of the waist.

You might even actually bring your hands here to the kidneys, warming the kidneys.

It's important to keep the kidneys warm as we go into the colder months as well.

And bringing your breath back into the kidneys.

Just imagine, or you might even be able to feel a little movement there as you breathe down.

deep and low into the lower body.

And if you find that your kidneys are feeling a bit tight, and that can happen if the rib cage is capsizing forward a bit, then just bring the front ribs back until you feel that sort of fullness around the kidney area.

And it's the kidneys that lend some buoyancy and lift to the upper body.

So a little bit like a raft.

So having a sense of this buoyancy of the kidneys, and then bringing the hands together just in front of the heart and we're going to come to a version of Anjali Mudra where we have the fingers spread so it's different from Namaste hands and then the base of the thumb just in front of the breastbone so you can actually have the base of the thumb touching the breastbone and slightly lifting it so you can put some pressure so we have this actual physical lift around the heart space and then if you like you can have your eyes closed Take your awareness inside and become aware of the two poles of the spine, the crown and the tail.

The crown of the head open to the sky, the tailbone rooting you down into the earth and the heart in the middle and connecting to the heart now as the touchstone that brings alignment, that brings stability.

It's like an anchor for your presence in the center of these two poles.

And today I'm going to offer you a sankalpa to practice with.

A sankalpa is an intention or a resolve And it's one that you can come back to, to find steadiness, to connect back to your intentions when there is change around you.

And it's simply this.

I take a breath and return to my heart.