February is the month of love and I think with valentines and the hallmark industry a lot of the emphasis of love gets put on someone else. Like the love you have for your family or your significant other, which is an important relationship to celebrate! But I think it is important to also celebrate the love you have for yourself and the relationship you have with yourself. Today in class we focus on shoulder loop, kidney loop and lip loop (smile). We cultivated physical strength to hold are arm bones, collar bones and shoulders back (shoulder loop) as well as physical strength in the core as we expanded into the kidneys (kidney loop). As we worked these refinements of alignment we deepen our relationship and our understanding of our self as we shine more brightly, celebrating the love we have for our self. (This alignment also physically create less stress, tension and headaches, how awesome is that?!)
Shoulder loop. One of the seven loops (or eight if you count lip loop) in Anusara yoga where we energetically and physically draw the arm bones, collar bones and scapulas back and into the back of the heart. When I was learning shoulder loop I was so excited. I tend to be a very enthusiastic yogi. With this enthusiasm for shoulder loop I didn’t realize that I was also sticking my floating ribs out tremendously. This not only allowed my core to miss out in the heart opening experience but it also compressed my kidneys. Now as I practice opening my heart with confidence and strength I also make sure to practice another loop, kidney loop, where I pull the floating ribs in and expand into my kidneys. This action invites my core to join into this celebration of opening the heart while providing a more stable base.
As I was thinking about teaching a class where I wanted to do back bend asanas, I wanted to work on shoulder loop and kidney loop I was trying to think of some good metaphors. Since it is Valentine’s Day I have been inspired by the beautiful roses I have been seeing I wanted to talk about opening up like a rose, the uncurling of the peddles. Going from a place of contraction like the bud of the rose, or the shoulders rounded forward, to a place of expansion and an opening of genuine beauty. I love how when a rose or any flower is open I don’t think “that flower would be more beautiful if that pedal was a different color…” I just think “wow pure beauty!” I wish I could look at myself and not pick at things I wish were different and instead just see the pure natural beauty. So this opening is how I am going to link shoulder loop. But how will I get this metaphor to work for kidney loop?…..I thought when a flower is in a bud the stem is straight and when the flower opens it does NOT all of a sudden put a kink in the middle of the stem. If it did that it would snap the stem in half which would cause the flower to die. No the stem stays strong which supports the opening of the bud. SO as we work shoulder loop we to need to maintain the integrity of our core by practicing kidney loop.
Ta Da!! That is how I am linking shoulder loop and kidney loop into the theme of self love celebration + our relationship with our self + roses...
The class went great. I wrote this blog before and fine tuned it after. But one thing I realized while teaching the class that was wonderful and not fully planned. Was that the loops are really a refinement of the practice. Asking the students to really observe where they are in the pose and what their shoulders and ribs are doing and based off that non judgmental observation make these refinements to experience more of an opening… that focus, patience and awareness really helped deepen the relationship each student had with themselves. (it was wonderful to be a part of that)
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