A Year of Yoga, a Journal

Yoga Journal January

I began this new year quietly and softly with stretching in the evening. Doing what feels good and what comes naturally. Feeling into my muscles and joints and asking: What hurts? What feels good? What needs attention? Finding tightness in my hamstrings and shoulders, I started with child’s pose for relaxation and centering. It felt good to come back into myself and feel grounded. I continued with table pose and felt into moving my hips side to side, and shoulders side to side and up and down. Needing to stretch out my hamstrings, I moved into dragonfly and engaged in deep belly breathing. I opened up my core and my lower chakras to feeling safe and grounded. When I felt the soreness and tightness ease, after about 8 minutes, I relaxed and sat cross legged to integrate my energy. Wanting to ease my sciatic nerve, I moved into pigeon pose with my hips stable and balanced, and my chest up, shoulders back and chin tucked in. After about 5 minutes on both sides, I unfolded myself and laid down to integrate and check in with how I was feeling. Feeling calmer and more open, relaxed and felt lighter. Finally, I sat in a forward fold and held my toes, breathing deeply and finding my center. I was refreshed, energized, feeling more flexible and relaxed.

This flow was comprised of Child’s pose, Table, Cat Cow, Dragonfly, Pigeon, Forward fold.

Yoga Journal February

I was feeling more restless at the beginning of this month. That’s a good thing. We’re moving away from short days, early dark nights, and cold evenings. I also started my practice a little earlier in the evening, to catch the warmth at end of the day. I did a mixed Hatha/Yin practice. I started in table pose and moved my hips in circles, and snaked back and forth to get some good movement in my spine. Cat Cow up and down movement helped open my spine and relax my belly and open my chest and heart. I felt so tight in my hamstrings and working through downward dog several times in the practice helped “wake up” the back of my thighs. Longer stretching through trikonasana and raising my hand to the ceiling and moving energy up from my feet through my heart and up as far as it could go helped energize me. Mountain pose alternating with goddess pose helped channel that strength into my core. Pigeon pose helped stretch out my sciatic nerve. Resting in dragonfly helped open my inner groin, and moving onto my back and getting some more gentle groin stretching in happy baby pose and then rocking back and forth helped massage my back and spine and I felt my spine relax. Finally, I sat in butterfly pose to meditate and ground back into my center.

This flow was comprised of Table pose, Cat Cow, Downward Dog, Trikonasana, Mountain pose, Goddess pose, Pigeon, Dragonfly, Happy Baby, Butterfly pose.