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Alignment tips for your home yoga practice - Part 1

2/12/2019

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We all practice yoga because we want to do something good for ourselves – for the body, mind, and spirit. When we attend a class, or a retreat, we practice in the presence of a (hopefully) knowledgeable and well intentional teacher who can guide us in our practice and make sure that we get benefit from it in one way or another.

Classes, workshops and retreats are wonderful ways to learn about yoga and connect to a wider yoga community and hopefully after some time of attending, you gather enough knowledge and inspiration to start your self practice.
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Many of the guests in my retreats say they would love to start practicing on their own, but they are afraid that they will do more harm then good because all the detailed yoga cues are so many they seem impossible to remember. If this above statement is what has been going through your mind, I have some good news for you: You don’t have to remember all of them. For start, it’s enough to understand some basic principles of alignment and you can be sure that your home practice won’t end up doing more harm than good.
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ALIGNMENT IN YOGA

While it’s not easy to talk about alignment to somebody whom you cannot see, I would still like you to have in mind some universal alignment principles which will ensure safe and beneficial practice for most of the bodies.

Follow them as suggestions, not as rules. Experiment with them and see which ones work well for you and which ones you wish to set aside.

​When practicing alone, or in a class, you should never feel pain, especially around your joints: there is no such a thing as “good pain”.

On the other hand, don’t use the above suggestion as an excuse to become lazy. Put in some effort, work your muscles, but always try to stay within the balance of effort and ease.

I encourage you to always ask yourself these two questions:
  1. Can I breath comfortably into the belly?
  2. Do I feel spacious in my body? (as opposed to “crunched”)
If the answer to both questions is YES, congratulations – you are doing great! If the answer is NO, try to back off a little bit and see how you can allow your breath to flow more smoothly and how you can feel the sense of ease and spaciousness in the body. 
​FEET & ANKLES
In all of the standing yoga poses, your feet form your base. And if your base isn’t solid and supportive, the above structure will experience some instability. To make a strong and stable base, try doing these things:
  1. Actively press your feet into the floor, and try to distribute the pressure evenly between your inner and outer foot
  2. Keep your arches active. If you aren’t sure what this means, or how to accomplish this, try doing the following exercise:
Press your heel and the ball of your foot actively into the ground, and raise your toes. Do you notice the difference in your arch when your toes are up and then they are down? You can probably notice that your arch lifts when the toes are up. Try to keep this activation in the arch when your toes are down by pressing your big toe strongly into the ground.
      3. Elongate your inner ankle and your outer ankle equally. This cue is very much connected to the activation of your arch, as an active arch will somewhat prevent the collapsing of the inner ankle. Still, consciously try to move your inner ankles upwards and towards the outer ankle at the same time. If just reading this doesn’t make any sense, try doing it – it will for sure be more clear. 
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KNEES
Building your pose from the ground up, let’s have a look at the knees:
  1. Don’t hyperextend your knees, especially in weight bearing positions. Always keep a micro bend in the knees and keep the back of your knees soft.
  2. Always try to have the center of your kneecap point in the same direction as the center of your foot. This cue is especially important to follow in the asymmetrical standing poses (warriors, triangle, lunges, etc.)
As I said, it is very hard to speak about alignment without actually seeing the practitioner, so don't take the second cue as written in stone. It will be beneficial for the majority, but if you are feeling any discomfort or torque in the knees, see how you can best adjust your feet to alleviate that discomfort. Sometimes the best thing to do is not to think too much about it and just let the body find its way.
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HIPS
I will give a few cues which apply to standing poses, and particularly asymmetrical ones
  1. Try to suck in your thigh bones deeper into your hip sockets, at the same time creating the feeling of your thigh muscles gripping around your bones
  2. Never hang in your hips (or any other joint), but always keep some engagement around the joints. This is especially relevant for lunge variations, where we sometimes feel that the closer the pelvis is to the floor the more benefit we get.
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Next time you step on your mat, try to remember these things and experiment with them in your practice. See if they help you feeling more space, more stability, and more integrity in your body. I’ll share more alignment tips for the upper body in the next blog post, so stay tuned.

​I am looking forward to reading your thoughts, comments, and questions.
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5 Reasons You Should Choose a Yoga Retreat Over A Regular Holiday

4/3/2018

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​How many times a month do you think to yourself: I need a holiday! 
I totally believe that you do. Juggling your work, social life, family, self care, etc. and doing all that in a city environment, which is already stressful without all of those extra factors... Woo, damn right, you need a holiday!

Actually, even more than a holiday, you might need a yoga retreat. Here are 5 reasons why I think you should consider going on a yoga retreat in stead of a regular holiday.  

1. LONG LASTING BENEFITS
Taking time off in any format is in itself invigorating and refreshing. But once those 10 days of your holiday are over, you are back to your same old daily routine. And if you repeat the same steps in your life, you will always get the same results. 
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Going on a yoga retreat will definitely have a more long lasting benefits in your life. You will come back home with a new set of tools that will help you lead a more conscious, more productive and more fulfilling life.
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You'll have a different lifestyle during the retreat, which might inspire you to make changes in your regular life. These changes can be very simple - spending more time in nature, having a social media detox, or sticking to your simple yoga or meditation routine. But these small day-to-day choices we make are actually the biggest factors in how much we can enjoy life.

2. REALLY TAKING TIME FOR YOURSELF
Did you ever have that feeling that you needed a holiday to recover from your holiday during which you spent most of your time planning, trying not to miss out on anything, researching where to go and what to do and then trying to balance all that with the preferences of your travel companion(s)?

Retreats offer you the opportunity to take a whole week and fully attend to your needs. There is enough time to reflect, journal, finish that book, or just spend time alone and enjoy the silence. Whatever it is that recharges your batteries the most, a retreat will offer you a supportive environment for that. 
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3. YOGA AND MEDIATION PRACTICE
No matter if you are a beginner or a seasoned yogi, your yoga and meditation practice will for sure benefit from  the daily routine during the retreat. Dedicating yourself to it consistently is very helpful in creating or strengthening your own sustainable personal yoga practice. 

Most retreats offer two yoga classes a day, which will do wanders for your strength, flexibility, body awareness, focus and your self-discipline.
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Also, retreats offer the opportunity not only to do yoga and meditation with guidance, but to learn new principles, get a new point of view and maybe discover some completely new aspects to these disciplines. ​
As you dig deeper and start discovering how much there is to yoga that you actually never thought about, you will get inspired to learn and then apply that knowledge further, always keeping your attitude fresh and curious. ​

4. HOLISTIC (SELF-CARE) PACKAGE
Your well-being is directly related to what you consume - but not only through food. All the sounds, images, thoughts, movements that you "consume" during your day become the building blocks of your body-mind system. 
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In a yoga retreat, the activities are planned in a way to be varied and enjoyable. The natural setting of being far away from urban distraction, city lights and perpetual noise is conducive to your practice and your over-all well being.  A retreat is nourishing both for your body and your soul.​​​
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5. FINDING YOUR TRIBE
I am often asked if retreats are suitable for solo travelers. While at the same time, the vast majority of guests are solo travelers. And those that you most probably share many of your interests with.

The atmosphere at a yoga retreat makes it easy to connect to each other in meaningful ways through sharing your love of yoga or nature, learning together, and also through creating a shared safe space in which everybody is free to express themselves and simply be who they are without being judged.
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Retreats are places where you will for sure meet  inspiring like-minded people and create some long lasting friendships.
I hope this inspires  you to make that decision about booking your fist yoga retreat. 
If you've already attended yoga retreats, please share your reasons for participating and also what you feel you have gained from your retreat.

My Yogic Adventure offers a variety of retreats in Europe and Asia to suit everybody's budget. You can see the complete list of our retreats here
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How to Start and Keep Your Home Yoga Practice

4/16/2017

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​No matter if you’ve been practicing yoga for a while, or you’ve recently joined your first yoga class, it’s essential that you start developing your home yoga practice. Those moments when you are alone with your body and your breath are at least as important as attending a regular yoga class. So, I’d like to share a few tips with you how to start and keep your home yoga practice.
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​1. SET THE TIME
​If you decide that today you will do some yoga at some point of your day, chances are you’ll keep delaying that time until you realize that the day has passed and then you firmly decide that you will do some yoga tomorrow at some point. Will you? We already know the answer. Instead, better set the specific time and treat it as a date. Well, essentially, it is a date – with yourself.
2. BE REALISTIC
​How busy are you in your day? How realistic is it to say that you will be disciplined enough to practice 40 minutes every day? How about 30? 15? 5? Like in so many other aspects of a yoga class, more is not necessarily better. It’s the commitment and the consistency that will prove to be the biggest change makers, not the number of minutes you spend on your mat. To begin with, better go with less.
3. BE CREATIVE
I’m of the opinion that the biggest benefit from practicing asanas (yoga postures) doesn’t come because those shapes have some mystical powers, but because in yoga class, we are always invited to slow down and deepen our breath, to observe our body, and to move mindfully. So, if your reason for not practicing at home is that you can’t remember how to properly execute any of the traditional asanas, then simply don’t do them. It’ll be enough to do the simplest of moves keeping your attention on the breath, and synchronizing it with your movements. Try to listen to your body. In which way is it inviting you to move?
4. TAKE IT OFF THE MAT
For me, yoga is about finding freedom. But if we confine yoga to the one square meter of the mat, how can that be freedom? You can do yoga anywhere, and by saying this I’m not inviting you to try and put your leg behind your head while waiting at the traffic light. (Actually, I’m explicitly inviting you to never do this, but that is another subject.)Wherever you are, you can always turn your attention to your breath. You can always reach your arms up and stretch with an inhale, and soften your body with an exhale. You can always notice how you are standing or sitting. Is your posture symmetrical? Is it comfortable? You can always feel your feet on the ground and be aware of the way they touch the ground when you walk.
​Sounds simple and doable, right?

The day is full of these “yoga and mindfulness windows” inviting us to look inside. We just need to notice them.

Good luck with developing your personal practice!
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Step by step

4/22/2016

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Over the past few weeks, I shared with you some short but effective practices of bringing yourselves back into the present moment, using the tools that you always have at your disposal – your breath and your body.

This Friday, I am hoping to inspire you to try the practice of walking meditation. Or if you wish to call it mindful walking. If you are the type who claims for themselves that that they can’t possibly sit calmly in one place longer than three minutes at the time, then walking meditation can be a wonderful place to start your meditation practice. 



"The earth is so beautiful. We are beautiful also. We can allow ourselves to walk mindfully, touching the earth, our wonderful mother, with each step. We don’t need to wish our friends, “Peace be with you.” Peace is already with them. We only need to help them cultivate the habit of touching peace in each moment."

Thich Nhat Hanh


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Start by choosing a place for your practice. It can really be anywhere inside or outside, but if possible to choose, I suggest you going into nature. You can decide to practice walking meditation on a log stroll, or you can choose to do it in your back yard or even if your room, walking repeatedly between points A and B.

The most important thing to understand is that your walk has no other purpose, no ending goal, other than being aware of the joy of mindful movement.

As you are actually not going anywhere, there is no place for rush or impatience in your steps. Go slowly, as slowly as possible. Dedicate at least 15 - 20 minutes to your practice.

Start by becoming aware of your feet moving. Left foot lifting, right foot touching the ground. Right foot lifting, left foot touching the ground.

Notice the transfer of your body weight, first the heel touches the ground, then the rest of the foot rolls down following it. Same with lifting – the heel lifts first, leaving the body weight on the balls of your foot and the toes are the one to make the last contact.


Doing a walking meditation barefoot is a whole different experience – so many different changing sensations to experience at the soles of our feet. So many subtleties! You can place your attention only at one part of your foot, or you can let it glide from heels, to arches, to toes and back. Examine the ground with the soles of your feet. Notice the different sensations as you the surface on which you are walking changes. Notice the change of sensations even when you are stepping on the same surface! That is the nature of everything - it changes, no matter what. Observe this change at the soles of your feet.

Don’t let the moments of the first and last contact of your foot with the ground get unnoticed. Focus on the point where your heel first touches the ground lightly, with almost no body weight… then the point of contact getting bigger and bigger, until that millisecond when your entire foot is firmly on the ground. Try to catch that moment, to be fully aware of it, and then the next moment in which your body weight goes onto your feet balls before your toes leave the ground.

Imagine that you are watching a slow-motion video of your feet touching the ground, appreciating its stability with every step.

Let your mind completely rest on your feet. If thought come, acknowledge them and let them pass. Do not entertain them. Go back to the simple movement of your feet.

Go back to the simple joy of every step.

P.S. For an inspiring read about walking meditation by Thich Nhat Hanh, follow the link below:

http://www.dhammatalks.net/Books2/Thich_Nhat_Hanh_A_Guide_to_Walking_Meditation.htm

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Listening to and with your body

4/15/2016

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Last week, I shared with you a simple technique of observing the breath and this week we’ll explore how your body can bring you back into the present moment. As you are reading this, you are most probably not moving around too much: you’re sitting at your office desk, maybe resting at home, or maybe you’re in public transport. Either way, your body is fairly still.

Remain as you are and begin by first observing your breath for a couple of seconds. Stay still and allow your breath to become subtler and subtler.
 
Now shift your attention from your breath to your body. Start by scanning your body from the top of your head down to the tips of your toes. Become aware of the position of each body part separately. Is your head slightly tilting to one side? Is your body weight evenly distributed between left and right? Is your spine straight? As you are observing your position, don’t change it. Don’t judge it. Just become aware of it.
 
Start noticing any sensations on your body. Be aware if any part of your body is touching the ground, or the furniture? What is the sensation there? Is any part of your body stiff and tense? If so, try to observe that stiffness first – how big is the area that is stiff? Do you feel that the tension starts from a particular point and then spreads around? Observe the tension for a few moments and then with the help of a conscious deep breath let it dissolve and try to relax that part of your body. 

Once more scan your body from head to toe, paying attention to any sensations – warmth, cold, numbness, tingling, touch of your clothes, or the touch of air. Try to observe the sensations objectively. Even if the sensation on your body is unpleasant, don’t rush to change your position. Examine them as if you were looking though a microscope. 


Gently shift your attention back to your breath.

Next time you are stuck in traffic, or waiting in a supermarket queue, in stead of getting all restless and nervous, try observing your breath and your body and see that if you practice staying in the present moment, there is no such a category as 'time wasted'.

 
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