ATTITUDE- it is the heart quality, feeling, intention that awakens the inner transformative properties of a pose. That opens up to the currents of grace the unexpected radiance that blesses our practice and connects us to our inner truth. ALIGNMENT- integration in a pose - where the outer body meets the inner body — the steady, effortless space where breath, body, heart, and mind become one. ACTION - Balance between muscular energy (extrinsic) and organic energy (intrinsic) the play between stability and freedom, contractions & expansion, effort and surrender.
UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES OF ALIGNMENT
1. Open To Grace - setting an intention for your practice, soften
2. Muscular Energy - hug muscles to the bones, draw in to the midline
3. Expanding Inner Spiral - energy from the feet into waistline
4. Contracting Outer Spiral - energy from the waistline to the feet
5. Organic Energy - extension from the inner body, radiating out.
LOOPS provide a description for how the muscles, when properly engaged, prevent locking at key joints, and establish proper alignment with gravity, vertical extension. SPIRALS work on the horizontal plane to create lateral expansion and compression. The overlap takes place around the pelvis where the thigh and pelvic loop correspond to the inner and outer spiral. This is where mula bandha happens, the root lock. |
