One Yoga Pose, So Much Going On: Three Months in the Making
- Sam Turner
- Jul 7
- 3 min read
Hello curious person
And in the blink of an eye, June passed. Blown away, people. Absolutely blown away by how quickly our From Head to Heels sequence flew by. We’ve already firmly found our feet in July with Room to Breathe.
Now, I’m going to go off-topic here. - but your choice to select Room to Breathe was a shocker. It’s been on the list since, I want to say, January. I assumed that it would graciously sit there, at the bottom of the list, until I finally gave up on popping it on the poll. Every month, it has received one or two votes. This month you changed that and declared that THIS theme was the one for you. I love that - I love our little theme voting system. As always, thanks for placing your vote!
Anyway, we detoured and now we are returning to our designated route. From Head to Heels was excellent. Challenging, also. This theme was designed by combining ideas we’d explored throughout the first half of 2025, creating shapes that tapped into the whole body. When we entered these poses, we gave ourselves time in them. Time to experience the shape in its entirety from head to heels.
Our themes have peeled back another layer to our practice. It’s revealed how much is going on in some of the shapes that we would expect to see in every class. After spending a month with the shoulders and then the hips, we became very focused (a little like the first stage of rotation of consciousness in Yoga Nidra). We were picking a joint, a movement or a combination of both to explore shapes centred around that. All challenging in their own right. But we had focus.
Then, when we expanded our attention out to the whole body (a little like the final stages of rotation of consciousness in Yoga Nidra) it was a real wow moment. How is there so much going on?! It was fascinating to look at these poses, that are typically thrown into a class to create a well rounded sequence, with new eyes. The body is doing so much to explore a pose like triangle. Wow. Wow. Wow.
We cultivated awareness and attention when we explored the shoulders and hips… Now that taste of attention travelled beyond the class as our mind worked, in the background, to build up this map of the body. This map, as we entered this full body theme, just lit up when we were creating shapes. I could list each area of the body and what it’s doing but I’m not going to… Instead, just think about it, if you enter a triangle pose right now, consider what the feet, ankles, legs, spine, ribs, shoulders and neck are doing. Just think about how big that shape actually is. There’s so much going on.
And, obviously, we did more than just triangle pose for an hour. Triangle was one of seven standing poses that we held for ten breaths each. This gave us the room to adjust, to intentionally choose how far we entered the poses and what we wanted to do with those arms/shoulders.
Mountain
Warrior 1
Humble Warrior
Pyramid
Triangle
Warrior 2
Side Angle
Peaceful Warrior/Reverse Warrior
Ten breaths sounds like a long time, but honestly, I felt like we could have held this a little longer. Throughout this sequence, by the time I could see (or feel) you easing into these shapes, it was time to move on. That’s the joy of exploring this over a month, though… I saw these poses transform in your body, week by week, as you became more confident!
June rounded off a series of themes that revealed themselves quite quickly back in April. Thank you for joining me - not just in June, but throughout April, May and June. We’ve explored so much of the body over these three months. I loved the journey. I hope you did too.
Now, as I mentioned earlier, we’re moving into Room to Breathe - a slower pace, more fitting for these summer months where the days are long and the light is bright. I explain it much better on the classes page of my website, but this theme is about finding space… As we find space, we breathe into it. There’s going to be particular attention on the sides and front of the torso.
With that, thanks for reading. The next time you’re flying through a fast-paced yoga class, just remember how much is happening in each and every one of these poses.
I’ll see you soon,
Sam
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