Hello curious person
I welcomed my free spirit back in for October. I knew it was going to be a busy month, so our practice was less rigid. For the past couple of months, I’ve been embracing the linear throughout our classes. Slowly adding and building as the month progresses. There was a lot less of this throughout October. It was must more adaptive to those little conversations I’m having before the class starts.
One of the reasons I was able to be more flexible in my approach was because of our theme. I never did decide on the name, so I just settled on “sensations”. The idea behind the theme was to explore what’s going on within whilst we’re making shapes. To delve into the big, obvious feelings in the body and then scout our attention outwards. It slowed our practice down and, after quite a few months of a strong pace, it meant that we had longer to experience.
As we were leaving summer behind, I was seeing a lot of content that really focused on body areas. It would all be rather targeted whether this was in the fitness world or in yoga land. Obviously, as I spent a little bit of time on my mat thinking about this, I naturally started to think about the opposite. Are we ever really isolating one area? This was the origin of this theme. Go to the most obvious, big feelings in the body and broaden your focus to look at that’s going on in the surrounding tissue, joints and limbs. It really helped me to appreciate that it’s always a whole-body experience!
Disclaimer: I’m not saying there is anything wrong with focusing on one area and targeting all your poses/movements to that area. I love a good anatomy themed class. However, in that moment, I really enjoyed the moment of realisation when I was in pyramid pose. I zoomed my attention in and out to see that there was a lot more going on beyond that really intense stretch in the back of the leg. It actually reminded me of our rotation of consciousness in Yoga Nidra – start on the individual and slowly broaden our focus as we progress.
I took it one step further though. As the weeks progressed, we shifted away from the feelings going on in the pose and started to bring awareness to those lasting feelings that continue to live in the tissues once we come out of the pose. It was a path from the obvious to the subtle. The big stretch in the leg, assessing the surrounding area, noticing what’s going on turned into recognising that these movements continue to inspire sensations in the body though we left them two minutes ago. We added pauses in to soak in that moment.
Like I said at the beginning, it was a perfect practice because I have been busy studying. I didn’t always have the capacity to follow a rigid plan and execute it over the space of the month. Plenty of you saw me, on a Wednesday, in that course until the final possible minute before I had to withdraw and teach our class. This fluid theme offered me space to learn and to teach at the same time. I have two more sessions left of this course and I this type of practice will be showing up in our classes! It’s perfect, particularly if you feel worn out most of the time like I do.
I’m in the process of figuring out what’s next. Is there anything you want to practise? Let me know.
See you soon
Sam
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