Morning Vinyasa Practice: Walking Against The Traffic

It's 6:30 AM on a Friday morning, here is the city that rhymes with fun, in the land under the sun. I am at the newly opened Bodhi Tree Hot Yoga Studio in beautiful downtown Regina, ready to teach a beginner level Vinyasa class. Leondard Cohen calls out to me, and I can't resist him.

6:30 AM is a crazy time to do yoga you say.  Yes, if you plan on standing on your head, but what we are doing is a soulful flow with music that moves you.

If you know me, or at least read me, you likely know that I am a night owl. I like the stillness of the night. It has always been my time to write, to think, to plan, to meditate on life.

Walking against the traffic is to do that which is outside of the ordinary. So, for me, teaching a 6:30 AM yoga class downtown is a great way to start.

"It's a beautiful day" by U2, plays. We are in child's pose, finding our breath, feeling it move into the back of our lungs, and pushing our body upward with each inhalation.  As we exhale we feel our body fall. This breath takes us away from the past and the future, and brings us to the present.

We rise up to cat/cow for more breath and movement, we begin to liberate our  hamstrings, hips, backs, and shoulders. We push back with soft legs into our first downward facing dog, with our knees bent, hamstrings releasing and our shoulders opening. At this point, we know we are alive and well. We revel in this moment, finding length in our bodies and building heat, breathing in and out of the posture's depth.

Supertramp's "Take the Long Way Home" builds, as we continue our trek, resisting the urge to flow forward, we walk backward to our find our feet, forming the first Uttanasana (forward fold) of the practice. Our legs are soft and our back is relaxed. We breath in and out, feeling our chest rise and fall against our legs. We lift our tail bone to find length in the legs.

Placing our hands on our hips, elbows up, we inhale with our chest rising up to Tadasana (mountain pose), where we find our centre, our source of stability and balance from which we move.

In teacher training we have spent hours in this posture alone. There is so much to learn. Place the feet forward, so the middle toe lines up with the centre of the knee and hip. Rotate the thighs inward. Open the gluteus muscles, so that they will allow for bending and movement.

We rise up with breath and exhale to find Uttanasana, inhale to Tadasana, exhale to Uttanasana. We walk forward to high plank, and prepare to move through a flow of postures to lift the spirit and build heat: chaturanga, upward facing dog (Adho Mukah Svanasana), downward facing dog (Urdvha Mukah Svanasana.

The sequence takes us back to where we began, in Uttanasana and Tadasana, as we prepare for the warrior sequence with the poet, Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. Block in hand, we are called to a wide legged Tadasana, arms stretched high, hands together, holding the block high as we reach for the heavens. Leonard's voice carries us through warrior 2, exalted warrior, extended angle, triangle pose, extended angle with a bind and a blissful wide legged forward fold and back to wide legged Tadasana, arms stretched overhead, hands together, reaching for the heavens.  (Using a block in hand through the sequence allows us to explore the extension of ourselves, and to be build mindfulness into each movement.)

Finding poetry in the stillness of calmness from calamity, Cat Steven's "Morning has Broken" takes us through balancing postures including tree pose, (Vrksasana), and extended hand to toe pose (Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana) and finally ending in Tadasana.

The soulful Neil Young sings "Such a Woman" as we fold and walk forward to high plank to build strength in our arms, chest, core and back and integrate movement, ensuring that joints are stacked and able to support the movement. We shift forward and hold.

We move through a series of slow chaturangas, integrating side plank.  The plank sequence is purposely and possibly painfully slow. We resist the urge to move too quickly as our bodies shake in this state of suspension.  Again, resisting what is easy or what is known, we move slowly into each posture, grounding and lifting, extending and contracting in order to feel the full affect in our bodies in motion.

We are "Swallowed in the Sea" as Coldplay takes us onto our backs to practice leg extensions, arms extended over head. First we move our legs 25% of the way down, than back up just as slowly; then 50% of the way down; then back up; then 75% of the way down, and then back up with equal intensity, being mindful to stay grounded. We hover in Navanasa (boat pose) of course, and recover in happy baby, rocking back and forth, before moving back to child's pose and finally back to downward facing dog, which by now is a welcome relief.

We take flight once again, lifting our hips, and flowing into a chaturanaga / upward facing dog / downward facing dog sequence, followed by a crescent lunge on the knee (Anjaneyasana) to open the hip flexors.  (Sometimes I love to add a little twist here, bringing the bicep over the thigh, and sometimes moving into a bind).

It's now 7:15 AM. We move into a One Legged King Pigeon Pose (Eka Pada Raja Kapotaasana) using a bolster for cushioning and to elevate the hip.  We sink into the posture and find some bliss in the release of the hips just as Coldplay's "Fix You" begins to play.  We move to a seated position, preparing for the final fold sequence.

Sitting a seated upright position with legs crossed, we move from side to side,arms flowing with breath, opening the rib cage, finding length. We extend the right leg to a 45 degree angle and draw in a breath, to slowly exhale into the side bend. After some breaths, we move our hands to the floor, and begin to "walk" on our hands toward a forward fold.

We move to the left, to find length and then eventually walk back to centre for a fold, bringing the soles of our feet together for Baddha Konasana (Butterfly pose). We inhale and exhale forward into the pose, finding further sensation in our hips. Some of us open to a wide legged seated position, as we begin to breathe and move, integrating the concepts of cat/cow.

As we inhale, the chest comes up, as we exhale the back arches, until we settle into a blissful fold, surrendering to the freedom of the moment.

7:24 AM:  Sivasana takes us back to a place of peace, where we rest in Corpse pose, to renew ourselves and prepare to walk back into our lives.