First Summer Round 2--Nourishing, Digesting, & Strengthening

MYOGA SEASONS for Subscribers

If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere and just now stepping into MYOGA Seasons, Round 1 introduced the energies of Manipura Chakra/Navel Centre with some key pranayam and digestion-stimulating practices, as well as this Basics level video. I recommend starting there, especially if you strike any trouble here in Round 2.

We begin, as we did in the womb, in Child Pose, where we received all we needed from our mother via the placenta, an extra organ that grows alongside us. As we learn to breathe on our own outside the womb, the navel centre becomes a path to wisdom. It’s here at the core that I begin a teaching tour of the chakras. While you ground and arrive on the mat in this embryonic posture, I review our focus for this session—nourishing, digesting and strengthening.

To nourish ourselves we must release that which is no longer nutritive. Literally, we need to get rid of the shit! As fire is our element here in Manipura Chakra, I touch briefly on the digestive fires in the belly. To read more on the gunas that I mention, check out this Yoga Journal article, and here’s a handy-dandy visual to give you a rough sense.

In detailing further these qualities of being, I quote myself, which feels a bit funny, but them’s good words worth repeating for our digestion focus. You can find more in this article I wrote for The Yoga Lunchbox in 2013! Yikes already!

“Stimulating the naval centre, from which our limbs radiate like the rays of light and heat from the sun, not only gives us strength at our core, it literally sparks the digestive fires in the belly so we can draw energy and power from the raw materials we consume, and pass on the dross.

• When this belly fire is over-activated, or rajasic, we may experience acid reflux or ulcers.

• When under-stimulated, or tamasic, we may be sluggish and develop such conditions as candidaisis or chronic fatigue.

Emotionally, fire energy that is not given an outlet turns inwards, like an ulcer chewing away at the delicate innards, and can be seen in anger, even rage, or shame. The shadow, or inadequately expressed potential of an energy centre, shadows us until we turn and face it, and then direct that energy to a healing/whole purpose.

Anger is strong energy and strong medicine – when balanced with the compassion of the heart and the right relationship of the hips.

Svadhyaya, or self-study, helps us here to look inwards; vision or sight is the sense associated with Manipura. We use clear-seeing to clarify what fires are burning us down, and re-set those fires so they help to burn up our self-destructive tendencies. This process of em-powa-ment requires commitment and discipline.”

Cobra or Snake pose/Bhujangasana is part of our back-core, as we strengthen the stem all-the-way-around by focusing on front, sides and back. Yesterday I had an encounter with Sonny, the 23 year old Woma Python (endemic to Australia) pictured below. Feeling how her body moves in space without legs really gave me a visceral sense of how to arise off the yoga mat using my back muscles, more than arm strength, which we test by lifting hands our hands off the floor.

Sonny is all stem, all muscle. In the bottom left image, you can see how strong her body is by how much the skin of my neck is pulled by her “hug”, and how nervous I was getting!

Sonny, a woma python at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, QLD

Although muscle is essential, steady breath is actually what determines strength in Bhujangasana. If you’re new to MYOGA and you’re accustomed to popping into poses, instead of breathing and evolving into them, pay particular attention as you adjust to how I teach. You may need to revisit this practice for cultivating long deep breathing, as the pacing of your breath determines everything. The ideal is for the postures to ride the waves of the breath, rather than adding the breath in after you’ve set the architecture of bones in the pose.

Crocodile or Makarasana is as deceptively challenging as Savasana, which we repeat in Deepest Winter, the parallel Northern Hemisphere Season at this time of year. Both poses teach us how to let go efficiently.

Now that I’m based in Australia for grad school in environmental science, I have the great privilege of seeing amazing creatures relatively up close. The Crocodilians have been around for about 94 million years!!! This video shows just how quick and incredibly strong they are. Crocodiles have the strongest jaw pressure of any animal, even stronger than the average car crash, which makes it possible for them to integrate food into their bodies and their environment before the prey can even scream.

In Round 3, when we get into Trikonasana, we’ll be applying the strength we’re developing in our core here in Round 2. Begin to see (sight being our sense here in Manipura) and feel how you radiate from your core outwards through your arms, legs and head. We’ll put this 5 pointed star imagery and inspiration into action in the next Round.

Years ago, I was teaching a Sunday session at Lululemon in Wellington, NZ and I chose this Round of First Summer to share with folks. When I have a very large (more than 20) class of unknown levels of experience or injury, I want something accessible, yet challenging for everyone. What often surprises folks about this, as well as the Basics that covers the same material, is how much you can feel like you’ve done even though we never get up off the ground!

Foundational work is like that. Look at the amount of time spent excavating and setting the foundation of a building. Once done, though, the walls and rooms can fly up more readily. Just so with our practice.

Until you can get the breath as the foundation, you’re forever prioritizing the physical moves and then, maybe, adding the breath in after. Let’s change that habit here and now.

As you start this new year, rewire your practice so you start each move by connecting to spirit, to Source, first. Move from your breath.

Notice how often you hijack your own rhythm to follow my directions or your mind’s idea of what’s meant to happen. Even though I’m saying, “On your next inhale…”, do you move even if you’re not on your inhale? Do you change your breath to align with me?

It might seem more fiddly and mean you have to pause or “rewind” the recording to realign, but please try to trust the longer journey by making your long deep steady breath the base/core/foundation that you move from. This is the advantage of home practice! And it’s much harder to do in a live class, though I definitely recommend that you continue to prioritize your pacing over anyone else’s. It’s your practice, your body, and no one else is in there but you, so stay connected!