when did you thank your feet?

First Spring Round 2 - Truth of Tribe in MYOGA SEASONS for Subscribers, Northern Hemisphere 2024

You know. Those things at the other end from your head that carry you everywhere?

Most of this practice will wake up your feet and legs with some accessible, yet challenging, balancing work. You'll be applying those twisting legs you did in the core work of Round 1, all while standing on one foot! Fun.

See if you can figure out why this practice is called Truth of Tribe...

Here's what Others have to say about this practice:

"I found this practice empowering as well as grounding. It provided focus & concentration, exactly what I needed today. I finished with an expanding sense of gratitude. Namaste" ~ Dee

"Hello feet! Feeling wonderfully grounded now. Perfect poem for the practice – love it!" ~Nathalie

Earth is our element here at the foundation of the body - the feet, legs and base of the spine. If we’re lucky enough to have working legs, this is how we connect to the Earth, the planet that provides us with everything. I have a classmate who no longer has the use of his legs due to an accident, and spending time with him has really sharpened my gratitude for having my legs and feet in working order.

With our heads leading, most of us tend to take what moves the head from place to place for granted. We walk on our feet instead of with them. And we also walk on the Earth instead of with or for her. If I’ve succeeded, by the end of our focus here in First Spring, you’ll have greater appreciation for your own individuated roots, physical and metaphysical, as well as for the substrate that holds your roots in space so you can sprout up and out - our precious Earth.

In this vein, I encourage you to gather up your rocks again for our tuning-in with Adi Mantra at the start, or even go outside and be on the earth itself! If you have trouble in Child pose due to tight hips or varicose veins, try doing Tuck pose, which is the same thing but on your back using the arm strength to compress the bent legs into the torso. Humming here (or anywhere really) helps us connect vibrationally to our personal piece of earth, our bodies, and to the Earth herself who has her own hum (Thanks to Aureal Williams for introducing me to the Schumann Resonances!).

We continue with our spring cleaning pranayam of Khapalabhati and in this Round we assume greater familiarity with it by picking up the pace (without losing precision and thoroughness). We then progress to an alternate nostril variation which is especially effective at clearing the sinuses. If Sitali Pranayam or Nadhi Shodhana are better options for you today, honor where you are. Muladhara literally means base or root support, so learning how to support yourSelf for greater levels of security and stability is key. Atmanjali Mudra is the mudra we start all practices with when we tune in and atman means ‘higher self’. By leading with the higher self, not the egoic self, we accept and honor ourselves right where we are.

Next we have a brief spinal awakening in Cat/Cow and stretch the calves before unfurling from the ground up to standing for our balancing work. If possible, use a wall in the balancing to help you refine your awareness and precision in those small bones in the feet that Martha Graham so eloquently brought our awareness to in Round 1.

Since I work spirallically and multidimensionally, threads from one seemingly-discrete sadhana (spiritual practice) prepare us for the next Season. From Deepest Winter/Sahasrara we are carrying through the quality of Acceptance. There we learned to accept our connection to all-that-is, whereas here in Muladhara chakra we learn to accept our connection to our blood family or tribe in this lifetime.

Physically we’re experiencing the wobbling inherent in balancing and we learn to accept that balance is a verb not a noun. We don’t give up just because we fall out, no matter how many times we need to return. These simple circles of the ankle joint are a good combination of joint-freeing with balancing, and they further drop the mind into the feet. In recent decades the holy name of Isis, the Egyptian goddess of connection, love, and stability, has been hijacked. Don’t let that get in the way of doing this next lower leg strengthener I learned from Jivamukti Yoga in my NYC days. Sharon Gannon, the co-founder, has a beautiful write-up of the Seat of Isis here.

And here’s a super quick Seat of Isis practice where I get the two TVNZ anchor-folk to focus by cultivating gratitude for two feet by balancing on one. Even the cameraman got in on the game. Notice how much calmer everyone was after only 5 minutes…

Please feel free to be near a wall so you can really hone your alignment and precision in the balancing work. It’s not about leaning into supports, but about lightly touching into them in order build from the ground up. Without the wall you’re likely to perpetuate misalignments or unconscious habit patterns, especially if you’re new or it’s been a while since you’ve done anything of this sort. Even after decades of practice, I still use the wall. I also love using a mirror so I can see what’s actually happening (versus what my mind thinks, if it’s even focused on the task at hand!) and further adjust any asymmetries.

Walking the Plank is something I made up to approximate the Zen walking meditations I had learned in my Puerto Rico days. Instead of walking slowly outside, I make the yoga mat the parameter, have folks close their eyes, and slow the walk down to a snail’s pace so we can really see the phenomena of shifting weight between feet. This is another simple exercise that is super effective for dropping the mind into the feet. You can use a wall again here but I really, really encourage you to keep your eyes closed with or without the wall! It makes no sense with your eyes open. Trust that you’ll feel the texture change when you step off the mat.

Learn to look and listen with the soles of your feet.

With this deepened connection to your feet on the ground by setting even weight into the four corners of each foot and lifting the arches, Tadasana/Mountain Pose is more grounded. As we grow up from the feet, cultivating space in the leg and spine joints, and bring the arms overhead into Utthita Tadasana/Extended Mountain, notice where you tend to either disconnect or bunch up. Can you fully embody the meaning of this pose by growing up to a peak without losing the base? Can you visualize lines of energy running from those 8 corners of the feet, up the legs and torso, and out through the arms, without shrugging shoulders or swaying the low back?

Can you stay connected?

It’s so easy to throw oneself into configurations, but I think of yoga like building a house with the bones and living in it with the breath. The way you know someone’s home (you, hopefully!) is that the breath is fluid and steady. And the more you can see the breath running those lines of energy, the more alive you are! So imagine you’re a living, growing thing (which you are but we tend to forget) and, like a flower, you’re growing towards the Sun while staying rooted in the 4 corners of each foot on the Earth.

For free subscribers, here’s a few of those balancing poses from Basics. Or, for a more supported set to establish reliable foundations, start with the Restoring Your Warrior session.