Transitioning into Dog Stretches

Moving from Chaturanga Dandasana (four-Limbed Staff Pose) to Up Dog and then back into Down Dog is a step by step progression sort of like linking your body together. This pose transition is know as vinyasa.

Vinyasa is an important transition to practice within your yoga practice because when it is mastered it tends to enhance and reinforce alignment within the body and the legs and arms as well.

Move from Chanturanga to Up Dog by pushing your toes back toward the back of your yoga mat as you roll over them. This requires you to use some serious effort in your legs as to not hurt yourself during this transition.

As you slide your toes back, pull your hands in. Only you hands and feet touch the floor in this transition and by using the strength in your arms, pull your core forward and your legs will be used to push your toes up and back.

Practicing this vinyasas makes it a better transition for your body over time and makes you stronger mentally and physically as well.

Mantra to Celebrate the Combining of Sita and Ram

Sita Ram Sita Ram
Jay Jay Sita Ram

This is a mantra in Hindi language that is sung throughout India by devotees of God in the form of Lord Rama and his wife Sita joining together. Rama and Sita embody the idea that our capacity for right action helps us to feel more uplifting in our life. Singing their names helps to celebrate the beauty and power of acts of uplifting happiness with God and Goddess, which is expressed through human form within everyone.

Ease Muscle Cramps & Stomach Upset through Yoga

Stomach upset hits many of us at the most inconvenient times. Try these yoga moves to help relieve the upset in a more calm and natural way.

• Wind-Relieving Pose (Pavanamuktasana): Lie on your back and slowly bring your knees into your chest. Rest your hands, clasped on your knees. Pull your knees inward and hold for 10-30 breaths.

• Child's Pose with support (Balasana): Sit on your knees and place one foot over the other. Not your ankles, just your toes and upper foot. Have two thick blankets near by. Pull the blankets near your knees and rest your upper body on the blankets with your head to one side and arms off to the side of the blanket. Hold this position for about 30 seconds.

• Seated Forward Bend (Paschimottanasana): Sit on your bottom with your legs stretched out in front of you. Bend at the waist with your back straight and fold your body over into a comfortable position and hold for about 30 seconds.

• Reclining Bound Angle Pose with support (Supta Baddha Konasana): Sit on your bottom and have a thick blanket and two towels and a yoga strap near by. Place the yoga strap over your head and around your waist once then around your waist a second time. With your thick blanket and while sitting on your bottom, place the blanket behind you back and sit in a relaxed leg crossed pose. If you can't fully cross your legs, pull them in to the most comfortable position. Wrap the yoga strap around your feet and place one towel under each thigh close to your knees. Lie back onto the blanket and rest your head on the blanket as well. Lay in this pose for about 30 seconds, or as long as you please.

• Head-of-the-knee pose with support (Janu Sirsasana): Sit on your bottom with one leg pulled into your body. Stretch the other leg out in front of you and with a bolster, rest it on your lower shin and bring your body forward, while keeping your knee where the bolster rests, straight. Place your head into your crossed arms and hold the pose for about 30 seconds, or as long as needed.

• Revolved Abdomen Pose (Jathara Parivartanasana): Laying on your back, bring your knees up and straight your arms out to the side in the shape of a "T". Bring your arms together, out stretched to one side and follow this movement with your knees. Your body should be in a loose fetal position with your arms stretched out. Leaving your knees in this position rotate your body while following with your eye your arm back to the "T" position. Hold the position for 30 seconds and repeat with the other side doing the exact same motion.

Improve your Posture with these Yoga/Pilates Poses

1. Spine Stretch Forward: Sit on your bottom on the floor and roll your shoulders back to create a straight back. Straighten you legs out in front of you and press your knees into the floor. Stretch you arms out parallel with your legs and lead forward, as your back is straight. Drop your chin to your chest as far as you can without hurting you neck. Imagine there is a ball in your chest and you have to stretch over it in either direction. Let your arms fall where they land and rest in this position for about 45 seconds. Roll back up the main position and repeat for 10 more stretches.

2. See/Saw: Start in the same position as above and extend your arms out to your side in the shape of a "T". Press your knees into the floor and roll your shoulders back to straighten your spine. Bring your arms around and touch your opposite foot with your opposite hand. Try to keep your back and arms straight as you do this move. Bend at the waist as you place your hand on your toe. Move your hand to the outside of the foot that you are touching. Hold pose for 10 seconds as you breathe in and out in a relaxed manner. Repeat 10 times.


3. Double-Leg Up: Lie on your back and draw your knees in to your core and stretch your legs up to the sky. Follow this with your arms and form a "V" with your body. Or modify this move by having your arms the same direction as your legs. Lift your head and upper shoulders up off the floor and hold this position with your abs tight for about 10 seconds. Release and rest for 5 seconds and start again. Repeat this move for 30 reps.

Silence Your Inner Critic

We all have an inner critic that cuts into our self esteem, no matter if it's during our exercise routine, yoga practice or even while we are getting ready for work in the morning. The discipline is silencing this inner critic and changing it for the good.

Instead of looking for flaws within our bodies and mind, look for the greater aspect, such as thanking your body for what it is able to do. You can achieve this before bed in the evenings, or sitting in a cross-legged position after your workout or exercise routine and thanking your body for what you have accomplished.

Thank you brain for the ability to communicate with the rest of your body. If you unhappy with any part of your body, why not change those thoughts to be grateful for what's behind that difficult part of your body that make you self conscience. Be grateful for your lungs, your heart which powers your love feelings, and be grateful your have full use of all of your bodies parts. If you lack the use of one limb, two or even all, be grateful for what you have that does work and what you are able to have. Be grateful, above all that you are alive.

You can't change certain things about your body that are permanent, but you can change the way you look at your body.

Namasté!

Feeling the Experience

There are many types of feelings that one will experience throughout a day or even a lifetime. Look at your own life and notice that your emotional energy tends to flow between four or five different emotions or rasas as they are known in Ayurveda, which is the ancient system of Indian medicine. The motions or rasas only occasionally touch one another at the same time as well.

At times you may get stuck in one or the other and eventually they work themselves out. It becomes a problem when you can not move from the stuck emotion. But, overall most of us move in and out of the different rasas. It's common to engage these rasas in an unconscious state and any rasa can become problematic if you tend to overemphasize it.

However, when you engage rasas consciously, moving in and out of different ones you tend to create more aliveness and more balance in your life and in other areas as well. See if you can relate your emotion to any of these rasas below. It's okay to have connection with one, or two or even three of the different rasas at one time.

• Erotic: Love

• Comic: Laughter

• Pathetic: Sorrow

• Furious: Anger

• Heroic: Courageous Ardor

• Terrible: Being Scared

• Odious: Being Repulsed

• Marvelous: Amazement

• Peaceful: Serenity