All You Need is Love

So this is where it happened today. Here is a photo of some of my classmates. Amanda is the cutie in front with the shining smile.

What happened? We had a group energy release. A brilliant teacher, Mukunda Stiles, is spending the first part of this week teaching us structural yoga adaptations. Alignment in asana is vital, but as teachers, we must have an intimate understanding of not only anatomy, but kinesiology as well, so we can offer yoga movement that is tailored for every body. When we work with different bodies, presenting different structural issues, our first approach might be physical adjustments. But the physical body is a manifestation of our energy. As Mukunda worked on one student, after another, in our class, we witnessed first hand how releasing blocked energy through the subtlest and simplest of adjustments brought huge change. As he worked, the room heated and began to literally vibrate with energy. In one particularly powerful adjustment, he asked us all, as we circled around the "patient", to breathe and audibly relax so she could release her block. Wow. We cried, we felt, the energy swirled. The recipient felt a large release of sacral pain and said her hips were breathing for the first time in a long time. We have Mukunda with us for 2 more days and I can't wait.

Here's something you can try to center your energy, or prana, into its seat in the sacral chakra. Lie down. Make a triangle with your fingers, thumbs together and fingers pointing downward. Experiment with holding the triangle over your ASIS (bumper bones) and pubic bone, and shifting up and around a bit. Close your eyes, breathe deeply into the belly. Can you feel that warmth or energy pooling there? This is called the jnoni (pronounced yoni) mudra. Try it morning and evening and just see what happens.