Finding the Base

We first connect to the earth through our feet.

Our balance, sense of self, and our “groundedness” with the big ol’ Earth is usually first transmitted through our feet’s dainty arches.  The more connected and rooted we are to the earth, the more stability and power we can access in our asana practice.  Through activating and energizing three three arches of the feet (medial, lateral, and transverse), we begin to engage up through our legs into our core, which helps us find our center.

This week in class, we are taking this work in the feet up and into the hips.  Ah, the hips.  The energetic centers of chakra one and two (muladhara and svadisthana) are governed by primal, and mostly unconscious needs.  Fear, survival, sex, creativity, emotion…..all these energies are housed in the first two chakras and dysfunction in these areas can manifest as physical resistance and blockages in the pelvis and legs.   And when we start to open into the unexplored areas, we can often meet with sensitivity, claustrophobia, resistance, and unexpected emotion.

So we use the strength of the first chakra and its connection to great ol’ mama earth to give us the stability to root into these unexplored terrain.  With sensitivity – but without hedging – we use the power of our feet and legs in our standing poses to open the hips in warrior II and parsvakonasana.  We’ll use the strength our our quads and hamstrings to work the legs and make them more receptive to stretching in parsvotanasana and king arthur’s pose.  We’ll complete our circuit by opening the hamstrings in paschimottanasana, the groin in baddha konasana, and the outer hips in double pigeon.

By using the feet to connect to the earth and draw this strength into our asana, we will create the stability that will let us open these areas safely.   And so we clean out the first floor of energetic house, while getting some really awesome physical opening through our hips.

Yoga Journal Boston

The yogis race around in slung back crocs, their new manduka mats slung across their shoulders as they race into class.  Here, in air-conditioned conference rooms with indelicately laid out tape (in crowded spaces, everyone gets their own yoga parking space), the giants of yoga meet with their adoring masses and share their wisdom.  These yogic rockstars – Shiva Rea, Dharma Mittra, Seane Corne, Ana Forrest, to name a few – become more accessible in the bland, generic conference rooms.  In Yoga Journal or on their dvd’s they are impossibly graceful, superhumanly peaceful, and (surely) enlightened.  But there’s something about a dirty Sheraton carpet that puts everything in its humble place.

For those of us outside of major yoga centers (read LA, New York City…), these conferences are a rare opportunity to meet a “teacher’s teacher.”  In the medical world, students are taught to “watch it, do it, teach it.”  In the yoga world, it’s really not so different.  The tools the experts are teaching today will be turned around and taught to our students next week.  Although the deeper message of yoga stays steady (awareness, love), the trendiness of asana is ceaselessly adapting.  Last year’s asana trend may be now shunned as dangerous or unsafe.  Conferences provide a needed source of communicating and relaying new information.

But most importantly, these conferences – as improbable as it feels in a chain hotel in a downtown city – are a source of renewal. The struggling studio owner in Florida (whose husband may not “get it”) is awash with support and affirmation.  We struggle and sweat on our mat through Shiva Rea’s 108 mandalas, and love every minute.  We bask in the glow of moaning, “I’m sooooo soooooore,” after a marathon eight-hour day of practice.  And it’s not just the teachers that are inspiring us, though their inspiration will stay with us too; it’s the unbearably joyous feeling of belonging.  Of having a community.  Of being part of the huge transformation.

So we pound our bodies through four days of asana and empty our wallets into Yoga Journal’s coffers.  We go home sore, exhausted, and delighted by our next step.