Emma Lovell Yoga

This content shows Simple View


Monthly Archives July 2016

Circles

Images from here

Inspiration for this week’s class theme comes from this article on the ‘feminine’ in yoga:

‘… mainstream yoga schools neglect the ability and necessity to swiftly soften and engage muscles in a coordinated way to produce a circular, waving fluid movement to create flexible power. To undertake such movements, the body must be allowed to be receptive in order to transmit the force sequentially, with a firm base to steady the root of the watery movement. The student must flit between rigidity and receptivity to produce the wave, with too much of one element ruining the effect; whilst a mirror can sometimes help to see the effect, intuition and feeling tells the student where he is stuck or too loose. The highly subtle, relational quality between the masculine and feminine through the spine is microcosmic reflection of this constant interplay at the macrocosmic level.’

Whilst I’m not 100% in agreement with simplistically assigning things (or movements) masculine and feminine qualities, this is a great article on both the more masculine roots of modern yoga and on creating balance in our practice between the linear and the circular, between rigidity and waves.

Here’s a nice fluid sequence to try at home: