Hi Everyone Feeling very inspired this morning, I am at the Yoga Australia Conference and having an amazing time. We had a talk yesterday by Janet Lowndes, a psychologist and yoga teacher who spoke of a student who used the phrase “making the shapes” for her yoga asanas and was very excited when she realised the difference between doing (and being) yoga and making the shapes. It is the difference between observing someone do a posture and mimicking it (what I have sometimes referred to in class as Simon Says) and going internally and feeling your way into a posture that suits your body, possibly not a perfect imitation of that posture which is shown, which may also not be perfect. There is no perfect posture, there is only a perfect posture for each of us individually at that moment in time. Be sure that you are sensing internally when you do your yoga, which makes it yoga, rather than just “making the shapes”. I know many of you are doing this already as I observe you in class and can see that you are going inward rather than looking outward but it is always great to hear something phrased differently and sometimes that can create a deeper understanding for us all. I LOVED the “making the shapes” phrased as a description of yoga that is possibly only externally driven. We all have just made the shapes at sometime in our practice (or maybe not, but I know I have). It is not a bad thing but it should only be a stepping stone to where you want to go. What do you do?
Props – Part 3
Wow, I did not realise I had so much to say about props!! Take the time to think about what you need, notice in class
