Getting Back to the 12 Original Sivananda Asanas
Since starting a Kundalini practice a number of years back, I find that everyone and a while I feel called to fall back into more of a hatha practice. Recently I decided that my next 40 day practice would not involve a Kundalini Kriya, but rather an asana. Synchronistically, I came across this page on the Sivananda website showing the 12 basic asanas taught in that lineage. The set is great and it feels really good to get into doing headstand and shoulder stand again each day. I find that a few minutes in each… Read More
How My Hatha Practice Has Changed Due to Studying Kundalini Yoga
For some reason, I have been feeling a pull to do more Hatha style yoga in my daily practice. This started as adding a sun salutation before I tuned in and has evolved to today, where I am doing close to a full Hatha set before starting my Kriyas. I appreciate the increased stretch and space and openess that hatha brings. I also noticed that I bring a different awareness to my Hatha practice now that I’ve been practicing Kundalini for a couple of years. A few specific areas where I’ve noticed… Read More
Balancing Skating with Yoga
I have recently been doing a lot of aggressive inline skating–rails, ramps, a few falls. Whenever I skate for a while I tend to start getting pretty tight in certain areas and eventually twist something wrong and get injured. To prevent against this I have been making sure I’m in a limber and healed state before heading out to the skate park. Most recently I’ve been on a 3 week hiatus, which has been long, but the really smart thing to do. My yoga practice has been a a combination of basic kundalini… Read More
The power of breath in Tadasana
I returned to my mat this morning after taking the last few days to rest and recover from a nasty stomach virus that spread through the family. I had full intentions to do my normal Iyengar salutation and triangle series and then move on to my morning Kundalini set, but as I got into each pose, I found myself slowing down. I found my breath slowing down. By the time I had completed the last of the triangle set I found myself in Tadasana just breathing. Studying Kundalini has taught me a… Read More
Salutations, Kundalini Exploration, and Reiki Meditaiton
This morning I started with a few Iyengar style salutations before moving into my Kundalini practice. It started with some ego eradicator and another arms above the head kriya to clean the electromagnetic field. Then I moved on to some spinal flex and then for about 7 minutes I did an exercise that involved moving my torso in circles while moving my hands in prayer pose in the opposite direction. I did this while chanting along to Sita Ram from Krishna Das’ Live on Earth album. I continued with some double leg lifts, stretch… Read More
A Quick Morning Hatha Set
This morning I was a little rushed and coming off of some early morning baby duties, but still took some time to do my basic salutation and traingle set. So glad I did. I was reminded of something from Sivananda that read recently that talked about how, these asanas are not just “stretches” but scientific methods to improve the flow of energy and consciousness in the body, mind, and spirit.
Salamba Sirsasana – The King Asana
I was inspired yesterday to work on some more hatha style yoga. While working through a few asanas this morning I ended up going into headstand, Salamba Sirsasana. I wrote recently about how Yogi Bhajan recommends doing the Sat Nam kriya a few minutes a day if you can do nothing else. I remember back to my time studying Iyengar yoga and how the headstand pose was referred to as the King Asana (shoulder stand is the queen asana). Happily surprised that I still had fairly good balance in the middle of the… Read More
