Stand And Bloom

By Donna Amrita Davidge

Many folks have felt as if they needed a jumpstart all winter, as is often the case. Winter makes us feel more in need of rejuvenation. Many of us who practice yoga regularly keep up the whole year, though energy levels, muscles and bones may not make us feel as enthusiastic about our practice as on sunny warm days with flowers blooming all around us and shutters thrown wide open.

Some types of yoga may be more rejuvenating than others, depending on our age, stage and circumstances. Restorative yoga comes to mind as one that could gently draw us out from winter. This yoga uses props like folded blankets, blocks and straps to ease us in to opening and nurturing yoga poses for minutes on end.

On the other end of the spectrum to wake our bodies and it's systems would be the more active forms of yoga like Ashtanga and Vinyasa. These require time, patience, practice and a good teacher even for the athletically inclined, which these particularly suit.

To further wake us up from our winter rest Kundalini Yoga is a great way to energize and rejuvenate the system, focusing from the inside out especially focusing on the breath. Kundalini awakens us to our aliveness from within, our own unlimited creative potential.

Two particular poses come to mind. The first is used in most all the forms of yoga and that is shoulder stand, which we call rejuvenation pose in Kundalini Yoga. This excellent pose reverses the effects of gravity, energizes the thyroid gland in the neck which regulates the metabolism and is great for circulation. Depending on your stage of practice and body weight the pose may need modification or even a blanket folded under the shoulders if the neck feels strain. If not ready to take the back off the floor, simply left the legs us to take pressure off. possibly up against the wall.

Another pose I have seen in a Kundalini Yoga set is like a flower opening or blooming. To do this, start sitting on your heels in baby pose, head on floor and hands by your head, palms down. On the inhale, rise up on your knees and open the arms up and back at a sixty degree angle while pressing the hips forward and chest up. On the exhale come back down to the baby pose. Repeat this at a graceful pace as long as it feels good.

Dancing is another was to get rejuvenated. When we sweat we activate the glands, the guardians to our health. Dancing is a release, a way to free ourselves. Dancing is sometimes included in the Kundalini Yoga sets, arms waving in the air for minutes on end.

Kundalini yoga works with the energetics of the body. One of the best ways to get in touch with our energy is through the breath. Conscious breathing is an integral part of the Kundalini practice. The breath of fire, a sniffing diaphragmatic breath with both inhale and exhale through the nose, is done in many Kundalini poses. To detox with this breath lay on your back and raise both arms and legs straight up in the air. Imagine the arms and legs as energy antenna and hold the arms and legs straight doing breath of fire for up to three minutes.

Finally, savasana, or corpse pose, is one of the best ways to rejuvenate after any yoga practice or by itself. Surrender your mind and body as completely as you can as you lay on your back, arms relaxed away from the body, palms up, and legs open a bit, feet dropped out to the side. Close the eyes, relax the face and breath, breathing in to the belly through the nose. Melt the spine in to the support under it, the earth. And as the earth renews and blooms in Spring, let yourself do the same.
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