Yoga Reflections & Themes: Week of Oct.1

This week’s practice was focused on side opening poses to open the hips and the lower back. This area, the Qadratus Lumborum, is a muscle that expands from the lower rib to lilac crest. This small hidden muscle can get tight and generate hip and lower back pain, especially for runners and for those who sit all day (like me!).

Other poses included core exercises, twists and lunges/warrior 2 to ground us deeper into our practice. We restored with pigeon, more side bending and double pigeon. 

Theme for our practice centered on love—love for ourselves and our practice. Click here to read the story I shared in class.

Quote shared in class:

“Yoga practice is like an obstacle race; many obstructions are purposely put on the way for us to pass through. They are there to make us understand and express our own capabilities. We all have that strength, but we don’t seem to know it. We seem to need to be challenged and tested in order to understand our own capabilities. In face, that is the natural law. If a river just flows easily, the water in the river does not express its power. But once you put an obstacle to the flow by constructing a dam, then you can see its strength in the form of tremendous electrical power.”

-Yoga Sultras Of Patanjali, Sri Swami Satchidananda

Click here to view the playlist from class. In honor of my loved filled week (1st wedding anniversary was on Monday!) I added some songs that were played at the wedding.

• Good Life, my husband and I’s first dance song
• I Hope You Dance, the song my dad and I danced to
• Somewhere Over the Rainbow, the song my husband and mother-in-law danced to
• Every Teardrop is a Waterfall, Bridal Party introductions