by Jennifer French

These definitions lead us to the heart of what going on retreat is fundamentally about: taking the time to pause and go inward to get in touch with our deeper selves, needs, desires, and goals. It is a time to readjust our perspective on life.

Climbing upward out of the twists and turns of the dense forest path into the crisp, blue mountain air, it allows us to rediscover clarity and a bit of peace. We then can bring back a fresh perspective into our daily lives, allowing us to again meet our more immediate challenges with grace and equanimity.

As we may imagine, the longer the retreat, the more intense the experience tends to be. Longer retreats are often designed with plenty of unscheduled leisure time throughout the day, so we may stroll and nap as we please. Others can be intensives that might have full day schedules, carefully constructed for participants to get the very most out of this precious, self-care time.

Just as there are many styles of retreats, there are also many ways of approaching a retreat. We can travel faraway, or we may choose a shorter more convenient experience close to home. There are lots of opportunities to pack up our bags, get on a plane, and travel miles and miles away, creating that much-needed clear boundary of space around us that is so often hard to find when at home. This is what comes to mind for most—an exotic spa in a tropical locale. In an ideal world, we would be able to jet off several times a year to foreign lands to refresh and replenish. Does this mean that we must travel long distances to have an effective or transformative retreat?

Closer to home, we could attempt to simply turn off the phone and the television, let our friends and family know that we won’t be available for the next few days, and create the space right where we are. But all too often this can be a disappointing challenge as we are so easily drawn back into the world around us and the things that need to be done… the floor that needs to be cleaned, the emails that need to be answered, the dinner that needs to be made, and on and on it goes…

The long-weekend or day retreat is a fantastic way to keep both the fun and the adventure and, at the same time, greatly benefit from the structure and guidance of a formal retreat leader. Through her knowledge and experience, the retreat leader helps to create a truly healthy and revitalizing opportunity. These long-weekends or single day retreats often offer participants a kind of reset, a pause that we can more easily sneak into our life to help keep us centered and balanced. These shorter retreats tend to be a bit more focused, with practices and activities to help direct the experience and enhance the intention of going inward. Sometimes these practices are self-practices which may include periods of individual silence for reading, writing, and contemplation. Other times there may be group practices such as yoga classes or meditations. These more accessible weekend or day-long experiences combine the best of the faraway with the best of the closer to home: the critical separation of personal space with ease, affordability, and the focused guidance of a retreat leader.

In the end, the why, where, and how long of going on retreat can only be answered by you and your individual needs. Whatever your reason for wanting to retreat, for wanting to pause and connect inward, it is your reason. The new and unexpected challenges, the disorientations, the loss of one’s sense of self, and the general fatigue of routines and obligations often push us toward the great need to get away from it all. Yet once we realize the power of retreating, we can then use this profound tool as a form of preventative self-care, allowing us to find the ability to meet all that life brings us with a rejuvenating sense of peace, clarity, and equanimity.

Stay in the Know…

The Yoga Sanctuary regularly offers retreats of all lengths from the simple (and local) day retreat to week-long adventures afar. Be sure to stay connected! Follow our Facebook Page or sign up to be the first to learn about our next retreat! 

Proper breathing is what makes yoga, well, yoga. Paying attention to our breath is what transforms mere exercises into a dynamic practice that helps us to understand our true nature. Our breath is the gauge that we use to know if we’ve gone to far and the anchor that keeps us present in the moment. But before going too deep, let’s take a look at what it takes to breathe well during yoga practice.

It will be helpful to get acquainted with the diaphragm—the large muscle that separates the abdominal cavity from the chest cavity. It essentially bisects the torso into two parts. This muscle is fairly mobile. It has the potential to be drawn down low into the abdomen upon inhalation and pulled up into the chest cavity upon exhalation. That is, if it is called upon to do so. Unfortunately, most of us do not utilize the diaphragm to breathe, and so we lose the ability to really fill our lungs with air.

The three-part breath is the best way to experience breathing with the diaphragm. Begin seated (or reclined on your back) with your hands on your belly.

Part 1. Sit up tall and relax the shoulders. Then relax the muscles of the belly. Next begin to inhale with the belly completely relaxed, and try to draw the breath down into the belly. (The breath doesn’t actually go into the belly, but the movement created by the breath does.) If you have trouble achieving this, push the belly out somewhat as you inhale to get the feeling of the movement. As you do this, take a moment to notice that you are able to fill your lower lungs with air. As you exhale, feel the belly sink back in (drawing it in if you need to in order to feel the movement).

Part 2. Next, place your hands on your lower rib cage. As you inhale, feel the belly expand (part 1) followed by the rib cage opening and expanding. As you exhale, feel it sink back in. Follow this movement for a few rounds of breath, noticing how the lungs fill with air from the bottom up.

Part 3. Finally, place your fingertips on your collar bone. Inhale and feel the belly expand (part 1) followed by the ribs (part 2) and finally, feel the chest rise and expand as your finish your inhale. Think about the top portion of the lungs filling with air at the end of the inhale, and think about how the exhalation empties this portion of the lungs first. Follow this movement for a few more rounds of breath.

Next release your hands and sit with this three-part breath for a while, noticing how your body moves in response to the breath without having to actually feel it. This deep awareness of breath linked to movement will help you find more awareness in your yoga practice. Connect to it as often as you can.

In May 2007, Bonnie Yonker, yoga teacher and founder of The Yoga Sanctuary, opened the studio doors in the Swiss Connection Building at 403 Sullivan Street with just eleven classes on the schedule. The only teacher at that time, Bonnie led every single yoga class for six months. Sometimes only 2 or 3 people would show up. Other times, she’d have a packed room of 17. It was a simple one room studio painted yellow, with a tiny little boutique space. Students could brew a small cup of tea and then have a seat in one of the two classic IKEA birchwood chairs that sat across from the shoe bench. That very same bench and one of those chairs can still be found upstairs at 112 Sullivan Street today.

It was another 6 months before Bonnie had any other teachers to support her. In mid-November of 2007, her first addition was Gwen Burdick. Gwen had two young daughters and a love for sharing yoga with kids. She offered special kids yoga workshops, brought yoga into some of our local schools, and led the kids practice at all our outdoor community events.

Over the next three years, the schedule expanded to more than 20 classes a week with regular one-on-one sessions, workshops, special events, and more. Already we had seen a few faces come and go, but Bonnie worked to find just the right person to work the front desk, someone who would be there to greet and assist every student that walked in the door. First was Adrianne Butwell, who remained part of the TYS team in various ways for years, even participating in our inaugural Yoga Teacher Training Program. For a time, Jennifer also shifted from only teaching classes to working behind scenes of marketing, answering student phone calls, greeting students, and more. Finally, at end of 2010, Bonnie found just the right person in someone that had been part of the studio from the very beginning, Anna Martin.

Included in that team were the participants of our Yoga Teacher Training program, and some of these faces are still with us. Upon graduating that first group, we added two more new teachers, one of whom is Melissa Meehan, still a regular face at TYS as a substitute teacher. This first group also graduated Cathy Getz, a TYS student from Day One. Well, actually day three, as Cathy attended the first Sunrise class ever on the schedule—along with Margit Bannon!—and became a dear friend of Bonnie’s. Cathy is responsible for the growth of the TYS Boutique and worked as our Retail Manager through 2016.

It was this same year, in mid-2013, that brought us Melissa Goodwin. After living in Santa Fe, New Mexico for a number of years, Melissa and her husband took to travelling the states in their RV for nine months. They eventually landed in Punta Gorda and decided to make it their home. When she arrived, little did Melissa know that she would coincidently find a yoga home with a teacher that studied with her same teachers in New Mexico! Both Melissa and Jennifer name Tias and Surya Little of Prajna Yoga their primary teachers.

With Melissa on the schedule, as well as our YTT grads, we were now able to offer 25 weekly classes in the summer and over 30 in the high season months. By early 2014, Anna had completed her own Yoga Teacher Training in India. In addition to working as the TYS Office Manager, Anna also began leading classes. Bonnie now had a three-year-old daughter and Jennifer Arnold had become Jennifer French. It was time for Bonnie to step away from ownership and focus more on motherhood. In February 2015, ownership of The Yoga Sanctuary shifted to Jennifer and her husband Gary. Since Jennifer, who was by then Director of Teacher Development, had been part of the teaching staff since January 2008 and had slowly taken on more and more of a managerial role, it was an easy and seamless transition.

Again in the middle of the Yoga Teacher Training, this time with our third cohort, we found ourselves in the midst of a shift. Bonnie stayed on through the end of teacher training while Jennifer slowly took the reigns of studio ownership. The 2015 graduates included Pat Francis, Heleen Schouten, and Sharon Fultz. Each of them still part of the TYS teaching team.  We also added another graduate, Diane Danaher, first as a massage therapist and soon after she too was leading classes. That was an ambitious group to be sure!

Over the next few years, we explored and expanded our offerings in ways that were new and unique to The Yoga Sanctuary. Lisa began offering more extensive Shamanic workshops, ceremonies, and programs, and together with Gwen, developed a moving and powerful blend of eastern and western traditions in their quarterly Sacred Ceremonies. Melissa began to explore the overlap between yoga and Buddhist traditions with a focus on how each tradition helps to unlock creativity. On our calendar you might find workshops focusing on physical anatomy, the energetic body, chanting, meditation, philosophy and more. By 2017, we had hosted notable teachers from all over the world, including Tias Little, Nicolai Bachman, Baxter Bell, Liz Owen, Kristin Leal, and of course, Dr. Carrie. And we continued to grow.

By our 10th anniversary, we were offering 28 classes during the summer months and upwards of 40 in the winter months. Our original mission, “to share our passion of yoga with the community by providing a warm, safe environment to develop the tools needed to incorporate yoga into everyday life,” was alive and well. And our vision mirrored this mission with each small step forward.

We continued to host teachers, kirtan artists, and guest speakers from within our local community and from afar. Our teacher training program, still led every other year, moved forward, graduating new teachers in 2019. Around that time we decided the next step was to offer the opportunity to dive deeper in a different way. Plans began for the first ever TYS Yoga Retreat, a week-long getaway that allowed one to leave their everyday life behind and immerse themselves in nature and practice. After lots of talking, tons of research, and what seemed like endless planning, we released the news to our community, and within two months we were filled to capacity. In January of 2020, The Yoga Sanctuary went to Costa Rica! Little did we know then, but the world was about to dramatically change…

In February of 2020, Baxter Bell came to lead a weekend of workshops, each filled with students from all over the area. Then Covid hit. The following month, we began to reduce our class sizes, no longer allowing the room to fill beyond 15 people. Props were removed and people started to bring their own or not use props at all. On March 20th, 2020, we were told that we had to shut our doors. The email went out; The Yoga Sanctuary closed.

Having a sense that this was coming, Jennifer spent hours and hours the previous week learning everything she could about teaching yoga online. Reading, watching webinars, signing up for trainings, you name it. The TYS team gathered online, testing out this new-to-us program called Zoom. Decisions and plans were made. With the doors closed on Friday, an announcement was made: Saturday and Sunday there would be a complementary online class each day to test our new way of being in the community. By Monday morning we had a full 12 class schedule available online. Classes were available every day but Sunday.

It was as if we were beginning again. But this time, it wasn’t just one teacher leading each class on the schedule. It was a full team. A team that had grown slowly over many years, a solid presence whose mission “to share our passion of yoga with the community by providing a warm, safe environment to develop the tools needed to incorporate yoga into everyday life” never changed. It simply adjusted to what was now.

That was 2020.

We learned so much that year. We learned the importance of connection. We learned the importance of being in community and sharing our yoga practice with others. We learned that connection and community go beyond being in the same physical space. We learned that our roots run deep, and that together we can accomplish anything. We continued to be present for our community and our community remained present with us. We offered online workshops and “zoomed” our private yoga sessions. We slowly added more and more options, and like a beautiful hibiscus that has been pruned back to its roots, we began to throw out new growth and bloom again.

At the end of 2020 we committed to move forward with our 6th Yoga Teacher Training Program to the largest group yet, graduating 12 new teachers in 2021. You’ll see a few of them on our schedule today—Debbie McGlade and Jackie Block now on our weekly schedule, and Donna Berry as a substitute teacher. 2022 even brought another trip to Costa Rica.

In the span of all our years, were other teachers, therapists and support staff that were with us for short periods of time. Victoria Barca, Christie Rosen, William Blackburn, Kim Bednash, Micaela del Solar, Barbara Melanson, Catherine Ouellette, Jaime Boswell, Katherine Jouan, Naomi Medrano, Sarah Carter, Sherry Bechtold, and Susan Shaw. Each left their mark on the TYS heart. We are sure that there will be others, teachers that share their love of yoga with us, students that share their curious and open hearts with us.

Our promise to you is this: we will continue to share our passion of yoga with the community by providing a warm, safe environment to develop the tools needed to incorporate yoga into everyday life for as long as we can. We will continue to provide a place of community and sangha, growing both with you and for you.

New Student Unlimited Month Promotion

Introduction to Yoga: A 6-Week Beginners Series

Our Introduction to Yoga Series meets once a week for 6 weeks and builds progressively as you are walked through the basics of yoga.

We keep the class size limited to 8 people in order to give each participant individualized attention. This also allows plenty of time to ask all of the questions you might have. You will learn pose anatomy and alignment, the foundations of yoga philosophy, as well as ways to individualize your yoga practice for specific issues or injuries. You will also be given personalized guidance and support to help you to continue practicing yoga even after you finish the course.

Each participant receives a copy  of Yoga Fan: Practice Guide for Everyday and the opportunity to take advantage of our New Student Unlimited Month Promotion.

Check our schedule for our next series!

Feel free to reach out to us by filling out the form below. We will be in touch within one business day. We can’t wait to connect and help you get started on your yoga journey!

[click/tap to enlarge]

Barefoot Please

Yoga is practiced barefoot for a couple important reasons. When your feet are in direct contact with the ground you will be better able to truly feel how you are standing on your feet. You will notice where you place your weight, and you will be able find stability using the muscles of your feet. Socks are not recommended because you could slip during practice. Yoga mats are designed for bare feet and hands. As an example, if you are standing with your legs wide apart, in socks your feet would be more likely to slip outward, which could end with you in the splits or, more likely, with a pulled muscle.

Come with an Empty(ish) Stomach

It is best to practice yoga on an empty stomach. When the stomach is full, movements such as forward folds, twists, and inversions are not very comfortable. As a general rule, you can eat a snack or light meal two hours before class or a large meal four hours before class. That will ensure you are most comfortable during the practice. Drinking fluids before class, however, is recommended to keep you hydrated.

Turn Off All Devices

Or better yet, leave them (cell phones and smart watches) in the car. Your yoga practice is a time for you to focus just on yourself. When you walk into the studio, it’s an opportunity to leave the stresses, demands, and responsibilities of life at the door. We ask that all cell phones are turned off and smart watches are silenced.

Let Go of Judgment

The other students in your class will likely have a range of abilities. You may find that you feel self-conscious or insecure about how you are doing the poses. You may feel that you “look like a fool” from time to time. Please know that the other students are much more focused on their own practice and are not nearly as preoccupied about you as you might think. We are much more likely to be judging our own practice than that of others. That too, however, must be released. Each day your practice will be different. The poses will feel slightly different, you will be in a different mental and emotional place, and your body will respond to the practice differently as time goes on. Instead of placing judgment on your practice, simply notice what is happening in the moment as well as over time, and leave it at that.

Yoga will always be Practice

This is one of the most comforting, yet often overlooked aspects of yoga. You may find that your competitive nature comes out during yoga practice, but please remember that there is no final competition, no presentation, no “perfect” pose. You are practicing, and will always be practicing, yoga. Let that notion help take the pressure off that you should be practicing in any particular way. Listen to the cues of your body, and just keep practicing.

We can’t wait to meet you on the mat…

To find steadiness and ease in your yoga practice, the best place to begin is with your breath. The breath acts like a gauge of your practice. When the breath is labored —quick and shallow— this is a sign that you are pushing too hard, or not letting go enough, in your postures. When the breath flows long and steady, without interruption, your practice is where it should be. Let your breath guide you in this way.

By bringing your attention to the breath you are able to connect to the true essence of your practice. In fact, yoga practice begins with the breath. Let your breath be the first place you go in any asana. When you begin with the breath, and build from there, your practice will take on a new quality — an all-encompassing completeness that fills your entire practice, just as a full breath fills your entire lungs.

Think about it. Do you ever find yourself holding your breath during a challenging yoga posture? What might happen if instead you breathed through it? By checking in with the breath again and again, you will begin to notice how you use the breath, and you’ll learn how to cultivate the quality of ease as you breathe. In this way, your yoga practice itself will take on a quality of ease, and from there will you build the foundation of steadiness.

In today’s world, we are very much outward-focused. Paying attention to our breath is an afterthought, if it’s even a thought at all. Yet taking a moment to check back in with the present by checking the breath-gauge will not only take your yoga practice to the next level, it can bring a sense of ease in your life off of the mat.

Whether in yoga class or during a busy day off your mat, let your breath be the gauge that helps bring you more ease and steadiness. In your yoga practice, try to begin each posture by checking your breath. Off the mat, write the word “breathe” somewhere noticeable, and each time you look at it stop and take a moment to notice your breath. Then see where this practice takes you.

We once had a guest here at The Yoga Sanctuary named Tea Roman. Tea is a musician and yoga teacher who leads participants through an amazing sound journey that also includes a bit of yoga asana (posture). Just as he was beginning to guide us into some simple posture work, he proclaimed that we were about to learn the hardest pose of them all, one that takes most people nine months or so to learn. We got to our feet and stood tall and erect in the Mountain Pose. This was the pose he was referring to. And he was right! From the day we are born until the day we stand on our own two feet, it takes us roughly nine months to learn…

Let us dive into this “hardest pose of all” poses by starting at the beginning and looking at the name, tadasana…

Rich in symbolism, tadasana comes from the Sanskrit words tada (mountain) and asana (posture, or seat). Mountain Pose is the essence of stability and foundation, and as such, contains the building blocks for every other posture in yoga.

The posture itself “promotes the stillness, strength, relaxed power, and stability we associate with mountains,” says Alanna Kaivalya, author of Myths of the Asanas. She explains the inseparable relationship between mountains and rivers, both represented by the Indian god Himavat, who represents the Himalayas and is also considered the father of Ganga Devi, the goddess of the Ganges, India’s most sacred river.

“When we stand in tadasana, the head, being nearest to heaven, is where we receive the blessings that flow through the rest of our body like a river,” she says. The even stance of Mountain Pose—the lengthened spine and steady base—sets the tone for practice.

In India, there is a mountain called Mount Kailas with two lakes—one shaped like the sun and the other like a crescent moon, which represents hatha (ha = sun, tha = moon) yoga. Mount Kailas is considered the seventh chakra—sahasrara. The two lakes have been likened to the two streams of energy (ida and pingala nadis) that rise up one central channel (sushumna nadi) moving toward the highest level of consciousness. Mount Kailas is considered a sacred mountain.

When we stand in tadasana, we are equally grounded and arising. Our base is firm, yet we reach upward toward the heavens. Our spine is situated as it would be during meditation, ideal for the free flow of prana (life force) throughout the body. Take the time to connect to this energy in tadasana. Doing so can help you to maintain it throughout your practice.

Tips:

Do you feel a little off balance or unstable?

• Widen your stance!

Do you feel like you are holding tension in your shoulders, neck, hands, or jaw?

• Notice how hard you’re trying to work your legs. Sometimes this effort shifts into other parts of the body. Notice… then see if you can relax unnecessary effort. Breath easy and soften.

Is there discomfort in one of your hips, knees, or ankles?

• Try adjusting the alignment of your feet. Sometimes the structure of our bones means that having our feet parallel can affect things all the way up to your hips! Explore your foot placement and see if that changes anything for you.

Some things to work on:

To really create the strength and stability that tadasana teaches us to bring into other postures, you might try using props! Try holding a block between your thighs to engage the power of your legs. Or combine the use a block and a strap by wrapping the strap around your legs while holding the block. We’ll explore both techniques plus some others in our tadasana videos, so keep your eyes open for updates below!

And don’t forget:

Sometimes you’ll hear teachers say to bring your feet together so that they touch or to make your feet parallel. While that might work for some bodies, it doesn’t work for all bodies. So let yourself explore and maybe try different foot placements. But in the end, take the pose in a way that feels best for you and your body.

Videos:

Check back as we add practice videos exploring:

1. How to take tadasana with props
2. A simple practice to develop tadasana
3. Ways to move when in tadasana

Stay in the know with The Yoga Sanctuary by following us on Facebook!

You can connect with Jennifer directly through her Instagram page!

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, compiled by the sage Patanjali at least 1,700 years ago, is considered one of the main authoritative texts on the practice and philosophy of yoga. The Yoga Sutras outline the eight limbs of yoga, which teach us the ways in which one can live a yogic life. It also describes the results of a regular, dedicated practice. Yet before any of this, The Yoga Sutras begins by defining the goal of yoga and later goes about describing how one can achieve that goal.

Sutra means “thread,” which describes the relationship of the sutras—they are interrelated, or tied together as if by a thread. Within the Yoga Sutras are 196 aphorisms, short passages that guide the reader through four chapters, or books (padas): Samadhi Pada, which describes the results of yoga practice; Sadhana Pada, which describes the discipline itself; Vibhuti Pada, which describes some of the super-normal effects the practice can have; and Kaivalya Pada, which describes the process of liberation of the ego.

There are countless commentaries available of the Yoga Sutras, many of which are available in English. These range from the dense and philosophical to light and practical—and everything in between.

The first yoga sutra, 1.1, is a simple invocation to begin—and to begin now. Atha yoga anushasanam: Now the instruction of yoga is being made. It is a invitation to begin the study of yoga as you are, in this moment, the only moment that ever really exists. It is one of the most uncomplicated of the yoga sutras, and yet it is so appealing because humans love to begin anew.

On that note, we have complied a series dedicated to the Yoga Sutras that highlights some of our favorite sutras, what they mean, and how they can be applied to modern life. Adding the study of yoga philosophy to a physical practice is a great way to take your yoga off the mat and out into your life. We hope that you enjoy this deeper look at the practice that we have all come to love.

Links to sutras:

Sutra 1.2: Yoga is stilling the fluctuations of the mind. 

Sutra 1.3: Then the seer abides in itself, resting in its true nature. 

Sutra 1.4: Otherwise we identify with the fluctuations.

Sutra 1.14: Practice that is done for a long time, without break and with sincere devotion becomes a firmly rooted, stable, and solid foundation. 

Sutra 1.33: By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard toward the wicked, the mind-stuff retains its undisturbed calmness.

Sutra 2.46: The yoga posture is a balance between effort and ease–steady, stable, and comfortable. 

Sutra 3.4: The three [dharana, dhyana, and samadhi] as one is called samyama.

Sutra 3.7: These three [dharana, dhyana, and samadhi] are more internal than the preceding limbs

By Jennifer French

Virasana, or the Hero’s Pose, is a commonly used sitting or meditation posture. Those that have difficulty taking a cross-legged position often find the pose to be more accessible and comfortable. Vira, the root word for virasana, translates to hero. You may wonder how a simple and humble kneeling position came to be known as such. It all stems from the story of the humble Hanuman.

In Myths of the Asanas, Alanna Kaivalya and Arjuna van der Kooji explore the stories behind many of our modern yoga posture names. They tell the story of how the half mortal, half divine child, Anjaneya, came to take the form of a monkey and the name Hanuman, who then grew into a strong warrior and great friend of King Ram.

Sent on a dangerous mission to rescue Ram’s captured wife, Sita, Hanuman dropped down to his knees in prayer creating a version of the shape we know today as the Hero’s Pose. Hanuman “knelt down to pray for the grace to do the impossible,” forgetting that “he was already capable of achieving his goal.” The story goes on… and Hanuman does, indeed, save the day along with Sita.

It is this humble and divine hero who forgets his divinity and moves forward with simple faith that we hope to embody when taking the virasana…

Try this:

1. Kneel on the floor with your knees close together and your heels slightly wider than your hips. Reach behind your knees and draw the calf muscles down and away from the back of your knees. See video below for more about this!
2. Lower your seat down between your feet. Let your sit bones meet the floor. See that your toes point directly behind you and your heels point straight up to the ceiling. Let your heels be flush to your hips.
3. Rest your hands on top of your thighs. Inhale and lengthen your spine up. Maintain the length in your spine and as you exhale feel your sit bones ground down into the earth.
4. Keep the natural curves of your spine and relax your shoulders. Stay for as many breaths as you feel comfortable.

Tips:

Is your seat nowhere near touching the ground?

• Many people, if not most, find that bringing their seat to the ground causes discomfort in the knees and/or thighs. If your feel any discomfort at all, raise your sit bones by bringing a block underneath you. Continue to add height until you find comfort in both the knees and thighs.

Do your knees just not bend that much?

• Place support (a blanket or bolster) behind your knees, between the thighs and the calves.

Feeling a lot of pressure on your shins or the tops of your feet?

• Place a blanket beneath your knees, shins, and feet to provide cushion for your lower legs.

Some things to work on:

If you find that virasana is a real challenge but would like to explore the possibility of it becoming a bit easier, consider adding some other postures into your practice such a Warrior 1 & 2 or Malasana. By slowly working on increasing the range of movement and stabilizing the knees and ankles, you may find that taking virasana begins to change for you. Be sure to keep an eye open as we add a few videos to support you in this exploration!

And don’t forget:

While you might hear some yoga teachers say that virasana is a great pose for your knees and ankles, lots and lots of times, it just isn’t! So be sure to listen to your body and if the posture doesn’t work for you, let it go and sit in a way that feels right for YOUR body. Recognizing what works for you is what makes a strong yoga practice, not the postures that your body can or cannot take.

Videos:

1. How to take virasana with props
2. A simple practice to develop virasana
3. Ways to move when in virsana and variations of reclined (supta) virasana
4. A simple review of how to take virasana: an oldie but goodie with Bonnie!

Stay in the know with The Yoga Sanctuary by following us on Facebook!

You can connect with Jennifer directly through her Instagram page!