A Guide

One of the required readings for the Kripalu Yoga 200-hour teacher training is Kripalu Yoga – A Guide to Practice On and Off the Mat. I am finding this a friendly, informative guide to a way of doing yoga that I have practiced since my first class almost six years ago. The book is supplementing my understanding of yoga while telling the story of the Kripalu approach. Along the way, I’ve been finding familiar voices in the words of the authors, surely because two of my yoga teachers were trained at Kripalu. 

For this past Tuesday’s session with my students, I introduced a new flow, some of it taken from the Kripalu Yoga book, in particular the Moon Salute, a sequence with which I was not previously familiar.

Here it is, for posterity and for the curious 🙂

 

seated warm ups and stretches

table – cat & dog tilts

walk the dog in down dog

forward standing bend

mountain – hands above to steeple

half-moon to the right, then the left

goddess

five pointed star

triangle – right arm up/left arm down, switch arms

five pointed star

left hand to right foot, right arm up

five pointed star

right hand to left foot, left arm up

five pointed star

goddess

mountain – steeple

half moon to the right, then the left

mountain

shake out and reground in mountain

askward chair

moutain

warrior I to the right, then to the left

tree on the right, then on the left

lying down stretches and twists

shavasana

Writing Yoga

I bet the Language Arts teachers would be tickled to know that two students have written visualizations during yoga and shared them with the class at the end of the respective sessions. Sure, it is a way for the kids to not physically participate (because they are able to write while the rest of us practice yoga), but I think they are participating by visualizing what they are imagining, writing it on paper, and then sharing it with the class while everyone is still lying down in Shavasana. A third student has asked if he may try crafting a visualization, so he is on for our next class, which would have been today but we were all home enjoying our fourth snow day of January!

Here is Harry’s visualization from this past Tuesday.

Visualization by Harry

Close your eyes.

Picture yourself…you’re walking in a snow covered valley…surrounded by tall mountain peaks. One tree stands tall in the center, covered in snow. You walk to the edge of the valley. You look up and see a seemingly endlessly tall mountain; a small narrow passage between the two mountains is visible. You start to walk through it; it gets smaller and smaller, tighter and tighter until your shoulders are touching the wall.

Suddenly, you start to shrink. You get smaller and smaller until you are the size of a tack. You start to slow your pace and you come across a crack. You look down and let yourself fall in. Down, down until you splash into warm relaxing water, you let the drift take you and suddenly you hit ice, but it is not cold, it is warm, almost hot. 

You step onto it and see an endless ocean of ice. The warm to the touch ice seems blank and empty, but then you see in the distance a small gingerbread cookie house. You walk inside it. It is fully furnished with a roaring fire place on the wall. You exit the door and find yourself in a meadow. It is warm and sunny. Mice scurry through past you. The meadow turns to sand and the ocean slides through your toes. It is warm and you start to get sleepy.There is a bed you see. You go to it, lie down and fall asleep. Dreams…