Background for Pose Names

Setting the theme/tone: Knowing the symbolism behind our yoga poses and the stories behind them can enhance your yoga practice.  You can put your body into a particular shape and what?  Thats it?  Many yoga poses have a story behind them, like Matsyasana or Hanumanasana, or they resemble our surroundings in order to help us relate to the essential nature of the world around us, such as Tree pose or tortoise.  And thats is really what yoga is all about is feeling joy & as we connect to the world around us.  Tonights theme is really all about the poses, their meanings and why we care about the meaning.

Asana:

Balasana (Childs Pose):

Balasana is about the childhood play of Krishna.  Once he and his brother, Balarama, were playing & Krishna ate some dirt and his brother tried to tell on him to their mother. Krishna denied it, even though he had mud all over his face, and his mother didn’t believe him so he asked him if she could look inside his mouth.  When she did, she saw the whole universe.  The lesson here is that everything is in God & God is in everything.  There is no duality here, just play for the sake of play.   

Sun Salutations:

Sun A x 3 to Parvritta Arda Chandrasana to WII to Star to Horse to WII facing the back of the room to Revolved Warrior to vinyasa, do right leg again to get back around to the front.  Left side.

Core

Sun B x 3

1. & 2) Crescent to WII to Standing split to Arda Chandrasana (Half Moon Pose)....tell the story of Arda Chandrasana....to Parvritta Arda Chandrasana to WII to Star to Horse to WII facing the back of the room to Revolved Warrior to vinyasa, do right leg again to get back around to the front.  Left side.

Arda Chandrasana is about Ganesha and the moon.  Ganesh is the elephant head God who is known for being the remover of obstacles, his generosity & also for his love of eating, especially sweets.  So one day he was out & ate so many sweet cakes that he decided he needed to head home to do some light stretching.  So he hopped on his trusty steed, a mouse, and was ever so graciously balancing on the tiny mouse when a cobra scared the mouse and he fell off.  Unfortunately his belly was so full that it popped open & sweet cakes rained everywhere.  He got mad and began picking up all the sweet cakes and putting them back in his stomach and then grabbed the cobra and tied it around his waist to keep it all in.  To Ganesh’s dismay, the moon, Chandra, began laughing at him.  He broke off one of his tusks and speared the moon and her light went out.  After awhile, love was lost in the world because the moon could not shine at night.  All the gods came to Ganesh to compromise with him over the situation & Ganesh agreed that the moon would have to wax and wane & could only show her magnificence fully once every four weeks....

3) Flip your dog to knee to forehead, left & right elbows to Half Pigeon to Chatraunga with a  side car to Runner’s Lunge to IT band stretch.

Core

Hip Openers:  Malasana to Prone Frog Wide leg Splits to full tortoise

Backbends: against the wall (Beginner: Camel.  Intermediate: Wheel.  Advanced: Full Camel/Scorpion

Child’s Pose!!!  

Warm-down:

Halasana (Plow Pose):

Haladhara (Hala meaning plow and dhara meaning carrier) was Krishna’s older brother and was drunk off honey one day and wanted to bathe in the Yamuna river.  He was too lazy to walk over to it so he took his plow and carved a route in the earth for the river to come to him.  In yoga philosophy, there is a sutra that says just as a farmer plows his field for irrigation, so do we remove obstacles in our path toward yoga.  Plow pose leads us to liberation of the mind to reveal positive thinking.   

Matsyasana (Fish Pose):

After 10,000 years of intense meditation, Lord Shiva was telling his wife Parvati were sitting by a river & he was telling her about how he had discovered the nature of life, the secret to salvation, the path to ultimate union between the individual self and the Divine source.  Meanwhile Matsya (fish) was swimming by and thought to himself “I better listen!” and he did & became enlightened.  Shiva became the first teacher (guru) and Matsya the first student (chela).  So fish pose or Matsyasana is dedicated to this story & reminds us that nothing is more important than the relationship between teacher & student and that anyone who listens really well can follow the same path of Matsya.

Chant:

Yoga Teacher Student Prayer:

OM saha navavatu
saha nau bhunaktu
saha viryam karavavahai
tejasvi navadhitam astu
ma vidvishavahai
OM shanti, shanti, shanti

May we be protected together.
May we be nourished together.
May we create strength among one another.
May our study be filled with brilliance and light.
May there be no hostility between us.
Om peace, peace, peace.

Meditation:

According to the Bhagavad Gita & the Yoga Sutras, yoga’s purpose is to help us surrender to a higher power & bind to the divine through love.  But, in order to do that we need to let go of the ego, which is the simplest yet hardest thing for us to do.  

Poems to read during Savasana:

“Gentle me, Holy One, into an unclenched moment, a deep breath, a letting go of heavy experiences, of shriveling anxieties,

of dead uncertainties. That softened by the silence, surrounded by the light, and open to the mystery, I may be found by

wholeness, upheld by the unfathomable, entranced by the simple, and filled with the joy that is You.” ~ Ted Lode

“Just give me this: A rinsing out, a cleansing free of all my smaller strivings so I can be the class act God intended. True to my

purpose, all my energy aligned behind my deepest intention. And just this: A quieting down, a clearing away of internal ruckus, so I

can hear the huge stillness in my heart and feel how I pulse with all creation, part and parcel of Your great singing ocean. And this

too: A willingness to notice and forgive the myriad times I fall short, forgetting who I really am, what I really belong to. So I can start

over, fresh and clean like sweet sheets billowing in the summer sun, my heart pierced with gratitude.” ~ Belleruth Naparstek